Tag Archives: Christmas
Becoming Flesh
This is why Christian faith is distinct among religions. It’s not, first and foremost, a list of rules to follow or rituals to practice or beliefs to hold. Though we do have rules, rituals, and beliefs. But Christian faith is, first and foremost, about an event. All the rules and rituals and beliefs spread out around that event: the Word of God, with God and of one being with God before all time, became flesh and pitched its tent among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Home and Abroad for Christmas
For those of us who share — or try to share — Athanasius’s faith in the Incarnation of the Word, the world on Christmas Day can look like a highly charged place. If God’s action is not remote and distant, or localized in a special place, but abroad in the universe through the mysterious union of God and humanity, the whole crazy, kitschy apparatus of Christmas becomes a little easier to appreciate.
Presence
God becomes a human being so that human beings can become like God.
And this happens to us anywhere and at any time. Whether you are surrounded with loved ones, or stranded away from home, or simply without close family or friends. Whether you have a stocking full of old family traditions or whether you didn’t even grow up with a tree. Whether you know the songs or not. Whether you’re at a festive gathering or whether you’re at an all-night diner, with only those other people who have nowhere else to go.
Chicago Diarist: A Priestly People
(Note: I wrote this in January 2011) Back when I was just getting started in ministry, early in my seminary career, Christmas was a high point of the year. There is a strange thrill in doing something, as it were, from the inside out–in knowing the alleys that connect the gleaming storefronts, in working while […]
“We Didn’t Know It Was You”
A child who grows up singing “Silent Night,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “Away in a Manger” may be forgiven for imagining that nothing could be more delightful than to be born in a stable.
Brutally Ordinary Things 