Before you get caught up in all the decorating and gift-buying and party-going, remember that Christmas can only be found by the hearts that are silent and still before the manger.

Before we all go crazy like those Whos down in Whoville, we might need a reminder that the first Christmas was simple– just a baby in a manger surrounded by Mary, Joseph, and some adoring shepherds– so maybe ours needs to be the same.

What you and I need this Christmas isn’t anything that can be bought from a store or wrapped in a package with bows. What we need is the child in that manger who grew up to be the Savior of the world, our Prince of Peace.

“Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

No, celebrating Christmas correctly isn’t about how you have your tree just right or you get those gingerbread houses looking perfect.

It’s not even about having all the correct theological Ts crossed and I’s dotted.

It’s about remembering how God became small so that we could live.

It’s about when we couldn’t get to God on our own, God in Jesus came to us in our mess and didn’t merely show us a better way but became our very salvation.

That, Charlie Brown, is what Christmas is all about.

Apparently, these were actual answers given to Bible questions. They were soooo close . . . .

“Strange Answers Given on a Bible Knowledge Test

Noah’s wife was Joan of Ark. 

Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night. 

Moses went to the top of Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. 

The seventh commandment is ‘thou shalt not admit adultery.’

Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol. 

Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption. 

The people who followed Jesus were called Decibels. 

The espistles were the wives of the apostles. 

One of the opossums was St. Matthew. 

Salome danced in seven veils in front of King Herrod. 

Paul preached acrimony, which is another name for marriage. 

David fought the Finkelsteins, which a race of people who lived in Bible times. 

The Jews had trouble throughout their history with unsympathic Genitals.”

If you know where these came from, let me know so that I can give appropriate credit. In the meantime, enjoy.

“So be content with who you are, and don’t put on airs. God’s strong hand is on you; he’ll promote you at the right time. Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you” (1 Peter 5:6-7 MSG)

No matter where you are, God knows. He has not forgotten you.

If you’re in a place that brings out anxiety in you, remember that Jesus is still the Prince of Peace.

Always remember that God’s timing is perfect, but His timing is not yours. His ways are not yours. They may be different but they are always better.

God is more interested in who you are becoming than where you are going. That’s why He will often leave you in a place until you have learned to trust Him more fully and to be content with where He has placed you.

That’s more of me preaching to myself. Hopefully, it will help you as well.

My feelings will lie to me. My gut instinct will sometimes steer me wrong. But God’s promises are always YES and AMEN in Jesus. Always.

Prayer is not the prelude to the work. It is the work. I think Henri Nouwen says it best:

“Prayer requires that we stand in God’s presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing. This is difficult in a climate where the predominant counsel is ‘Do your best and God will do the rest.’ When life is divided into ‘our best’ and ‘God’s rest,’ we have turned prayer into a last resort to be used only when all our resources are depleted. Then even the Lord has become the victim of our impatience. Discipleship does not mean to use God when we can no longer function ourselves. On the contrary, it means to recognize that we can do nothing at all, but that God can do everything through us. As disciples, we find not some but all of our strength, hope, courage, and confidence in God. Therefore, prayer must be our first concern.

Allow God to do something through you today.  

It might be an act of charity for someone in need, a visit to someone who is lonely. Or it might be a willingness to forgive an injury or to accept forgiveness. It might even be something God wants you to do for yourself, like accept the rest God is offering to you. 

Whatever God accomplishes through you, give heartfelt thanks” (Henri Nouwen).

“Holy Spirit, Spirit of the Living God,
You breathe in us
on all that is inadequate and fragile,
You make living water spring even
from our hurts themselves.
And through you, the valley of tears
becomes a place of wellsprings.
So, in an inner life with neither beginning nor end,
your continual presence makes new freshness break through. Amen”
(Brother Roger of Taize).

The Psalmist declares that God keeps a record of every tear you shed. He collects those tears in a bottle. God isn’t a stranger to your sorrow or taken aback by your tears.

He above all knows what great sorrow is. God in Jesus was the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief. God knows.

All of us will at one time or another walk through that dreaded Valley of the Shadow of Death, either for ourselves or for a loved one. It will feel like the end of all our hopes and dreams. You will feel like you can never feel happiness or joy or anything else besides sadness.

