What can we say November 23? Christ the King

    Jeremiah 23:1-6. Pondering Christ the King, the lectionary suggests we should contrast the bad shepherds, the lousy kings, of which there were (and are!) plenty. We think “shepherd” as lowly, but in the ancient world, kings of vast empires were often spoken of as shepherds. Interesting, but this would be an unusual choice of lections for such a Sunday.

   Colossians 1:11-20. What a great text for Christ the King. I recall reading and then watching the film, The DaVinci Code, with my much beloved Ian McKellen playing the smug, sinister Leigh Teabing spouting absurdities about the 4^th century emperor Constantine imposing views of Jesus as divine on the subordinates in his empire. Colossians stands there, a mere 2, 3 at most decades after Jesus’ death, making the most extraordinary, divine claims about him. All of creation was about Jesus, by him for him. The language soars: he was/is/will always be the “image of God,” the “fulness of God,” “in whom all things hold together,” “the Head.”

   Colossians invites us to do what sermons too rarely do: simply to contemplate Jesus, to gaze, to be in awe. No moral, no takeaway. Dorothy Day, late in her life, was asked by Harvard sociologist Robert Coles to write some autobiographical recollections. Her reply? “I try to remember this life that the Lord gave me; the other day I wrote down the words ‘a life remembered,’ and I was going to try to make a summary for myself, write what mattered most – but I couldn’t do it. I just sat there and thought of our Lord, and His visit to us all those centuries ago, and I said to myself that my great luck was to have had Him on my mind for so long in my life!”

   He is the image. Coins in Paul’s world featured the image of the divine emperor. Jesus is fully stamped with God, and the image is genuine, not faked or exaggerated. Thinking image: I’m still stunned by Daniel Boorstin’s astonishingly perceptive book, The Image, which reads as if written in 2022, but it’s 60 years old now: “In this book I describe the world of our own making, how we have used our wealth, our literacy, our technology and our progress to create a thicket of unreality which stands between us and the facts of life.” He assesses our society’s self-deception, our national self-hypnosis, our insatiable demand for illusions. Celebrities substitute for heroes; American dreams are pitifully replaced by American illusions; images overshadow ideals. To say Jesus is the image of God could not be more counter-cultural.

   The beauty of Jesus as image of the true God? Dorothy Day fixated on Jesus, which served her and thousands of others well. David Ford wrote that the antidote to despair is praise. We praise Jesus. Despair flees. We are surprisingly liberated from the world portrayed by the Beatles’ “I me me mine.”

   He is the Center; in him all things hold together. In 1919, in the wake of the ravages of World War I, the Irish troubles, a flu pandemic to put Covid in the shade, and his wife critically ill, William Butler Yeats wrote, “The falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world; everywhere innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely the second coming is at hand.” There is no center any more. Only Jesus can fill that space.

   And he holds what is separated together. He’s all about reconciliation. He can do this as we turn to him, as we embody his compassion, his listening, his empathy. It’s like Fr. Greg Boyle’s “Geiger counter”: we look for beauty and goodness. We don’t measure, we meet; we see not sin but son. It works in the way Christian Wiman narrates falling in love, that “sudden rift in my life and mind, as if our love demanded some expression beyond blissful intensity our 2 lives made. Love isn’t limiting. He quotes Elizabeth Bowen: “To turn toward one face is to find your self face to face with everything.” Could it be that God turns toward us in this one child, and as we turn to him, we turn toward each other in hopeful, reconciling ways?

   He is our Head. We may be fond of thinking of the hands and feet of Christ, and dream of being these. But it’s his head, thinking, looking, talking, weeping, sighing, hearing, pierced… O Sacred Head Now Wounded indeed. This is his kingship on this Christ the King Sunday. A crown of thorns, not Queen Elizabeth’s crown of jewels and ermine.

   The notion that the whole purpose of creation was… Jesus: I try to think of the whole purpose of my life being something or another. Maybe it was that day I reported in Christian Century when the infant child of precious church members was rushed to Duke Medical Center, as they’d discovered a malignant tumor wrapped around her spinal cord. I drove 3 hours to be with this family, but I had no words. I just cried. A grinning pastor kin to them somehow materialized, spouting words of confidence – which I did not have. The pediatric oncologist got to me: he had a plan, something to be done. I was so useless, and wished I’d gone to medical school instead. I decided to leave ministry. Really.

   Then, late into the night, as I was about to excuse myself, the parents asked me if I could hold their daughter for a while. She hadn’t stopped crying for hours. They were exhausted, and had a massive day ahead. Yes, I could hold her. They went off, somewhere, and I rocked this crying baby. Finally, she settled and fell asleep. What did I have to offer? Brilliant sermons? Wise theology? Clever prayers? All I could do was hold her.

