A teacher was finishing up a lesson on the joys of discovery and the importance of curiosity. “Where would we be today,” she asked, “if no one had ever been curious?”
One child quietly spoke up from the back of the room. “In the Garden of Eden?”
Pastor Jaster
Michael Jinkins, dean of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, says that the pastor of a large evangelical church told him he had decided to do away with a corporate confession in worship services. It’s too much of a downer, the pastor explained.
Jinkins asked him, “Isn’t it more of a downer for your people to leave worship without confessing their sins and hearing the assurance of God’s forgiveness?”
Christian Century, October 21, 2008 quoting Cultural Encounters, Winter.
[PEJ: It's hard to ponder on Emily Dickenson's poem on hope without also thinking of the work of the Holy Spirit]
“Hope” by Emily Dickenson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune—without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
“When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” — Luke 2:15
Let’s go! Now! When angels came to some shepherds with a brilliant message one night long ago, the shepherds had a brilliant idea. Let’s go! Let’s see what God is doing!
The unknown dangers of the night did not hold them back. Perhaps they knew that some of God’s best work is done under the cover of darkness — the creation of all things, wrestling with Jacob, Israel’s escape from slavery.
Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe all they needed was the announcement of what God was up to this time. This time God would be conducting a rescue like none before — saving the whole world, bringing peace and goodwill. Once again it’s an undercover operation — God hidden deep in the flesh and working “under the sign of opposites” (as Martin Luther called it). Arriving as a baby in diapers, God’s Son recruited tax collectors and fishermen, social misfits and despised sinners in a rescue mission that culminated in the hidden power of the cross.
What if the shepherds had yawned, “That’s interesting, some other time,” and remained sitting in the night, in the dirt, in the comfort of predictable hardships and familiar enemies? Would promised joy have found them anyway?
Let’s not test that speculation with our lives. Let’s go! Let’s see what God is doing!
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
One of our favorite memories as a child were the pictures in Life Magazine. Many of the photographs have just been made available online through Google Images at http://images.google.com/hosted/life
When we get overwhelmed by spiritual slumps, we can easily sympathize with the poor old man who walked into a diner and sat down at the counter. A big, hulking waiter in a dirty T-shirt came up and said, “What’s yours, Mack?” The man said, “Give me two eggs, scrambled, and a few kind words.” The waiter clomped off to the kitchen and then returned with the plate, slamming it carelessly down in front of the man. As he turned away, the man said, “Wait a minute, what about those kind words?” The waiter turned back and said, “Oh, yea. Don’t eat dem eggs.”
Homiletics, October-December 1992, 54
“It is often said that the church is a crutch. Of course it’s a crutch. What makes you think that you don’t limp?”
William Sloane Coffin, Credo.
Advent was one week away so we thought we’d see what the children remembered from our family devotions the year before. “Who can tell me what the four candles in the Advent wreath represent?” I asked.
Eilene jumped in with eight-year-old wisdom and exuberance. “There’s love, joy, peace, and … and …”
“I know!” six-year-old O.R. interrupted to finish his sister’s sentence. “Peace and quiet!”
“At age 20 we worry about what others think of us. At 40 we don’t care what others think of us. At 60 we discover that they haven’t been thinking of us at all.”
Ann Landers
How might we describe God’s absence? Jack Miles in God: A Biography puts it this way:
“We may perhaps distinquish a spectrum: presence, absent presence, present absence, absence. Very roughly, presence is what a man senses when he is in the room with a woman and directly aware of her. Absent presence is what he senses when she has just left but the sound of her voice, the scent of her body, still linger in the air. Present absence is what he senses when she is gone, quite gone, but he misses her. Absence is what he senses when he must struggle to recall if he ever knew her.” (253)
Jack Miles, God: A Biography, page 253