It is hard to image what the world would be like if Jesus Christ had never been born. Christmas is a time to remember that he is both the Gift and the Giver of everything good.
Maybe the fact that it is hard to rejoice this morning means we are right where we are supposed to be on the third Sunday of Advent, somewhere in the disconnect between the world as we want it to be, ourselves, as we want ourselves to be, and the world and ourselves as they really are. And the only hope is the coming of a Savior.
Baruch describes the end of exile as a kind of costume change: “Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction…and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God.” This idea of taking off and putting on is what repentance and forgiveness is about, and it is simply the whole of the Christian life.
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Christmas Eve, December 24, 2012 (
Advent 3: December 16, 2012 (
December 9, 2012 (