The West Tokyo Union Church community online worship service welcomes you to worship with us as Malcolm Foster brings us the message for this Second Sunday of Advent! Join us via Zoom through our usual link. Welcome to friends and members who hail from far and wide who join us as we continue to worship remotely. You may be distant geographically, but you are as close as our hearts and prayers. We will keep you informed via email and updated website posts concerning which future services can be held in person.

The message for this second Sunday of Advent will be “Putting Herod Back into Christmas.” That may sound a bit shocking to you as we don’t like to talk about murderous tyrants during this time of year. But actually, I think we are all a bit guilty of romanticizing Christmas, including the original stories in the New Testament. But if we take a closer look, we will see that even in Jesus’ birth, God shows that he enters our broken, violent and oppressive world — as a vulnerable baby! — including being hounded by tyrants like King Herod, who tried to kill Jesus — who had to flee his home and become a refugee. The real Christmas story is so much more inspiring and powerful than the cozy, comfortable one we tend to see in cards and even some carols we sing. Come find out more as Malcolm preaches, Yasu leads us as liturgist, Carol lights the advent candles and Kazuko leads us in singing together. 

Bible passages are Matt. 2: 1-18 and Isaiah 61: 1-3

Thank you to everyone who helps to make our worship services come together each week.

We are very thankful that our little community church can keep on going even in the midst of difficulties. Many friends keep contributing to our worship services and to our parishioner connections. We appreciate everyone’s prayers, financial support and weekly acts of service as we help each other in doing the work of the Kingdom.

Gather your family and some friends together to join us in our Zoom worship service. We hope to see many of you on Sunday! You are welcome to stay on after the service to chat for awhile and to catch up with old friends and new news.