Mimicking the Highrock Quincy planting pastors: these photographs are from the FIFTH ANNUAL HIGHROCK CHRISTMAS BENEFIT CONCERT! (click through to see video) Videos on Youtube here and here.
I was in the choir last year, but somehow, I wasn’t prepared for how powerful the concert would be this year. Singing (some would say shouting) the story of Jesus 13 x 6 shows (calculated by our beloved conductor, software engineer Brian Ni) does a work in your heart, in your spirit, as you sing it. When you’re giving everything your lungs’ve got to lines like “This is our God!/Loving and reaching/Scandalous mercy and mighty to save!” and “Glory, glory, we have our Savior!,” how can it not? When you’re singing words like “despite your fears and failures/He loves you as you are…with this message from above/Child, you are loved,” how can you be unmoved?
This year, I’m celebrating Christmas knowing that God came to earth as a little baby, born to an impoverished couple in a tiny town. Not as an heir to a fortune in an important city, but in a random stable, and slept in a food trough for animals. That Jesus started life with the unseen of society, in insignificant circumstances, and went on to spend most of His ministry serving them. The Messenger sent into the darkness of this world to bring light—evidence that God loves this world, in all its ugliness and imperfection and suffering. God came here, and chose those people, and those circumstances? Of course He can meet me, and you. And of course He wants me to go and love others, whoever they are, wherever they might be.
