Happy Christmas!

 

I use the adjective Happy in my title, in preference to the more common Merry, simply because, for me, it has a less bibulous ring about it. 

What is undebatable, is that Christmas gleamed more brightly than usual in the corridors of Christianity Today this Fall when the news broke that the compact booklet carrying its print version of Advent readings, The Promised One, had sold out before its November release. (Thank goodness for the digital backup!)
No-one could wait to get their hands on these essays (including ideas for families and groups) by sixteen established religion writers.
Kelli Trujillo, CT’s Managing Editor, Print, openly admits that what she most looks forward to at this time of year is the music—the hymns and carols that warm our hearts.

Someone else who connects eagerly with the music is recording artist Carolyn Arends who reminds us that the Hebrew word Isaiah uses to describe the peace that the Promised One will bring is shalom, which conveys wholeness, harmony, and health.

Arends suggests that Shalom rejects the idea of life as a zero-sum game and dares to imagine the comprehensive flourishing of every person and every thing, all at the same time.

“The Prince of Shalom,” she says, “makes you a stream in the desert and fills you with gladness and joy.”

In the same caring spirit, J.D. Peabody of New Day Church in Federal Way, Washington, invites us to consider how much God’s attention to the shepherds resembles David’s description of God as a shepherd in Psalm 23.

Peabody writes: “I’m grateful for a Savior who knows his skittish sheep well, [and] laid his life all the way down in the hay, placing himself between us and every danger.”

And Jay Kim, lead pastor at WestGate Church, Silicon Valley, reflects on John 8:12: ”I am the light of the world,“ whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.”

He refers to the work of the 19th-century English painter William Turner, observing that Turner was concerned not merely with light, but with light leading the viewer in search of meaning.

“Light is not the end, he concludes. “It is an invitation toward hope, beauty, and meaning itself.” Which are qualities, I would add,  that we should gratefully embrace throughout the season of Advent (and, in fact, the whole year)—no matter in which form (print or digital) they enter and enrich our lives.