Christmas Sanctuary

Last year, just a cou­ple of days be­fore Christ­mas, The Rev. Twila Smith was con­tact­ed by a per­son who was home­less and stay­ing at the shel­ter spon­sored by the Lehigh Con­fer­ence of Church­es. He was in search of a place for he and his shel­ter com­pan­ions to stay on Christ­mas Day. While the shel­ter keeps them out of the cold at night, all of their usu­al places to be dur­ing the day – lo­cal agen­cies, the pub­lic li­brary, shop­ping malls, and pub­lic tran­sit – are closed on Christ­mas. On short no­tice, Church of the Me­di­a­tor of­fered a safe haven for about two dozen vis­i­tors last year.

This year, the Con­fer­ence of Church­es asked for help on be­half of peo­ple in our com­mu­ni­ty, who they were an­tic­i­pat­ing at the “warm­ing sta­tion” at Foun­tain Park (on MLK Blvd.). They asked if it was pos­si­ble to work with a down­town church, to find a lo­ca­tion that might be eas­i­er to nav­i­gate if there is ice or snow. Of course! And our part­ners at Me­di­a­tor were de­light­ed to col­lab­o­rate with us on this mission.

Thank you to all who con­tributed to our of­fer­ing of a Christ­mas Day Sanc­tu­ary at Grace. By our count, we host­ed 43 holy trav­el­ers – most­ly per­sons with­out homes. Some came for just a bit of respite, oth­ers shared the whole day with us. We feast­ed in the sa­cred space of the church, and there was am­ple room for both live­ly games and qui­et naps af­ter din­ner. Vol­un­teers came from the neigh­bor­hood and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty, and pre­pared food along­side our guests. It was a beau­ti­ful im­age of the Body of Christ, and a tes­ta­ment to what we can do together.