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Advent 2025 December 16: Such a Strange Way to Save the World

… I'm sure he must have been surprised At where this road had taken him Cause never in a million lives Would he have dreamed of Bethlehem … And standing at the manger He saw with his own eyes The message from the angel come to life And Joseph said … Why me, I'm just a simple man of trade Why Him with all the rulers in the world Why here inside this stable filled with hay Why her, she's just an ordinary girl Now I'm not one to second guess What angels have to say But this is such a strange way to save the world … To think of how it could have been If Jesus had come as He deserved There would have been no Bethlehem No lowly shepherds at His birth … But Joseph knew the reason Love had to reach so far And as he held the Savior in his arms He must have thought … Why me, I'm just a simple man of trade Why Him with all the rulers in the world Why here inside this stable filled with hay Why her, she's just an ordinary girl Now I'm not one to second gu...

Advent 2025 December 15: Waiting

From the Anteroom of Christmas, by Lanier Ivester. I am learning, to embrace the stark solemnity of the great universal waiting for the Messiah and to find a parable of it in my own desires. Advent is the place for you. Advent is where the “now” of God’s active and present love for us meets the “not yet” of our unfulfilled longings, and it is specifically set apart for the wounded and the waiting, the weary and the jaded. https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/11/the-anteroom-of-christmas-advent-reflection/ Several years ago, I found myself hating December. The darkness, the disruption, the expenses. I have bad memories of Christmas as a child, ones I don't need to go into here and have never really talked about. But now, ending my seventh decade, I see that December should be overshadowed and conquered by Advent, with its promise, its journey, its outcome, and yes, its longing. Plus, after Christmas the days start getting longer again--something my Scandi...

Advent 2025, December 14. Immanuel

I recently was sent to these words from the daughter of John Wesley, about his death. “…some of those who were most used to hear our dear Father’s dying voice would be able to interpret his meaning; but though he strove to speak we were still unsuccessful: finding we could not understand what he said, he paused a little, and then with all the remaining strength he had, cried out, ‘ The best of all is, God is with us” ; and then, as if to assert the faithfulness of our promise-keeping Jehovah and comfort the hearts of his weeping friends, lifting up his dying arm in token of victory and raising his feeble voice with a holy triumph not to be xpressed, again repeated the heart-reviving words, “The best of all is, God is with us!” The Journal of John Wesley , ed., Percy Livingstone Parker, (Chicago, IL: Moody Press), 419. Yes, the best of all is Immanuel, God with us. That is the message of Christmas. From Matthew 1 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ ...

Advent 2025 December 13 - My personal miracles

In these daily posts, I (somewhat) respond to readings, songs, or experiences that are happening as we journey toward Christmas the way Mary and Joseph journeyed toward Bethlehem. The William Butler Yeats poem gets quoted a lot nowadays, which gives punditry an apocalyptic feel: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A...

Advent 2025 December 12 Miracles

I used to watch Hallmark Christmas movies, but it has been a long time. Now it's not even clever to parody them. They used to have some virtue; now they are the same plot with different clothes and actors. Long before I stopped watching them, however, I had become sick to death of the phrase "the miracle of Christmas." It had no spiritual or theological meaning and usually referred to some magical and illogical answer to the protagonist's problem, a deus ex machina we could see coming in the first five minutes. There is a miracle of Christmas; there are actually many of them. In fact, one can't celebrate Christmas if they are allergic to miracles, real ones. Actual miracles are God reshaping the natural order of creation temporarily to His purpose. One young girl became pregnant without sex; no one else has. It happened one time. Yes, it is hard to believe. But it is central to the Nativity, and Matthew and Luke do not act like it's anything but a hard-t...

Advent 2025 December 11 - Sin and Christmas

Yesterday I reflected that the whole reason for the nativity is that we are sinners. We do not just have a "sin problem." It goes deeper than that. Yet even the Christmas story is beset with sin, not just a result of our sin. 1. A Roman emperor wants nothing more than to control people, so he sends them on treks across the empire to be counted and taxed. 2. The "fake" king decides to kill babies born around a certain time to protect his own rule. 3. The world around the homeless young couple was pretty much indifferent to their plight (although I am pretty sure Mary had a midwife). 4. Even the Wise Men/Kings are a shade duplicitous with Herod, although we can't really blame them. Russell Moore writes more on this subject here: "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Joseph was told in his dream. That is almost a throw-away line to us nowadays. To be saved from our s...