   It occurred to me that all my training, my Ph.D. in theology and all my worships and experience in ministry, were preparing me for just this moment, to do nothing but hold a crying child in the dark of night. She got some rest, as did her parents. Really: what more did I go into ministry for, after all? I thought of Mary and Joseph rocking Jesus in the dark. It really was all about just this. Maybe all of creation was just about this, Jesus, God’s precious, vulnerable, suffering child, held, cradled, much loved.

   Luke 23:33-43. Christ is king? Want to see what his reign is like? He looks down, suffering the worst physical horror, personal shame and terrible ignominy, and forgives the jokesters who are mocking him. They don’t ask for forgiveness; they don’t confess their sins; they have zero clue who he really is. Unasked, he forgives. That’s all we need to know about the vastness of God’s mercy.

    The thief, portrayed in medieval art as holding Jesus’ hand as they march into heaven, has no stake to mercy, but receives it, and lavishly. What could be more elegant than the Taize chorus, “Jesus, Remember me, when you come into your kingdom”?

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  Check out my new book coming out in early January: The Heart of the Psalms: God's Word to the World - which I'm excited about! Abingdon has a study guide and videos for groups or individuals... Great for your groups in 2026!

What can we say November 30? Advent 1

   “God Became Small: Preaching Advent,” which reflects on the season and also has a load of illustrative material that might fit in any of the four Sundays.

    Isaiah 2:1-5. What is God’s coming about? Isaiah eloquently invites us to expect something broader than just me as an individual. It’s international, cosmic in scope. Preaching Advent is brief, and hopefully surprising, drawing people out into something beyond the narrowness of the year and the strictures of shopping and decorating. Perhaps reflecting on what we’re seeing through the James Webb telescope, which people seem fond of, is a way to draw people into greater awe and unfathomable expectation.

    Isaiah envisions (or God showed him!) a day when God’s purposes will be consummated. God’s seemingly little hill, Mt. Zion (hardly the highest!) will be the highest, nations will stream into it, all will learn and walk in God’s ways, and weapons will be reforged into implements of life and goodness. Why go to Mt. Zion/Jerusalem? Not to sight-see or have a religious experience, but “that he may teach us his ways, and that we might walk from his paths.” Some unlearning will be required: “Neither will they learn war any more” reminds us that it is learned, not just some natural inevitability.

    I love John August Swanson's "Festival of Lights." The sermon’s punchline is right in the text: “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” (and in worship we can sing “I want to Walk as a Child of the Light”).

    Romans 13:11-14. So many pregnant, alluring phrases in this text! What time is it? Late in the year? or just beginning? Time to wake up! 

I think of Rip van Winkle, sleeping through the American revolution, or the “Sleepers of Ephesus,” who missed the years of transition from the persecution of Christianity to its official place in the empire. There’s some spiritual drowsiness, always, our whole culture preferring distraction, self-delusion, fake images, celebrities over heroes, pet notions over truth, ideology over ideals. There is a kind of sleepy-headed, almost comatose repetition of vapid, cultural Christmas customs.

    The waking isn’t like Frodo coming to in the joyful climax of The Return of the King. It’s, as Paul suggests, alarming. Dietrich Bonhoeffer used the Ephesians 5:14 version of "Wake up!" for the homily for the baptism of his nephew, and then in a letter he wrote from prison for the baptism of his closest friend Eberhard's child. Notice the resonance: in such dark hours like that of World War II in Germany, with Christians vapidly Heil-ing Hitler, it is time to wake up, and to make a radical break with the world.

   Maria Skobtsova, known as Mother Maria of Paris, and now St. Mary of Paris, born 1891 in Latvia, executed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945 for being part of the French resistance, wrote that “It would be a great lie to tell those who are searching: ‘Go to church, because there you will find peace.’ The opposite is true. The Church tells those who are at peace and asleep: ‘Go to church, because there you will feel real anguish for your sin and the world’s sin. There you will feel an insatiable hunger for Christ’s truth. There, instead of becoming lukewarm, you’ll be set on fire; instead of being pacified, you’ll become alarmed; instead of learning the wisdom of this world, you will become fools for Christ.”

   Americans also have “the Great Awakening,” a revival that was unanticipated and hard to understand today.  Read Jonathan Edwards’s dense, theologically muscular and not very entertaining sermons – and it’s hard to conceive that the masses, especially young adults, were stirred to renewed and deepened commitments to Christ.  Makes you wonder what might actually ‘work’ today.  Lighter, more accessible fare?  Or denser, harder stuff?

   I also think of Awakenings, the book by Oliver Sacks (and then the 1990 film) – the story of victims of an encephalitis epidemic who surprisingly began to do quite well after years of affliction.  All are fitting images of the power the Gospel might have on a vapid, routine kind of life.

