Just a simple song of praise for Christmas morning as we proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, shouting with the angels and shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to all!”
Merry Christmas!
The Quiet Game
We often think of Zechariah’s silence as a punishment or consequence of his doubt. In Luke 1:20, we read: “because you didn’t believe, you will remain silent, unable to speak until the day when these things happen.”
Yes, the silence is a result of Zechariah’s unbelief, but nowhere does it say he is being punished. What if in fact the silence was a gift, a difficult gift to be sure, but a gift nonetheless. For it is in this silence that Zechariah’s faith grows beyond measure. When he is again able to speak, he can only speak the prophetic words of the Lord which the Holy Spirit had written on his heart all those months. Silence clears out the rambling chaos of our minds and fills the emptiness with the Word which speaks all of Creation into being.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “It is silence in which God in known and through the silence of His mysteries that God declares Himself to us…”
Just a Small Thing
Late one evening the week after Christmas in 2010, I was sitting with my guitar in the dark sanctuary of Springfield United Methodist Church (Springfield, KY) as the soft glow of street-lights reflected through the beautiful stained glass windows.
I was thinking about the amazing Christmas Eve Candlelight Service we had there only a few nights before, and the church-wide Christmas party afterward at one of the member’s homes. It was such a small gathering, though not too small given the size of the congregation, but to this day it was one of the most special Christmas Eve nights I can remember.
Sometimes… maybe most of the time… it’s the small things that mean the most. That’s what this week’s song is all about…
Are We There Yet?
The temple has been rebuilt. The city walls are under construction. Jerusalem is being restored. God’s people have come home.
And yet as they gather to dedicate the temple we read that the older priests and heads of the families who had seen the first temple wept aloud. No matter how much they tried to make it look like home, it would never be quite the same again. Their weeping reminds us that we are not home yet…
So Hard to Believe
Advent and Christmas can serve as a type of “thin place” in our church calendar. It is a season when the veil between heaven and earth seems more thin than usual. It may be a place where the holy and the ordinary meet.
That’s what this week’s song is about as we move into the Advent season. May the weeks ahead be filled with “thin places” where you encounter the miracle of God with us in beautiful and amazing ways.
Road Trip
Something deep within us knows that we are far from home. We long to get back to Eden but sometimes it feels more like a foolish dream rather than a hopeful reality. This is what Israel felt in exile. They were so far from Jerusalem and there seemed to be no way home. God had left them to face the consequences of their rebellion and now, like the prodigal son, they found themselves eating with the pigs, desperate to return home as slaves in their father’s household.
Yet here in Isaiah 40, God speaks into the silence of their exile… “Comfort, O Comfort my people…” God’s voice speaks into the chaos of life and declares a new hope, a new reality, a new creation. He calls the people to prepare a way in the wilderness, but it is not the way we might expect.
This “highway in the desert” is not a highway for the people to travel to get home. We cannot make our own path to God. Rather, they are to build the highway so that God can come to them. In the wilderness God met Moses on the mountain, but now God wants to come down from the mountain and dwell among the people. “Comfort, O Comfort,” the Lord declares. “I am coming to you. I will meet you in your exile. I will be your shepherd. Prepare the way!”…
Thin Place
Advent and Christmas can serve as a type of “thin place” in our church calendar. It is a season when the veil between heaven and earth seems more thin than usual. It may be a place where the holy and the ordinary meet.
That’s what this week’s song is about as we move into the Advent season. May the weeks ahead be filled with “thin places” where you encounter the miracle of God with us in beautiful and amazing ways.
A Long Way From Home
…Jesus wasn't born in a bubble of tinsel and shining lights. He came as a light into darkness, hope into despair, peace into chaos, joy into suffering and love to overcome the hatred and violence of the world, but to truly know Christ, we must first learn to sit with the reality of violence and suffering in our world. Like Job, we can’t go home just yet…
Beautiful
Welcome to Advent!
This year I’ll be sharing a few original Christmas songs to help us dive deeper into what it means that God became flesh and moved into our neighborhood. Click on the blog link below to hear the first in this series, an original medley of my song, “Beautiful” along with adaptations of O Come Emmanuel and O Come Let Us Adore Him.
I’m honestly not sure where the next steps of this journey will lead so I invite your participation. In the coming year, what “new beginnings” would you like to see on this blog? What would you find helpful in your spiritual journey as we learn together how to echo the still small voice of God?
For now in this season of Advent, may you truly experience the beauty of the presence of God each and every day.
On Endings as New Beginnings
As our journey through St. Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer comes to an end, may it also be a new beginning. May you arise not only this day, but every day, through the mighty strength of the “eternal circle”, God, the giver and sustainer of life, whose mercies are new every morning and whose love and faithfulness, like the circle, knows no end.
In the coming year, what “new beginnings” would you like to see on this blog? What would you find helpful in your spiritual journey as we learn together how to echo the still small voice of God?