A few years ago I led a worship series through Advent that focused on disruption, on allowing our faith to interrupt the slew of stuff competing for our attention. Encouraging the experiences of hope, peace, joy, and love to interrupt. All in preparation for the gift of the newborn king to interrupt anew. Ever since then, disruption has been an underlying theme of Advent for me. Even our title this year – What Shall We Bring? – considers how faith might disrupt lesser motivations like pride or guilt that can be particularly powerful this season. To practice pause, faithfulness… to ask God: what is it you would have us bring to this moment? To our families? Our church and community? To this world? In other words: disruption can be a gift, and it’s an especially fitting one given how disruptive Jesus has always been, no less in his shepherd scaring, angel choir singing, magi summoning, Herod upsetting, world upending birth. “Come and worship Christ the newborn king!” Of course, disruption is not on anyone’s gift list. No one outside of cartoonish villainy is asking for disorder or turmoil, nor do I imagine there are those hoping to be separated from their hopes and dreams. And somehow, this, too, is part of the miraculous gift of Christmas: that disruption is known by God because of incarnation, because of Emmanuel. Here I mean not the clever (if I say so myself) worship theme of disruption, but the disruption of grief that every Christmas threatens to make new. The interruption of a holiday often conscripted by greed. Of a season that makes you skip the song before Andy Williams dares sing, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. This is the disruption many of us feel. You may not, and that’s awesome. Truly. But if you ever do, around Advent or otherwise, there is another song actually worth singing that includes the words, “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows but Jesus.” This is the miracle of Emmanuel, of God with us. That, because God chooses to be with us, because God responded to our need in the flesh, God knows. This is the miracle of Emmanuel, the gift of Christmas. Now if this sounds a bit like a Christmas Eve sermon, you’re not wrong. Yesterday I said “Merry Christmas” to someone because they were about to head north for family through the new year. I suppose it’s the same rationale behind wanting to share some Christmas Eve thoughts here since my own disruption means I won’t otherwise have the chance this year. I learned last week that I have an invasive melanoma and met with an oncologist this week. Given initial tests, the next step is immediate surgery for the removal of the known and the removal of lymph nodes to begin to remedy the unknown. That will take place next week and regrettably means I’m unable to be a part of our worship services on December 22 or 24. I am immensely grateful to the Rev. Dr. Carol Cook Moore who will lead those services, and to other volunteers and staff who have already done so much to accommodate this disruption. Much as I could be accurately described as holding a curmudgeonly displeasure around many of the traditional Christmas practices, there are few things I love more than the communal experiences of Advent and Christmas Eve, so it means a great deal to me to know that you will be in good-if-not-better hands in the days I will lament being separated. And while I refuse to believe the lie that “everything happens for a reason”, as if God somehow desires suffering, I do believe Romans 8 reminds us that God can even work with disruption. And while I refuse the audacity of claiming the words of a spiritual written by enslaved persons as my own, a song crying out from a life disrupted beyond what I could imagine or have ever experienced, I take solace that their faith sings not just that Jesus knows, but “Glory hallelujah!” Grace and Peace and Glory, Ben | 