   And then the text St. Augustine found when randomly opening his Bible – and everything changed. Can a text do that much heavy lifting? I love Sarah Ruden’s new translation of this moment in the Confessions: “I was weeping with agonizing anguish in my heart; and then I heard a voice from next door, a little boy or girl, I don’t know which, incessantly and insistently chanting, ‘Pick it up! Read it! Pick it up! Read it!’” – and it fell open to Romans 13, in particular this: ‘not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy’ (I was doing okay for the first four… but then the last two?).  ‘But put on the Lord Jesus’ (clothing again…), ‘and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.’  We have made all sorts of provisions for the flesh to gratify its desires!  We speak fondly of ‘comfort food,’ or for all sorts of occasions we say ‘I need a drink,’ or ‘You deserve that vacation at the beach.’

   If you're doing the Augustine angle, don't forget Mary Oliver's wonderful (short, entirely memorable) poem: "Things take the time they take. / Don't worry. / How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine.”

    St. John Chrysostom commented on the almost inevitable connection between drunkenness and the others: “For nothing so kindles lust and sets wrath ablaze as drunkenness and tippling… Wherefore I exhort you, flee from fornication and the mother thereof, drunkenness.” We make total provision for the flesh – and even ask God to help!

   I shouldn’t diss the Gospel reading, Matthew 24:36-44. But the apocalyptists have ruined Jesus' ominous yet inviting talk about “the day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son” (as if God the Father arranged things so Jesus his son could enjoy plausible denial!). Spooky “left behind” images lead people down a path toward a curious kind of modern Gnosticism, don’t they? It’s all about readiness, not niceness, a vigilant and holy engagement with the things of God – not easily pulled off ever, much less in this season. There probably is something poignant in that it happens at “an unexpected hour” (v. 44). Why should it be different from anything else that matters? Bad news, sudden death, marriage ending, cancer diagnosis… Who saw it coming? I shuffle off to John Irving’s brilliant characterization (in A Prayer for Owen Meany) of the middle of those night phone calls: “burglar alarms of the heart.”

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   Check out my Advent book for this year, And His Name Shall Be Called - an extended reflection on Isaiah 9:6 in the form of daily devotionals.

What can we say come December 7? Advent 2

For preaching in Advent, check out my "God Became Small" blog on preaching in this peculiar, lovely, challenging season.

   Advent 2.  I'm focusing on Matthew 3:1-12.  But first, I'll mention that Isaiah 11 is a rich text, almost like the joke which you explain and the explanation isn't nearly as funny as the joke; I preached on the same Isaianic theme, which reappears in Isa. 65, a while back, evoking Edwin Hicks's "Peaceable Kingdom" paintings, and how we need wolves to lie down with lambs post-political divisions... 

Romans is mildly interesting.  Psalm 72 more so - as it establishes the standard for kings at their coronation in ancient Israel, and the measure is all about caring for the poor, the downtrodden, the stranger.  A great word for today...

But I'm focused on Matthew 3:1-12.  As I picture people streaming down to the Jordan to hear John and be washed, I think what isn't a Christmas carol -- the wonderful Alison Kraus singing "Down to the River to Pray" - and then the bawdy but profound scene in "O Brother, Where Art Thou."  Worth listening as you meditate, or showing your people, or exploring in the sermon.

Years ago, I heard a sermon in which the preacher pointed out that John the Baptist is all over the birth stories of Jesus, but you never ever see him on a Christmas card.  I mentioned this in a sermon, and someone rose to the challenge are created the world's first ever John the Baptist Christmas card.

Hard to talk people into the idea that Advent is a season of repentance.  It's kind of the season that actually creates new reasons to need to repent... I'm never sure how wise or helpful it is to harangue people about the absurdity of our customs during the holidays - especially when most of us clergy are as enmeshed in the froth and frenzy as everybody else.

John the Baptist would probably nod over Mike Slaughter's memorable book and curriculum title: Christmas is Not Your Birthday.

Yet it's easy (at least it has been for me) to become a bit Scrooge-like during Advent, railing against or at least murmuring about all the consumption - and then the party animals blithely say something trite, like "Jesus is the reason for the season."  Sometimes I think about a clergy friend of mine who texted a photo of a General Conference session to me with his comment: "An unintended consequence of the resurrection."  I guess December is an unintended consequence of the incarnation.

There's beauty in it, and a gut-level comprehension that the little lights in the darkness, the gift-giving, the travelling to be with the people you're stuck with, the generous mood somehow do grasp in fledgling ways the glory of the birth of the Savior.

