Our Father and God, we worship you now in the name of Jesus, and in the goodness of the Holy Spirit we entrust ourselves to You now, asking Him to make our worship complete before You. Two thousand years ago, when our Lord suffered and died, You were the God who made the land of …
On Being a Lentendud
A few days ago I posted a little poem — one of my periodic forays into high art — about the affair of the sausages, as a result of which incident the Swiss Reformation began in earnest. It turns out that this poem and other related things generated some excitement on the Internet (and who …
A Lenten Meditation for Meat Lovers
Sing if you can the affair of the sausages, Brave Zwingli taking on Lenten observances. Honor then Wittenberg’s 95 theses, But Zurich was first with the meat reformation. What could be better than fat, roasting sausages, Striking a blow against vain gnostic scrupling? What could be better to set the soul soaring Than …
The Politics of Christmas
Introduction The carnal, unbelieving mind always understands political rule in a particular way. The names may change—Pharaoh, Caesar, pope, or president-for-life—but the underlying realities are always the same. These realities have to do with tyranny and coercion, and the imposition of a right-handed power, the kind of power that is necessarily suspicious of biblical liberty. …
Christmas and the Philosophers
When Christ was born into the human race, He had come to rescue a race that was entirely lost. We were not entirely forsaken—because of His gracious intention for us—but we were entirely lost. This means that everything we had with us was lost too. When a hiker is lost in the woods, not only …
A Theology of Christmas Gifts
INTRODUCTION:One of the most obvious features of our Christmas celebrations is the gift-giving. How are we to understand this as Christians? What are the pitfalls? Are all the pitfalls obvious? Because our lives are to be lives of grace, and because charis means grace or gift, this is something we have to understand throughout the …
Caroling in Friendship Square
A Brief History of Christmas
INTRODUCTION:We celebrate the birth of Christ, and we are able to do this because we have seen what His rule has accomplished in the world. Jesus told Thomas once that there was a blessing for those who would believe without having seen the risen Christ, as Thomas had (John 20:29). On this principle, our place …
Celebrating Christmas Like a Puritan
INTRODUCTION:Socrates once famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living. In a similar vein, the unexamined holiday is not worth celebrating. Whenever we do anything on autopilot, it is not surprising that at some point we forget where we are going, or what we were supposed to be doing. And when we are …
Thanksgiving 2011
Thanksgiving in the midst of war is not an incongruity; it is one of our chief weapons. The Lord prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies (Ps. 23:5). We are not yet privileged to sit down in Isaiah’s hall, where the trumpet and spear are mounted in places of honor, where …