There are some of us…who think to ourselves, “If I had only been there! How quick I would have been to help the Baby. I would have washed his linen. How happy I would have been to go with the shepherds to see the Lord lying in the manger!” Yes, we would. We say that...
The pageant proceeded as scheduled—Angels, Shepherds, Wise Men, Mary, Joseph, the Christ Child—Children reciting their lines while parents beam with pride. The lights dim, children freeze in place; all is quiet. Then the children get up and leave; the pageant is over....
With that we are faced with the shocking reality: Jesus stands at the door and knocks, in complete reality. He asks you for help in the form of a beggar, in the form of a ruined human being in torn clothing. He confronts you in every person that you meet. He walks on...
Christmas is about those God moments when we muster enough courage to greet, embrace, and even step into the darkness that is killing us. It is to risk seeing that glimmer of light. It is about stepping into that dark room between or within us and to risk stumbling...
We think we have to make Christmas come, which is to say we have to bring about the redemption of the universe on our own. When all God needs is a willing womb, a place of safety, nourishment, and love… What if, instead of doing something, we were to be something...
The first evangelists were shepherds. It was a task for which they had no skill, no special gift. No theological teaching or individual training. They had no organization to go before them and no literature to leave behind them. What they had, and all they had, was a...
I wonder, if we were to stop people at random in the street on December 24 and ask them what they want most for Christmas, how many would say, “I want to see Jesus”? I believe that the single most important consideration during the sacred season of Advent is intensity...
The birth of Christ in our souls is for a purpose beyond ourselves: it is because his manifestation in the world must be through us. Every Christian is, as it were, part of the dust-laden air which shall radiate the glowing epiphany of God, catch and reflect his...
The invitation of Advent is the invitation—right now, this very moment—to open our ordinary lives, common experiences, and everyday relationships, as well as our deepest selves, to the Spirit of the living Christ. from Shimmers of Light
The mounting rhythms of time, the gathering passion of godhead pervading earth’s body erupt, ecstatic, unbounded…no fiery deluge, no fist-clenching rapture. No star-strewn apocalypse. Only a woman laboring. Only the needy cry of child in the dark. Glory is not what we...