I wonder if there was a beauty to John the Baptist.  I think a lot about his tone of voice.  I have always pictured him with a gravelly, loud voice, like one of those street preachers.  But maybe his tone was plaintive, pleading, tender and loving.  Please, oh please, repent. 

I love the elegance of the St. John's Bible's depiction of the baptism of Jesus by John.

What is repentance anyhow?  It's not grovelling in guilt.  It's a turning toward God (the Hebrew shuv), a change of mind (the Greek metanoia), it's a homesick prodigal son deciding I so very much want to go home.  John Wesley spoke of repentance as the "porch" (with "faith" as the door, and "holiness" as the house).  I wonder if in preaching I might exploit this porch image.

What's on my porch during December?  A Moravian star, some garland, a tacky flashing Santa, a Christmasy welcome mat.  I hope some carolers will appear and sing to us.  What is your best porch memory? 

Mine relies entirely on a photo.  It was Christmas.  I wasn't 2 yet.  But there I am, perched on my grandfather Papa Howell's lap.  My deepest joy, and sense of belonging, and my richest Christmas memories took place in that house.  Are these little reminiscences, these little tremors in the soul one of the ways God calls us home?

Even if his voice is gentle, John the Baptist sounds threatening when he says "The axe is at the root of the tree."  I wish I'd grown up in, or that my children had grown up in one of those families that went up into the mountains and physically cut a tree to haul home for Christmas.  There must be something about the cutting of what is lovely that needs to happen?  Of course, John is obsessed with "fruit" - another staple of this season (fruitcake, fruitbaskets).  The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) is always in order, and somewhat out of sync with or even at odds with the moods and impulses of the season.

But maybe he's shouting, and God is really angry.  I hope not.... and yet there is so much down here that angers me, and you too.  How to speak prophetically without sounding mad? How to connect deeply with listeners instead of just making them angry at you?  Ministry Matters ran my blog on this subject right after the election.  Unsure it has answers - but maybe some commiseration, and hope?

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   Check out my brand new book, valuable for preachers and laity during Advent (if you're looking for a devotional or group study - even for your church!), And His Name Shall Be Called - reflections on Isaiah 9:7, with Handel's Messiah in the background!

What can we say December 14? Advent 3

   Beyond this week's texts, check out my "God Became Small: Preaching Advent" blog with thoughts on how to preach this peculiar season, with loads of illustrative material; and also, looking toward the end of next week, the same sort of thing on "Preaching Christmas."

    I defer to the pink candle over the lectionary, as I’m determined, 3 Sundays into Advent, to give Mary considerable attention. It’s not just her week, with the 3^rd candle. It’s her season. Waiting for the Lord to take on reality, to become flesh in her life, in our lives. That’s Advent. {And full disclosure: year A still clings to John the Baptist into the 3rd of only 4 Sundays in Advent! He would defer to Mary and the child in her womb, as he did at the Visitation - and so shall I...}

    So Luke 1:49b-56 provides. I’ll back up to v. 39 and ponder the Visitation, the remarkable, unsurpassed in beauty fellowship of hope. Mary, Elizabeth, needing to be together, the children to come with some recognition of one another, even in utero. No takeaway. No moral. We just watch these two – and reflect on Mary’s song. She sang! What did her voice sound like? I picture, not a big vibrato soprano, but a clearer, simpler maybe 2^nd soprano or alto.

   Her song startles, upsets, turns the placid world of piety upside-down. She sings not of sweetness or the giddy delight of having a baby, but of might, of mercy, God scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful, filling the hungry, sending the rich away empty. Put this woman in jail! Hide her away someplace safe – not for her but for us!

   The opening, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” amazes. She magnifies the Lord, but not artificially. She is like a lens, a prism: please, see the Lord largely in me. Maybe even in the other lectionary texts.

   Isaiah 35:1-10. I like to reflect on our lections that Mary knew as her Scriptures, and try to divine what her perspective on them might have been when she was so very pregnant. The prophecy of Isaiah must have thrilled her with its inspiring vision of the transformation of nature. “They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God” – so whereas Isaiah was thinking of an eschatological revolution in nature, Mary might have been dimly, courageously, hopefully aware that the child pressing against her belly, in her very own body, would be the glory and majesty of God about to appear. She would be the lucky one to see the glory and majesty first.

   Surely the prayers, “Strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees” must have resonated with her in her exhaustion, carrying extra weight, with her daily chores, having made an arduous journey to visit Elizabeth. Isaiah 35 prays for those with “fearful hearts,” encouraging them to “be strong, do not fear, here is your God, he will come.” I just love how Amy Grant sang her surmises of what must have gone on in Mary’s heart during those days: “I am frightened by the load I bear, in a world as cold as stone Must I walk this path alone? Breath of heaven, hold me together, lighten my darkness. Help me be strong, Help me be, Help me.”

