An angel appears to Joseph in a dream to explain the situation. When Joseph wakes, he must make decisions about marrying Mary and caring for her and the child. He acts on complete faith and trust. Acting on faith and trust is a tremendous challenge today. In our...
When the song of the angels is stilled,When the star in the sky is gone,When the kings and princes are home,When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner,...
In common English usage, “peace” means the avoidance or absence of conflict. It indicates the lack of something: war or lesser forms of overt violence. In Scripture, on the other hand, shalom indicates the active presence of multiple dynamics: well-being, harmony,...
The Hebrew term “shalom” is roughly translated in English as “peace.” But it can also mean salvation and liberation, safety and security, wholeness and completeness. Shalom happens when every relationship within the created order is set right, whether the scale be...
How are we to experience peace in a world filled with war and destruction, hurricanes and greed? …Prayers are offered for peace and Nobel prizes are awarded for it. But more frequently, peace seems as distant as the moon… The world whizzes by at breakneck speed as its...
Every morning when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hour will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.
Nevertheless it is possible, in the midst of the limits and transitoriness of human existence, to make societies which are more liberating and less oppressive, and hence closer to the kingdom. To deny this is to deny all efficacy to God in history, to make the world...
If happiness is what we feel when we think we’ve got what we want, then joy is what we feel when we discover we already have what we most need. Joy is still present when life is hard. Christ comes for grieving people with broken homes and broken hearts. Christmas is...
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other.
Every single human being you pass by today is fighting to find peace and to push back fear; to get through their daily tasks without breaking down in the produce section or in the carpool line or at the post office.