Christmas Begins with Things That Don’t Fit

The Christmas story is a funny story. For all eternity, God had been planning on sending his Son into the world to save fallen humanity; and yet when we read the story, it seems rather poorly planned (at least, according to what I would have done). Think about. You have shepherds welcoming the Messiah! Shepherds weren’t high on anyone’s social registry. If you thought the shepherds were out of place, wait until you see the magi! They were gentile astrologers. They just did not belong. There was also this major celestial event—a star! And yet, nobody seemed to pay any attention to it except for those pagan astrologers. All Jerusalem certainly wasn’t breaking out their telescopes and wondering what it could mean. And when the magi come into Jerusalem to ask for directions, no one accompanies them to see for themselves this one born king of the Jews. And Bethlehem

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Christmas Begins with an Image

There are two people. He’s debonaire with a trench coat and a fedora. She’s beautiful with incredibly deep eyes. They are standing face-to-face. A haze engulfs them. It is obvious that they love each other because the scene drips with emotion, but there is also sadness in the air. And while she is also wearing a hat, it is his hat that draws our attention. And rightly so, because it is the iconic take-away for this actor and for this movie. But you already know which movie I am talking about. You correctly identified “The Sound of Music” and “Jaws.” And now you are three for three. He is Humphrey Bogart. She is Ingrid Bergman. And the movie is none other than “Casablanca.” How did you know this movie? Because iconic moments stick with us. I would like to argue that the first Christmas was an iconic moment. I would

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Christmas Begins Before the Beginning

When did Christmas begin? Most people would say that Christmas began roughly 2,025 years ago on a cool winter’s December night. And yet, that can’t be right. See, shepherds didn’t pasture their sheep at night during the winter months. That only happened when it was warmer; like in the spring, summer or early autumn. And that means that the first Christmas was most likely on a warm, spring April/May night. And to make things even more complicated, Jesus wasn’t even born in the first year of the new calendar. Now, we can blame a Scythian Monk named Dionysius for that. Dionysius wanted to honor the birth of Jesus by splitting time in half. He wanted the time before Jesus was born to be called “BC” and the time after his birth to receive an “AD” suffix with Jesus’ birth right in the middle. But Dionysius miscalculated the date of Jesus’

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Christmas Begins with Longing

When does Christmas begin? We have good friends whose son believes that Christmas can only begin if there is snow on the ground. Every night in December, he prays for snow. We know others who believe that Christmas can only begin once the tree is up and decorated. And I know of parents who would argue that Christmas cannot begin until both parents are up and have a cup of coffee in their hand.  When does Christmas begin? I would like to argue that Christmas actually begins with a longing, a hunger for something so big that it sets you on a journey to find it. Sometimes that longing is love.  Sometimes it is peace. Sometimes it is a hunger for meaning and significance. And sometimes it’s a craving for joy. These are the longings of Christmas, desires buried deep in our hearts that call us to discover what life

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Thanksgiving 2025

Everyone loves beautiful things. We hang beautiful things on our walls. We go to art museums and let the art carry us away to beautiful and extraordinary places. We wear beautiful jewelry around our necks and fingers and wrists and hang it from our ears. We gravitate toward beautiful landscapes and scenic locations. Everyone loves beauty. We even love beautiful theology—truths that move us, words that grip us, concepts that free us and then carry us away. The Nicene Creed is beautiful theology. It is present from start to finish as it flows through the magnificence of our faith. But three lines, in particular, stand out as being composed with beauty and grace. Here, we see the composers of the Creed take a complex and once-contested doctrine—who is Jesus?—and make it absolutely beautiful. These eleven words have always captured my heart and my imagination. God from God, Light from Light,

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“Be Like Jesus”

“The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.” (Luke 6:40) I’m sure you remember the old schoolyard scam. You tell someone they have discovered a magic lamp and the genie has offered to give them three wishes. “What do you wish for?” you ask innocently enough. They think for a minute and then respond with their best answers. “I would wish for 10 million dollars, a sexy new sportscar and the ability to get a date.” You smile. They have fallen into your trap. Now, it is your turn to show them just how much wiser and more astute you are than they could ever hope to be. You say, “What an idiot! I would ask for 20 million dollars, five sexy new sportscars and three more wishes!” Hilarity ensues as you walk away feeling so superior while they look

