A second Christmas under the scope of COVID-19 was an unavoidable topic in messages delivered by East Cobb ministers to their congregations on Christmas Eve.
But those sermons also expanded the context for familiar themes of inspiration that Christians seek as they celebrate the birth of Jesus, the formative event of the their faith.
“Do you feel like darkness is winning the day?” Mt. Bethel Church senior pastor Jody Ray said, repeating words from the Book of Isaiah about how “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light.”
“Jesus is the answer,” Ray said. “He is the light and he is the hope for the future.”
After recounting the story of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”—written after a long period of religious retreat in England—Ray admitted that “this past year has been rough,” especially with a continuing pandemic that is surging again with the Omicron variant.
Economic pain, the loss of loved ones, depression and addiction have been magnified as a result, he said.
“We know what darkness feels like, what it looks like,” he said. “We’ve been there.”
Ray called for a revival of the true spirit of the season, setting aside “secular mumbo-jumbo” to “bring back what Christmas is all about.”
At Piedmont Church, Rev. Ike Reighard delivered a similar message, noting how the task of discovering Christ gets lost amid the holiday rush of gift-giving.
“You really find the presence of God in the extraordinary things of the story,” Reighard said.
“We search for Christmas in what we want, but we really find it in what we need.”
He also urged his congregation to follow the admonitions of the angels to the shepherds seeking the Christ child: “Do not be afraid.”
“There’s not been such an upheaval” in American society since World War II, Reighard said in reference to current times, recounting economic and health concerns, as well as those of children whose young lives and educations also have been especially disrupted.
“God’s got you covered,” Reighard said, noting that there are 365 references in the Bible urging people to be unafraid—one for every day of the year.
At Hope Presbyterian Church, Rev. Martin Hawley also drew upon the Book of Isaiah to issue a message of hope and light.
The “King Jesus,” he said, came to earth to take “sin-drenched people like you and me and to fill our hearts with light.”
At the Lutheran Church of the Incarnation, Pastor Uijin Hwang drew upon Christ’s birth from the Book of Luke to proclaim that “Jesus Christ broke down the barriers between God and us. He made peace between God and us.
“His death on the cross opened the way for humankind to receive forgiveness and true life without ever being put to death,” he said. “If this is not true peace, what is it?”
The past year also has been a challenging one inside one of East Cobb’s biggest churches.
Ray didn’t reference Mt. Bethel’s months-long dispute with the United Methodist Church that included him turning in his UMC ministerial credentials.
He’s been retained by Mt. Bethel as it seeks to leave the UMC, but the denomination’s North Georgia Conference has filed a lawsuit in Cobb Superior Court.
In his Christmas Eve message to a congregation that claims more than 9,000 members, Ray drove home the promises in Isaiah of the birth of Jesus, exclaiming that “this baby was the message.
“He would come as a light and he would change the world and history. If you will experience that tonight, it will change your life too.”
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- Fox Family Christmas lights display back for 2021
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