   Did Mary ponder the “highway of the Lord,” where “even fools cannot get lost”? Her journey to Elizabeth’s home must have been arduous. No GPS, no helpers, much to fear. How much courage did she have? How eager was she to be with Elizabeth, her friend, her elder, her mentor?

   Of course, the tone of Isaiah shifts, as does the music I hear in my head. A powerful alto thunders in with Handel’s text taken from Isaiah: “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…” Oh my. My soul just rushed from the quiet by a well in backwater Nazareth to a concert hall in London. Notice all the singing in Isaiah’s text. The ransomed don’t just trudge back to Zion; they sing their way home. Mary was a singer – although I’ll never picture her as the alto with the big vibrato.

   On the way home during Advent, the preacher could do worse than invite people simply to ponder the holiness, the faith, the courage, the anxiety, the hope, the isolation, the uncertainty that was Mary, mother of our Lord. So much beauty. There’s no takeaway, no lesson, no “point.” We just ponder. I think my best preaching dares to do such a thing.

   James 5:7-10 has the lovely Advent-ish counsel, “Be patient until the coming of the Lord.” His analogy is of the farmer waiting for the crops to come in. Who requires more patience? The farmer? Or the pregnant mother? Fortunately both take time, and yet the wait has its own agonies, like the life of faith. Here’s a playful question I may pop into my homily: if James, this James, was the brother of our Lord, did he for a moment reflect on his own mother – Mary also! – pregnant with his brother Jesus, or with him? 

  Had she sung to him, to them? Another reverie may be in order, no takeaways or points, just inviting people to gawk at the tenderness, the beauty, the holiness of the holy family.

    “Strengthen your hearts.” Sounds like the common fare of secular gurus. James explains how, and why: “The coming of the Lord is near.” It’s not “Be strong,” but “The Lord is coming – so be strong.” Massive difference. And you have to love James’s practical, churchy counsel: “Don’t grumble.” If you are patient for the Lord’s coming, there’s just no space or energy for grumbling.

   Matthew 11:2-11. More John the Baptist! He’s now in prison, not active any longer, only listening for rumors of what’s happening. Jesus knows and sends a report: what’s going on out here is stunning. How many times through history have those imprisoned for their faithful labors been stuck inside while God’s work is still unfolding out there! And you have to admire Jesus’ framing of things. It’s not “Tell him I’ve got it,” or “I’m being amazing out here, I’m the Messiah, after all!” Instead, it’s what Jesus (and John!) cared about: not identity, but what’s actually transforming the lives of people. I think of this amazing podcast about John Garland’s ministry at the Mexican border (“Maybe God: Can Loving ‘Illegals’ Save our Souls, part 2”) where he says it’s not so much doing something for someone, but just being there to bear witness to the beautiful thing God is doing. 

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  My best exploration of the birth/coming of Jesus theologically, and personally, is in Birth: The Mystery of Being Born (in the Pastoring for Life series) - with an extensive (for me!) exploration of Mary's experience, Jesus' birth, and his very first days on earth.

What can we say December 21? Advent 4

   Beyond this week's texts, check out my "God Became Small: Preaching Advent" blog with thoughts on how to preach this peculiar season, with loads of illustrative material; and also, looking toward Saturday and Sunday of this week, the same sort of thing on "Preaching Christmas."

    Isaiah 7:10-16. I wish I could time-travel back to chat with Matthew and others in that circle of the very first Christian Bible scholar-theologians and listen to them explain their affection for today’s Old Testament text. I can go back in my memory to my Religion 101 class. My deeply religious friend got apoplectic when the professor tried to explain that the Hebrew here (ha-almah) wasn’t “a virgin” but “the young woman.” Why do people cling so fiercely to the notion that prophecies are predictive? The text is far richer than any image of Isaiah gazing into the divine crystal ball and foretelling what would happen in 700+ years. What help would that have been to Ahaz or the Israelites anyhow? They were under extreme duress, with hard decisions looming.

   The glory of Isaiah 7:10-16, which doesn’t detract from Mary and Jesus, but actually adds a profound, unexpected, even political dimension? Pressured by the Assyrian juggernaut, Ahaz is flailing about, suspecting a treaty might help, but might not. But to do nothing? – which is Isaiah’s counsel, or at least that’s what “Trust God!” had to feel like.

   God curiously urges Ahaz to ask for a sign. Our people are fond of signs (usually in place of diligent Bible reflection, spiritual formation, Christian conversation and prayer!) – leading them into what Bruce Waltke (Finding the Will of God: A Pagan Notion?) called “the Hunch method.” The dream house I’ve driven by every day for years has a For Sale sign! It’s a sign from God we should buy it! A hunch, baptized. People never see a poor person with three poorly clothed children crossing the road and think Hmm, it’s a sign: God wants us to adopt an impoverished immigrant family.

