Jesus reveals God as a God who wants to be even closer to his people than his people could ever possibly imagine. The great good news of the Gospel is precisely that God wants to be with us to share our struggle, walk our way, suffer our pain, and die our death, so that we are able to say, “There is nothing human that God does not share with us.” That is the great good news. God is with us in every aspect of our lives.
Despite all the crassness of life, despite all the harshness of life, life is saved by the singing
of angels. — Howard Thurman (The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations, p. 10)
Dear reader, over the next few days as the year 2025 draws to a close and the year 2026 approaches, may we all take time in the midst of the chaos of this world to listen for the song of hope, peace, and justice. And remember the hope of John 1:5 — The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when clouds are heavy and foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe, when forced from its mother’s nest, it claims the right to life. It is the brooding presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked ways straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil. – The Mood of Christmas and Other Celebrations, p. 3
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
… Into that heaven of freedom
… let my country awake.”
Verse of the day
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
– Titus 3:4-5
Voice of the day
No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God – for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God.
– St. Óscar Romero
Prayer of the day
Incarnate Word, you came to us in vulnerable circumstances and during dangerous times out of a deep, abiding love. May the enaction of our own love echo yours.
“Each year, Christmas invites Christians to reject violence and war, to break with the betrayal of past Christian history, and to start over again on the journey of nonviolence in the footsteps of the nonviolent Jesus. Christmas is a celebration of nonviolence, pure and simple. It invites us to repent of violence and choose once again Jesus’ way of nonviolence. It summons us to name warfare as obsolete and get on with the work of practicing nonviolence in our personal lives; joining the global grassroots movement of nonviolence for disarmament and justice; and institutionalizing nonviolent conflict resolution. Christmas calls us to a high ideal: the abolition of war itself, and along with it, the abolition of poverty, corporate greed, racism, executions, empire, fascism, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction. This goal is achievable, if we want it.”—John Dear
A few years ago, this icon by Kelly Latimer caught my eye and my heart and we bought it. It hangs in our study where we can remember the truth of this holy season.
One Christmas Eve (approximately the year 2000) in Las Vegas where I was stationed with the Air Force my family and I attended a service at one of the local Presbyterian Churches (USA) congregations. Before the beginning of worship a man came into the sanctuary and went up and laid down by the Nativity. He lived on the streets and evidently didn’t “fit in” with the congregation (he would have been welcomed by the members and the pastor of Central Presbyterian in Mobile, AL where we worship and serve the unhoused community and others in need today). Anyhow, back to the Las Vegas church… an usher went up to the front of the sanctuary where the man was and escorted him out of the church. I looked at my wife and son and said, we’re leaving, how could we worship in a sanctuary where Jesus wouldn’t have been welcomed?
Sadly, in 2025 the act of kicking Jesus out of the sanctuary is even more relevant. I see his face in the faces of the victims of the immoral actions of this administration. According to some who claim to follow Jesus, these actions are sanctioned and supported.
So once again, as I did last Christmas, I share Merton’s piece as both a reminder and a warning.
Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it — because he is out of place in it, and yet must be in it — his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst. — Raids On the Unspeakable, p. 72-73 and A Thomas Merton Reader, p. 365
Who will you welcome to the Lord’s table? In whose eyes will you see Jesus? Are we, dear reader, willing to do the work of Jesus and the prophet Micah? He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
I think that we have hardly thought through the immense implications of the mystery of the incarnation. Where is God? God is where we are weak, vulnerable, small, and dependent. God is where the poor are, the hungry, the handicapped, the mentally ill, the elderly, the powerless. How can we come to know God when our focus is elsewhere, on success, influence, and power? I increasingly believe that our faithfulness will depend on our willingness to go where there is brokenness, loneliness, and human need. If the church has a future it is a future with the poor in whatever form. Each one of us is very seriously searching to live and grow in this belief, and by friendship we can support each other. I realize that the only way for us to stay well in the midst of the many “worlds” is to stay close to the small, vulnerable child that lives in our hearts and in every other human being. Often we do not know that the Christ child is within us. When we discover him we can truly rejoice.
Verse of the day
Because of the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
– Luke 1:78-79
Voice of the day
We, too, are made of wonders, of great / and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, / of a need to call out through the dark.
– Ada Limón, “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa”
Prayer of the day
Light of the world, illuminate us on how to walk a path of peace that incorporates our distinct sense of wonder.
“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.”—CS Lewis
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