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“Mission”

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20) Even as a kid, it always struck me as odd. You have a super-spy organization, but they have a ridiculous name (the Impossible Mission Force). Worse, they are involved in top-, top-secret missions, but they don’t have a secure office. Instead, they meet in an apartment so that their neighbors can hear what they are up to. The agents are only part-time; and since their other careers are well-known (actors, athletes and models), you would think that someone might recognize them when they were on a job (but luckily, they never do!). And top-secret missions were delivered, not by a real person or even a secure FedEx envelope, but by audio-cassettes, phonograph

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“Dogged Tenacity”

Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62) It is one of Woody Allen’s most famous quotes. He said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” Now, I guess you can dismiss that quote by questioning how wise Woody Allen is. After all, he is just a film maker. Worse, he hasn’t made a good movie in years. But be that as it may, there are many other people who have argued for a similar point, people like Stephen Hawking (“Half the battle is just showing up.”), business guru Harvey MacKay (“You can beat 80% of the competition just by showing up.”), American entrepreneur Paul Budnitz (“Success is an accident. Showing up, even if it is just for five minutes, makes us accident-prone.”) and the actor Peter Gallagher (“To stay on the map, you’ve

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“Suffering”

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21) There are a lot of sayings about suffering; most of them, I’ve never heard of before. Sure, we have the ones everyone knows: “suffer a setback,” “suffer an attack (of something),” “suffer under someone,” “suffer the consequences,” and of course, Sylvester’s “Sufferin’ succotash.” But then, we have a whole host of expressions I’ve never heard of before: “Stir suffering into your soup,” “suffering by candle and quill,” “suffering in the shadows,” “suffering at the doorstep,” and “suffering counting the ceiling cracks.” That’s a lot of “new” suffering, but maybe we all need to learn something new about suffering.  In Luke 9, Jesus prepares his disciples for what is ahead because what is ahead, is suffering. He says (Luke 9:23): “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and

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“Forgiven to Forgive”

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37) I know, it is hard to understand. And that is why we have so many replicas that try to make sense out of it. For instance, Percy Colson said: “Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so intensely.” I guess that makes some kind of twisted sense, but if we are going in that direction, we need more. We need Isaac Friedmann who said: “Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.” If only I knew my granting forgiveness enacted a measure of revenge upon my enemies, then I would forgive far more freely. After all, I am way more in favor of getting revenge than in forgiving and forgetting. But does it? I am not so sure. That’s why this quote from John F. Kennedy makes even

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“Pray This Way”

“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: “‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. . . .’” (Luke 11:1-2) Back in the day, there was a TV police drama named, “Dragnet.” It set the stage for every good cop show after it with its great staccato musical sting, its gripping storylines, its real-to-life actors (Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday) and its great quotes. “The story you are about to see is true. . . .”  “This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I carry a badge.” “The names have been changed to protect the innocent.”  “We were working the night watch. . . .” But today, we want to focus on Sergeant Friday’s most famous line: “Just

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“The Greatest”

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39) Sometimes, when we walk our dog Ragna, he decides he wants to eat grass. And then he gags, and it just gets ugly. And so, we made a law: No eating grass. But then one day, we were walking and he took a bite out of a small plant that was growing by the side of the trail. Now, he felt that he was justified in eating this. After all, the rule was no grass. It never said anything about plants. And when we pressed him on it by saying, “You know what we meant,” he totally disregarded us and threatened to call his lawyer. And so, before we went walking

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“Bearing Fruit”

“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:8) One summer, I worked at an apple orchard. I loved it, but after a month, I was offered a job that paid three times more money and required three times less exertion. And so I moved on, even though, at my new job, I couldn’t eat any of my work. For years, that’s all I knew about bearing fruit. But if we want to be disciples of Jesus, bearing fruit must become our priority and our passion. Right in the middle of the Farewell Discourse in John 15, Jesus begins to talk about fruit. Specifically, he talks about bearing fruit. And he hits it hard. He says that if we don’t bear fruit, we will be “cut off” (verse 2a). And even if we are bearing fruit, but not nearly enough, we

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“So That”

