While This House Lies In Ruins
Advent/Christmas Sermons From The Book Of Haggai
Hymnologists say the first hymn in a hymnal tells a lot about the rest of the book. Our last hymnal began with "Holy, Holy, Holy," a marvelous hymn we have retained, but it is a relic of the time when we thought we were going to be a high church.
We are not. We're just not comfortable with big city church ways. The hymnal that rests in the pews of our small country church has this for an opener:
What is this place where we are meeting?
Only a house, the earth its floor,
walls and a roof sheltering people,
windows for light, an open door.