The Christmas Season can impact us all in different ways. In fact, each of us individually experience this time in what can feel like After the present are opened, after the meals are served, after the parties are thrown, and after family visits wrap up ... what do we do with this whole "Christmas" thing we spent so must time, energy, and money investing into for the busy holiday season? Is it just this mishmash of traditions and festivities? Is it nothing more than another in a series of cultural experiences that we stress over, speed through, and clean up from?

For those who have truly connected with Jesus, it should be so very, very much more. For those who know the import of God-With-Us, for those who recognize this new reality that was inaugurated by the Christ child, for those of us who have chosen to follow after Jesus, it MUST be so very, very much more. And the latecomers to the Christmas story - the wisemen, the magi - give us a beautiful glimpse into what that MORE is really all about.

#SilentNights #SoundOfSilence #Advent #PEACE

The Christmas Season can impact us all in different ways. In fact, each of us individually experience this time in what can feel like contradictory ways - happiness, loss, nostalgia, pain, fear, excitement, worry, joy, isolation, and connectedness can all be felt by the same person at the same time. For as much as Christmas bears meaning & import on its own, we all bring our life stories, both the good AND the bad, into it.

And that first Christmas & those first participants were the same. Remarkably, the ones who most likely had the most reason to give into a fatalistic despair at that time provided the most beautiful response. A response not reasoned away or toned down with restraint, not tempered with a pressure to "just be realistic." A group of outcasts were the harbingers of the greatest news ever shared.

#SilentNights #SoundOfSilence #Advent #LOVE

One of the hardest things as child growing up in suburban America during the holidays can be waiting for Christmas morning. From the very first Christmas light, the very first Christmas song on the radio, the very first Christmas display in a store, every thought was bent on the glorious morning to come - the dawning of new toys and books and games and even underwear. When that morning finally arrived, you knew wonderful new things awaited.

We love to anticipate good things, even if the waiting seems unbearable at the time, because the promise of blessings to come is hardwired into us. We're literally designed to yearn for benevolence & joy. And we've learned that the waiting is worth it when the promise is delivered.

The Christmas story tells us of this expectant, joyful anticipation in two characters only mentioned for a few lines in the ancient text of the Bible. Two faithful, unassuming followers of God who experienced fulfillment of promises delivered - their waiting was worth it because of the reality it brought.

#SilentNights #SoundOfSilence #Advent #JOY

For those familiar with the Christmas story, two of the most universally recognized figures are Mary & Joseph, the unwed teen girl, who would become the mother of the Savior of the world, and her betrothed husband, who would raise a child not conceived by him in a world hostile to that notion. Like many Jewish people of their day, they had been bearing the silence of God for hundreds of years, waiting for His promises to come true. But now they had to bear the silence that followed personal promises unheard by a callous world that would have been more than skeptical of their claims. Most people would have dismissed their stories (at best) or derided & shamed them (at worst). How did they shoulder that injustice? How could they keep faith when doing so seemed unbearable?

#SilentNights #SoundOfSilence #Advent #FAITH

What do we do when we’ve been trying our best to do things right, yet our dreams are left unfulfilled? What do we do when it’s easier to start doubting the dream rather than hoping beyond hope? What if the silence in our lives really does threaten to silence our own joy and aspirations? The Christmas story begins with two devout people who wrestled with these very questions.

#SilentNights #SoundOfSilence #Advent #Hope