Most Minnesotans and other Midwesterners have been spending the last day watching for updates to an anticipated Christmas Eve snowstorm. We have listened as the meteorologists have reported the snow arriving in a few hours from 'watch' to 'warning'. That always sounds so ominous to me…..WARNING! Snow coming! We are, of course, watching with more intensity because we observed the East Coast get hit just a few days ago with a storm that crippled travelers and left many stranded. And so, on these most busy and traveled days, we are rearranging plans, thinking of a 'plan B', and generally watching the skies turn grayer and grayer as the threat seems to grow all around us.

For those of us who work in the church, we are paying particularly close attention. Since Christmas Eve services have been planned and music rehearsed for weeks, even months, the question as to whether or not we will be 'snowed out' or not is floating all around us. We spent considerable time yesterday going over all the possible scenarios that might occur: People will come to only the earlier services  trying to miss the impending blizzard. Others will stay home and skip church all together. And then there will still be others who will see this as a challenge to be met….to Christmas Eve services or bust! In the end our message to one another was 'be safe' as we silently hoped that message would span out into the community. 

I have to admit I find it interesting that in the Advent when our community chose as its theme "Welcoming the Wild One" we find ourselves waiting for a storm this Christmas. Instead of the soft falling Hollywood  flakes that become visible in the movie White Christmas, we are battening down the hatches for a full out blizzard. It seems to me quite appropriate that this Christmas in particular finds us held in the balance of what happens when wildness comes to call. Here we are waiting to welcome a tiny child who would turn his world upside down, who would challenge the powers of injustice in his time and invite all manner of people to his table. By choosing to follow his example, we are urged to do the same in our time…..welcome the outsider, lobby the rich and powerful, rebel against systems that continue to oppress. 

It somehow only seems appropriate that when we chose to welcome the Wild One we would find ourselves waiting for a storm.