This song by Christy Nockels echoes phrases from “O Holy Night” and “Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

Advent Hymn
Christ whose glory fills the skies
Christ the everlasting light
Their song of righteousness arise
And triumph o’er these shades of night
And come thou long awaited one
In the fullness of your love
And lose this heat bound up by shame
And I will never be the same
So here I wait in hope of you
All my soul’s longing through and through
And dayspring from on high be near
And daystar in my heart appear
Dark and cheerless is the morn
And ’til your love in me is born
And joyless is the evening sun
And ’til emmanuel has come
So here I wait in hope of you
All my soul’s longing through and through
And dayspring from on high be near
And daystar in my heart appear
So here I wait in hope of you
All my soul’s longing through and through
And dayspring from on high be near
And daystar in my heart appear

Last night in the Session meeting someone moved that masks not be required at the Christmas Eve service. In our state, we’ve had 530,000 total cases and 8,687 deaths from coronavirus so far. In our county, 45,812 cases and 496 deaths. Christmas Eve is the time when we are most likely to have a large crowd of people in our church, and some will be unvaccinated.

One elder said that the little children at the church school wear their masks without throwing fits and adults should surely be able to wear masks for an hour in order to protect one another.

“By God,” said the anti-mask activist…I didn’t hear what he said next, because people were speaking over one another and I was attending via Zoom.

We haven’t ever done this for the flu, an anti-mask speaker said.Someone else saiid it was time to move on.

To move on? We may be done with the virus, but it’s not done with us.