   My comic mind flits to The Life of Brian, where the crazy crowd pleads for a sign. It’s his shoe he dropped. It’s the juniper berries; a woman asks for another sign and gets upbraided, “Do not tempt him, shallow one, isn’t the miracle of the juniper bushes enough?”

   Ahaz, wrapped in a cloak of temporary piety, refrains: “No, I will not put the Lord to the test.” 

I love Martin Luther’s view on this: “Impious Ahaz simulates a holy attitude… Thus hypocrites, when it is not necessary, are most religious; but when they ought to be humble, they are most haughty.” Ahaz may have rightly suspected that the sign to be given would not suit his power-grubbing, politically-advantageous fantasies. Your people likely feel weary of the bickering and inanity they see among politicians. Share with them Isaiah’s ding of Ahaz: “It is too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?” You’re weary of politics? Think how exhausted God must be!

   The unasked for sign is the last thing Ahaz wanted: “The young woman” – in Hebrew, ha-almah – will have a child. Which “the” woman? One standing nearby? Isaiah’s wife? Isaiah must have exasperated Mrs. Isaiah by his choice of baby names, like Mahershalalhashbaz, Shearyashuv, their names being prophecies. Another made-up, prophetic name is announced for this child: Immanuel, familiar to us now but a bizarre one back then – meaning, as we know, “God with us.” Ahaz wanted more, like a legion or thicker walls around Jerusalem. Instead, the infant-sized promise that God is with us. This is the heart of Advent and Christmas – and the whole Gospel.

   Sam Wells wisely has shown us that the most important word in the Bible, and in all of theology, is with. God is with us – which is way better than a dazzling fortune-telling of what will happen centuries from now. God is as with us as this child is with its mother right now. God is with – not the magical fixer or divine insulator, but just with us, always. This then informs how we do ministry: we don’t fix people, we aren’t charitable toward people, and we certainly don’t pity them; we are with them. If you’ve not yet, read A Nazareth Manifesto. Best theology book in a decade.

   Romans 1:1-7. It would take some derring-do to preach on the prologue to Romans on Advent 4!

And yet, Jesus shows up, and apostles happen! And “obedience of faith” – what a phrase!! Right out of the chute, Paul declares it’s “among all the Gentiles” – oh my! He’s writing to “all God’s beloved in Rome” – of all places! The epicenter of the corrupt, lost world Jesus invaded and came to rescue.

   This Gospel was “promised beforehand.” Just as with Isaiah, it’s not that the Gospel was predicted long ago. God’s eternal plan, God’s constant manner of being, God’s own heart, always laboring, always loving, culminating in the Jesus moment – not a backup plan, not a last ditch effort, but God’s holy intention from the commencement of creation itself. Michelangelo’s creation of Adam depicts God with a woman and child tucked under his left arm – a visual of God’s eternal, beforehand promise and way.

   Notice the words we’d find in a theological dictionary, all piled on top of one another, as Paul tries to explicate the revolution that Jesus touched off: servant, called, sent, set apart, good news, holiness, grace, obedience of faith. All this “by a spirit of holiness” – the same one that came upon Mary! He probably anticipated that his listeners, once the letter was wrapped up, delivered, and finally read aloud in Rome, were people of low social standing. So he speaks to them of being “slaves” – maybe a step down for many of them! – with no rights, no standing, and yet with the ultimate standing, the freedom and nobility of being God’s family!

    Paul’s allusions to the Shema and various Psalms remind us that in the days leading up to Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph were still devout Jews (as they would be after the birth too!), doing things like reciting the Shema, and singing Psalms. Jesus, in utero, would have heard his mother’s voice doing so, muffled a bit, but rejoicing his infant heart.

   Matthew 1:18-25. A text so familiar: better to be the docent pointing to its wonder than to try to explain it or make it relevant or devise some moral takeaway. To me, three little things here are noteworthy, if I’m the docent pointing to the wonder. The angels anticipates their fear. Yes, Mary and Joseph had good cause to fear, as do we, always. And yet Scott Bader-Saye’s wisdom comes to mind. Noting how, in our post-9/11 culture, security is everything, and so we wind up living timid lives: “Instead of being courageous, we are content to be safe… We fear excessively when we allow the avoidance of evil to trump the pursuit of the good… Our overwhelming fears need, themselves, to be overwhelmed by bigger and better things.” Joseph and Mary’s fears certainly were.

   Joseph astounds. The text speaks of him as “righteous,” caring tenderly enough for her to avoid shaming and ostracizing her. Joseph is a quiet example of mercy. He’s just quiet. In the pageants, he doesn’t get many or any lines. He just stands there, holding the donkey reins, gazing at mother and child. I want to be like him, just close to them, watching, watchful, grateful.