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Sometimes, reading the Bible is an adventure in missing the point. 2 Timothy 3 has been a favorite passage of mine for years, but my focus has always been on those first four words; “All Scripture is God-breathed.” Now, I can make a good argument for why the focus ought to be on those words. After all, the inspiration of Scripture is of critical importance, and scholars wrestle with the meaning of almost every word in this clause. But if that remains our sole focus, we will miss the whole point of the verse. See, the point of the verse is not found in the first four words, but rather on those two small words that appear almost in

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“Follow Me”

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.'” Matthew 16:24 One would never believe that defining what it means to be a disciple of Jesus could be so confusing. Jesus seems to make it very clear here in Matthew 16 (and twenty-one other times in the four gospels). It is comprised of denying ourselves, taking up our crosses and following him. Here’s my problem. For most of my life, instead of emphasizing Jesus’ command to “follow me,” I stressed his invitation to “believe” in him. In other words, instead of focusing on living like Jesus, I centered on thinking properly about Jesus; and my discipleship became a matter of having right theology. And while I may never have admitted it, right thinking was more important to me than right living.  Now, “believing” is important and understanding theology

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Decision Tools

Decisions, decisions, everyone loves making decisions! With our ad for a new pastor out in a number of locations, it’s time for the River’s Edge Pastor Nominating Committee to nail down exactly how to evaluate potential candidates. That is, we have to decide how to decide on the candidate to nominate. Oy vey! This was an area where, once again, we found ourselves blessed to be working with such good friends and ministry partners as we brainstormed ideas and methods and scoring thoughts galore. After tossing around a lot of ideas with seven backseat drivers making suggestions at one Excel Spreadsheets operator, a set of ideas did ultimately click and we’re now all set to consider and discuss applicants to our ad! We have two sets of criteria that we can use as tools to evaluate each candidate: 1) One spreadsheet has a list of good questions to consider while

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Hot Wisdom for Desert Living, 5

Today, we conclude our series on the Desert Fathers. And we conclude with a call to action. Henri Nouwen writes: “Precisely because our resistance [to pursue God and to pray] is so great, we need disciplines. We need very concrete ways of living by which we can keep inner space open for God and grow into the new self. But as we struggle with the demons, we will discover that we are not struggling on our own but that it is the power of Christ himself who makes us victorious and it is that power that transforms us into new people. Indeed, God re-makes us.  “That is paradise: the new life in God.” Throughout the centuries, Christ followers have used various methods to “grow into the new self.” And while, we do the hard work of striving to grow in Christ—a task that involves dying to self, putting off the

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Surveys Tell Stories

Thank you so much for all the responses to the congregational survey that the PNC asked River’s Edgers to complete! We feel like we gleaned some really good insights from this. Some information we have already used to update our wording and requirements on the job listing. Some congregational preferences we’re filing away to reference again when it comes time to evaluate and interview applicants. And some information may be useful for the current and future Session to have ideas on growth and refresh opportunities. So thank you again for your time and ideas!   Since you all may want to see results too (I know I was chomping at the bit to see the overall summaries!), we want to make these available to you now. While most of the entries were filled out on paper - as we requested - the team divided up the task of entering the

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Hot Wisdom for Desert Living, 4

Let’s be honest: we don’t want to go into the desert. We don’t want to confront our demons. In fact, we don’t want to grow, at least not at the price that the desert fathers required. But true spirituality calls us to die to self and give ourselves completely to God. But that seems a bridge too far and so we constantly put it off until tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. There’s a great scene in CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce. A ghost (a person) has a lizard (his rabid sin nature) on his shoulder. The lizard is constantly spewing out lies and tempting the ghost who is more than willing to listen. An angel comes and offers to kill the lizard, but the ghost is unwilling to let him do so. He can’t imagine life without his sin. The angel asks, “Can I kill it?” To which the ghost

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Hot Wisdom for Desert Living, 3

We normally don’t consider the desert to be both a wilderness and, at the same time, a paradise, but the desert fathers saw things from a unique perspective. For them, life in the desert was one of great spiritual richness and abundance. But the desert was also a place where we confronted our darkest demons.  Henri Nouwen writes: "Thus the desert is the fearful wilderness inhabited by the demons and the paradise where the first human beings lived in harmony with God and creation. We find here the core reality of the spiritual life. The spiritual life is the life in which we come to see God, but also the demons. "I have often wondered why there is such an immense resistance in us to be with God. Why do we find prayer so hard; why do we always prefer to be busy instead of praying? If God really exists

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