Afterglow
I have said to several people that if you told me Sunday's Cantata was the end of my Christmas season, I would have been completely satisfied. It was just such an exhilarating and much needed experience of joy and peace.
Member John Shell said it was by far the best he had experienced in his 47 years here. Now mind you, our choirs performed this piece five years ago. However, there was never a time in those 47 years that we more needed to hear this celebration of the Agnus Dei - the Lamb of God, more than now. It has been too long and hence, people could not stop smiling and talking about it well into Monday. Our in-house attendance, which has been creeping past 300 since Freeborn Garrettson rode into the Sanctuary in October, shot past 500 this last Sunday–a number we have not seen since March, 2020. It was all simply glorious … and Christmas Pops and Christmas Eve are still coming!
Afterthoughts
My first thought which I shared with Staff was that we need to have a Cantata EVERY Sunday.
My second thought was that it is hard to know what you are missing sometimes until you experience it all over again after a long while. Such has been the case for members coming back for the first time again, sometimes after 19-20 months. Smiles, laughter and sometimes tears have been the unexpected response.
My last thought is the hope that this rising realization on the part of our church family only grows outward - that we "go tell it on the mountain," not only that Jesus Christ is born but that he being born again in our church and is something to come and see and experience and support for it is good news indeed.