   Matthew reminds us of the child with the prophetic name at Isaiah’s court, Immanuel, God with us – and then clarifies how this nickname jives marvelous with the proper name to be given to this child: Jesus, yeshu‘a, which means either “Lord, help!” or “the Lord saves” – or both. Madeleine L’Engle said Jesus’ first cry sounded like the ringing of a bell. Jesus is one with the cry of all humanity. And Jesus is the divine reply to the cry of all humanity, in his cry, in his being Immanuel.

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  Check out my new book coming out in early January: The Heart of the Psalms: God's Word to the World - which I'm excited about! Abingdon has a study guide and videos for groups or individuals... Great for your groups in 2026!

What can we say come Christmas Eve?

   Christmas Eve!!  Preaching is a challenge, and a joy (I think). There's still usable Advent material in my previous blog, "Preaching Advent" - but beyond that, here are some key questions and thoughts I’ve assembled over the years of preaching Christmas Eve.

     (a) What do they come for? I try to remember what people came for – and precious few would say We come on Christmas Eve to hear Rev. Howell’s sermon.  They come for the music, and at our place for that magical moment when we sing Silent Night, lower the lights, and raise our candles.  It’s hokey – and I love it.  I’ve tried to name the wonder so it isn’t just “pretty.”  If it’s beautiful, it’s because it happens in the dark.  Lots of darkness in the world, and in our lives; so the little candle is a promise, a pledge, a defiance.  It’s a parable of a faithful life of resistance to evil. 

Gandalf (Lord of the Rings) said it well: “Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”  Or this, from the medieval Franciscan, Giovanni Giacondo: “The gloom of the world is but a shadow / Behind it, yet within reach, is joy / There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see / And to see, we have only to look / I beseech you to look.”

     It’s also helpful to help them hear their own music.  We have a soprano sing “O Holy Night,” and there’s much in there (“chains shall he break…”); last year I drew their attention to “Then he appeared, and the soul felt its worth” – suggesting that the order matters:  it is the appearing of Jesus that defines our worth.  We sing “Away in a Manger,” and I’ve invited them to pray the last stanza (“Be near me Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay close by me forever, and love me I pray; bless all the dear children in thy tender care, and fit us for heaven to live with thee there”). When I wrote a book about Christmas music (Why This Jubilee?) a couple of years ago, I found myself surprised, delighted and moved over and over by the depth of theology and psychology and geography and history in our simple carols; I now try to help people really hear what they've sung by heart forever.

     (b) Who comes?  It’s a cheap shot to ding the C&Es.  We aren’t crowded on Dec. 24 because of them.  Rather, everybody comes – and they bring visiting parents, aunts, grandchildren, etc.  But you do have the very occasional attender – and how to speak to them invitingly?  I’m fond of what the novelist Julian Barnes said:  “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.”  I believe the most adamant atheist, and the most casual spiritual person have a deep-seated longing for home – for Christ.  Name the hollow place for what it is.

     (c) What do they need to hear?  I’ve chided the sporadic attenders and pleaded with them to continue coming.  Not helpful.  I do suspect Christmas Eve isn’t a bad time to quite gently take on popular atheism.  Among the many anti-Christian bestsellers was God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens (may God rest his soul…).  I’d play on that and say, Correct, God is not great.  God, rather, is quite small, vulnerable, a God who doesn’t conquer everything but gets defeated in the most profound embodiment of suffering love ever.  Jesus did not rise up miraculously in the manger and denounce his foes.  Jesus has a tender place in his heart for Christopher Hitchens.

     And Bart Ehrman.  Amazingly, and weirdly, a few years ago I received an email from him – on Christmas Eve.  I had been trying to connect with him on something – and he finally responded around suppertime on 12/24.  I had reviewed his book, God’s Problem, which is an embarrassingly vapid regurgitation of the most simplistic, easily answered critiques of Christianity – and his email to me said he didn’t like worshipping with his Episcopalian wife on Christmas Eve, because they raise all those candles.  “If good Christians would do something for the poor instead of raising those candles, I would think more highly of Christianity.”  I replied to him that, yes, a few thousand would raise candles at my place on this evening – but we also would raise over $100,000 for the poor.