But God walks with His children even in the deepest darkest valleys. Even there, He is with you. He will be with you from beginning to end and beyond.

Emmanuel means that God is with us. Always.

I’ve fallen in love with a worship song recently. I love that it is taken almost verbatim out of Revelation 5. I also love that it has the call and response very much like a liturgy. I first heard it when I was live-streaming a funeral for two of my friends’ infant son and the words haunted me then as they do now.

The song by Andrew Peterson is full of hope and promise, both of which we all need, and seems fitting in this Advent season of waiting.

“Do you feel the world is broken? (We do)
Do you feel the shadows deepen? (We do)
But do you know that all the dark won’t stop the light from getting through? (We do)
Do you wish that you could see it all made new? (We do)

Is all creation groaning? (It is)
Is a new creation coming? (It is)
Is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst? (It is)
Is it good that we remind ourselves of this? (It is)

Is anyone worthy? Is anyone whole?
Is anyone able to break the seal and open the scroll?
The Lion of Judah who conquered the grave
He is David’s root and the Lamb who died to ransom the slave

Is He worthy? Is He worthy?
Of all blessing and honor and glory
Is He worthy of this?
He is

Does the Father truly love us? (He does)
Does the Spirit move among us? (He does)
And does Jesus, our Messiah hold forever those He loves? (He does)
Does our God intend to dwell again with us? (He does)

Is anyone worthy? Is anyone whole?
Is anyone able to break the seal and open the scroll?
The Lion of Judah who conquered the grave
He is David’s root and the Lamb who died to ransom the slave

From every people and tribe
Every nation and tongue
He has made us a kingdom and priests to God
To reign with the Son

Is He worthy? Is He worthy?
Of all blessing and honor and glory
Is He worthy? Is He worthy?
Is He worthy of this?
He is!
Is He worthy? Is He worthy?
He is!
He is!”

I think for me sometimes I can take in the words to a hymn or chorus or passage of Scripture so often that it becomes rote and loses its meaning for me.

Every now and then, it helps to have a different arrangement or translation to bring out the truth of the text.

In this case, it’s a very familiar passage from John 1 that is very relevant to the Christmas season. I love the way the Message makes it come alive in a fresh new way:

“The Life-Light was the real thing:
    Every person entering Life
    he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
    the world was there through him,
    and yet the world didn’t even notice.
He came to his own people,
    but they didn’t want him.
But whoever did want him,
    who believed he was who he claimed
    and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
    their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
    not blood-begotten,
    not flesh-begotten,
    not sex-begotten.

The Word became flesh and blood,
    and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
    the one-of-a-kind glory,
    like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
    true from start to finish” (John 1:9-14, The Message).

“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas).

Jesus didn’t come all the way to earth merely to tell us to be nicer to each other.

He didn’t travel the cosmos only to tell us to be more tolerant and accepting.

He came to set us free.

If Jesus was only a good teacher and a moral human being, then His death was pointless and we are all still dead in our sins, without hope, and to be pitied above all others.

But Jesus was (and is) God in the flesh who took on our humanity, bore our sins, and gave us His perfection that we who were dead might live.

Advent is the anticipation of all that. Advent is the eager awaiting of the fulfillment of all of God’s promises in Jesus.

We wait, but we wait with hope and certainty. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

First of all, I miss Rich Mullins. I miss his unique voice set in the midst of a Christian music industry where there is a lot of sameness. What he says here is spot on.

I still believe that Church isn’t a place you go on Sunday. It’s not a brick and mortar building. It’s God made visible, made up of living stones like you and me. It’s the people of God doing the work of God in the power of God for the glory of God.

But even so, I don’t do Sunday church services because I’ve got it all together. At least that’s not the way it should be. I may act all high and mighty and superior on Sunday because I show up, but if I’m honest, I know I need help. I know I need other believers to hold me accountable and to encourage me and to challenge me out of my comfort zone.

If I really had my life together, I might as well stay home. But I don’t. So I heed the verse from Hebrews about not neglecting the gathering together of the saints because we need each other. We’re stronger together than we are apart.

That’s why I go to church.