​Caroling Joy

This week our Potluck Church worship gathering will be mobile. We’ll gather to light our Advent candle of joy, and then we’ll head out into the community to go caroling.
 
It’s a fun thing to do, caroling—silly, even. But it is a great way to spread the joy of Christmas. We are all invited to bring names of those we’d like to visit. Sometimes the name is of someone who is sick, or lonely, or just in need of some cheer. Other times it’s someone that we are missing in our lives, and we just want to reconnect. Once we encountered a farmer looking for his lost bull! On another occasion we caroled to a friend in his bathrobe. These are some of our fun caroling memories that make us laugh and, over the years, are becoming the stuff of legends.
 
There are other special memories, too—times when we got to see God at work right before our eyes. Like when a son asked if we might carol to his father, because they had not spoken in over a year. There were tears all around. And in the midst of that reunion, it made us wonder if we had just experienced the sort of joy that Jesus was talking about in his parable told in Luke 15 when the prodigal father and the prodigal younger son meet. It was a great, great joy!
 
Maybe tomorrow night we’ll get the honor once again to bring good news of a great joy that is for all of the people (Luke 2:10).