     (d) What mood are they in?  Some are sentimental, some are giddy, some are edgy – facing family dysfunction.  Some have already been drinking.  I think almost all are in a bit of a “What really matters” mood.  If you’ve never read Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales, you should.  He says this: “One Christmas was so much like another… I can never remember if it snowed for 6 days and 6 nights when I was 12 or 12 days and 12 nights when I was 6… All the Christmases roll down to the sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street.”  I’ve used this tactic: I’ll ask, What did you get for Christmas in 1998? Or in 2004?  No one can remember, of course.  Then I ask, Whom did you love in 1998?  Who was with you in 2004?  “Through the years we all will be together.”  It’s not the stuff.  I giggle when I recall my girls getting bikes on Christmas Eve.  But what year was it?  And where on earth are those bikes now?  It’s the people, the love, the relationship.  That’s all we have to give, all we really want to receive.  And that’s what God gives.  Not this thing or that answer to prayer.  God gives God’s own self at Christmas.

     (e) What is my tone?  Of all preaching moments, my tone on 12/24 had best be gentle, slower than usual, resonant with wisdom, patience, kindness and wonder.  Sighing is in order.  If you have a smart-alecky voice like mine, you have to practice.

     (f) Where do I go first?  Since homilies on Christmas Eve should be short, you have to take people somewhere quickly.  Not a lot of reiterating the text, or ramping in with chit-chat.  And you have to take them to a very different place quickly.  Could be your grandparents’ Christmas tree.  I like a couple of historical moments.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s wife died in 1835, he remarried in 1843, then she died in a house fire in 1861; shortly thereafter his son was wounded in the Civil War.  With war raging, and bearing so much loss, he woke up on Christmas day and wrote, “I heard the bells on Christmas day Their old familiar carols play, and wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good will to men.  And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along the unbroken song of peace on earth, good will to men.  A voice, a chime, a chant sublime of peace on earth, good will to men. The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound the carols drowned of peace on earth, good will to men. And in despair I bowed my head ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said, ‘For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.’

     This sequence moves me every time.  There is sorrow and good cause to feel forlorn at Christmas – but Longfellow continued: “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on earth, good will to men.’”  That was my sermon one year.

     Or you have Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s amazing letter from a Nazi concentration camp:  “I think we’re going to have an exceptionally good Christmas.  Since outward circumstance precludes our making provision for it will show whether we can be content with what is truly essential.  I used to be very fond of thinking up and buying presents, but now that we have nothing to give, the gift God gave us in the birth of Christ will seem all the more glorious; the emptier our hands, the better we understand what Luther meant: We are beggars, it’s true.  The poorer our quarters, the more clearly we perceive that our hearts should be Christ’s home on earth.”  The image of no presents, empty hands, in poor quarters, even being apart.  Christ comes to humble hearts.

     (g) What about the text?  If you follow my blog, you know I’m big on attention to exegetical detail.  I think I am less so on Christmas Eve – although there are little details in the texts that intrigue and could be lingered on to make a whole homily.  The name Augustus – who promised everything Christ came to deliver: peace, salvation, good news, unity.  You could cite historians regarding the situation when Jesus was born – but it would be hard to top Madeleine L’Engle: “That was no time for a child to be born / With the earth betrayed by war and hate / In a land in the crushing grip of Rome; / Honor and truth were trampled by scorn / Yet here did the Saviour make his home. / When is the time for love to be born? / The inn is full on the planet earth, / Yet love still takes the risk of birth.” The phrase, “No room in the inn”: easy to spiritualize, and I’d commend Frederick Buechner’s eloquent lament over the fate of the innkeeper.  Mary “pondering” in her heart.  So much in Luke 2, much less John 1…

     (h) Anything you might report on?  I think of the prophets and their symbolic actions: is there something you can do and then just tell about it?  A couple of years ago, in the gap between Christmas Eve services, I drove to inner city Charlotte just to see what if anything might happen, if I might notice something.  I parked, and immediately (as if God set it up) a city bus stopped where I was standing.  An older woman, looking utterly exhausted, got off with a battered, rolling suitcase.  She sighed and looked at me.  I innocuously said “Merry Christmas!”  She moaned a little, and said, “Not for me.”  I said, “Tell me about it.”  She squinted, looked me over, dressed as I was in dress shirt, wool slacks, and with my very Caucasian complexion, and said, “You don’t look like the kind of fellow who would understand.”  I hung in there and said, “Try me anyway.”

     I reported this in my homily that evening – and tried gently and briefly to explore who’s hurting out there, would we understand, and how Jesus came not so much for us but for her and her kin, looking very much like someone who would understand.

     (i) The main thing, the only thing.  It’s the Incarnation.  God became flesh; God came down; God is as close as my own heartbeat and the breath I just took.  God understands us, and redeems us from the inside out.  This is why God’s revealing of God’s heart and mind came through an infant – something we all once were, something that elicits tenderness from even the hardest among us.  This is the only real unique thing about our faith.  Hans Urs von Balthasar: “Only the Christian religion, which in its essence is communicated by the eternal child of God, keeps alive in its believers the lifelong awareness of their being children, and therefore of having to ask and give thanks for things.”

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