Two of my brothers celebrate their birthdays today…so allow me to say “Happy Birthday Brothers!”
I have a wonderful family and these two brothers help make it so. I love you guys. Hope you had a great day.
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I am preaching and teaching about John 8:12 this Sunday; the section where Jesus says, “I am the light….” So I’ve been thinking a lot about light and what that metaphor means. It can stand for a lot of things and in John 7 and 8 probably helps to verify Jesus’ identity as [...]
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The coming of Jesus means a new beginning – a Genesis, as the gospel of Matthew puts it (see Matthew 1:1 – but most English versions miss that point) – a new beginning for all people, in all times, in all the world. This Genesis – the Jesus event – changes everything. May [...]
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These are the words to be said at the final lighting of an Advent wreath, on Christmas Eve:
On the eve of our Christmas celebration, Jesus’ birthday, we light all of the candles of the Advent wreath.
First we light the candle for HOPE because Jesus is our hope.
Second, we light the candle for PEACE because Jesus [...]
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I love Christmas music – not all of it by any means (99.9 here in the Phoenix area makes me nauseous, for example) – but real Christmas music I just love. One of my very favorites is Oh, Come, Oh, Come Emmanuel. A beautiful tune and wonderful words. I especially like that last verse. It is [...]
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On the evening of December 21, Hanukkah began. I am reposting one of my all-time favoriate blog posts (that I have written) – it is about Hanukkah. The picture is of our menorah in front of our Christmas tree. That was on purpose. Both objects are about light and from my perspective (certainly not from [...]
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These are the words to be said while lighting the fourth candle on an Advent wreath:
Today we relight the first three candles of the Advent Wreath — the candles of HOPE, PEACE and JOY.
Now we light the fourth candle of Advent. This is the candle of LOVE.
Jesus demonstrated self-giving love in his ministry as the [...]
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One of the joys of reading the Bible in a foreign language is that you must read more slowly. I’m so good at English that I can rush, gliding effortlessly over the words on the page. But Sacred words should not be rushed. They should be slowly savored, encountered, allowed to strike [...]
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I just listened to a great story on NPR. A hospital chaplain talks about her ministry…and the ministry of some unseen people in hospitals. It is very much worth the three minutes it takes to listen too.
The story is called, “In A Hospital, There’s No Monopoly On Prayer.” At that page you can listen [...]
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This morning my youngest daughter was reading the back of a t-shirt Shar was wearing, one of those that came from a bunch of sponsors. The daughter asked, “what is ‘I he Garage Pub?’ I don’t understand.” It turns out that the ‘T’ was a little faded so what should have been ‘The’ [...]
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