“HEY! Unto YOU a child is born!” Tough and scrappy little Gladys Herdman, one of “the worst children in the history of the world,” may not have been the most likely choice to play the angel in the Christmas play — but she knew how to deliver her line! I watched “The Best […]
JOURNEY TO CHRISTMAS WITH ONE OF THESE FREE READING PLANS
Wake up! It’s time to make our way toward Bethlehem. Imagine what that was like for the magi, leaving on their long journey, following a star that promised a king. They hoped in that promise and acted in faith: not knowing where they would end up or how far they had to go. In […]
HANG ON TO HIS WORDS: JESUS IS COMING!
Toward the end of Luke’s gospel, Jesus drives the merchants out of the temple and then goes there, every day, to teach. And all the while, the Jewish leaders look for a way to kill him — but they never get the chance. Why? “Because all the people were hanging on his words.” “Hanging on […]
LOOKING FOR JESUS? Lessons from the Magi
I can’t stop thinking about the Epiphany this week, as I — like the Magi — seek to find Jesus. There are times I can’t find him. Or he’s there, and I can’t see him. I don’t recognize his presence in people around me, in situations that are hard. Shouldn’t it be easy, to find […]
THE “JESSE TREE”: AN ADVENT TRADITION FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY
When a new star shone bright enough that grown men (wise men? kings?) saddled up, dropped everything else and set out for the tiny town of Bethlehem, it didn’t herald something unexpected. The king it announced had been expected for centuries! Jesus’s birth was not “Plan B,” some sort of last-ditch effort to save the […]
ADVENT BIBLE READING PLAN: A “Grown-Up Jesse Tree”
When our kids were young, we counted off the days to Christmas by hanging symbols on a “Jesse Tree: a sun for creation; a tree and Adam and Eve; a serpent; Noah’s ark … and so on. And with them, there were 23 days of readings from the Bible that took us to up to birth […]
A “GROWN-UP” JESSE TREE (A Bible Reading Plan for Advent)
When the kids were small we put up a “Jesse Tree” December 1. Each day, we hung a symbol on the tree: a sun for creation; a tree and Adam and Eve; a serpent; Noah’s ark … and so on. And with them, 23 days of readings from the Bible that took us to up […]
