 Take a moment to stop doing all that you think must be done to have a merry Christmas. The greatest gift we can all receive has already been given at the birth of a babe in Bethlehem. Take a minute to turn down the jingle bells and the holly, jolly, songs to soak in the silent night, the holy night. Look past the glare and sparkle of the blinking lights to see love’s pure light beaming from the holy face of grace.
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 I know a pastor (and there are more than one) who struggles to get any kind of holiday groove on each year. At times seeming more grinch-like than elfin, the trappings of the run up to Christmas just make this pastor a little cranky. I don’t want to name him, but maybe we can call him Pastor Ebenezer. He’s been known to hide the baby Jesus in manger scenes until Christmas actually occurs. His response to trimming the tree is as likely “bah-humbug” than delight.
 We live in a world that has forgotten how to wait.
Everything is instant now. Same-day delivery. Algorithms that predict what we want before we know we want it. Waiting feels like a glitch in the system, an inefficiency to be solved. But the Church still knows how to wait. Not the passive, resigned waiting of people who've given up, but the active, expectant waiting of Advent. The kind of waiting that believes something is coming.  Holy Trinity Lutheran Church was founded in 1950. Ankeny’s population had grown to a little over 1,200 people and prospects for continued growth were buoyed by the new John Deere sprayer production facility that had moved into the old munitions plant in 1947. The American Lutheran Church started a mission that met in the American Legion Hall in uptown and became Holy Trinity.
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