Posts Tagged ‘Luke 2:1–20’
To Be Made Truly Human – Br. Keith Nelson
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Br. Keith Nelson
The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Eve
Merry Christmas!
It is likely that you are here in this chapel tonight because you seek an encounter with Jesus, whose humble birth we celebrate with awe and joy. Perhaps you are also here because you hunger for meaningful tradition in the midst of life’s changes and chances. You may be here because your mother or spouse or best friend loves coming here, and you came because you love them; or because you love gazing at the flickering candles and singing familiar, beloved carols, and why not? It’s Christmas!
Whatever the reason, you are most welcome. To be led through our doors by any one of these reasons has drawn you nearer to the ground of your humanity, in which God delights. And to be drawn there is to be drawn nearer to the heart of God: God who on this night, in Jesus, became truly human for our sake, to “center our senses in himself,” in the words of one ancient Christian writer. Read More
God’s Purpose for Us is Joy – Br. Keith Nelson
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The only shepherd I have ever met outside the pages of Scripture is a Navajo elder with a heart on fire for Jesus. I’ll call him Edward.
At the end of six weeks of crosscultural ministry with Navajo Episcopalians last summer, my supervisor invited me to spend several days helping Edward tend the sheep on her family sheep-camp. I spent time in a hogan, a traditional, eight-sided, dirt-floor dwelling reserved for ceremonies. In the sweltering heat of midday and early afternoon, I sat in silence, listened to the creatures around me, prayed, and wrote about what I had learned. The rest of the time, I followed Edward around. I siphoned water for the sheep from a huge tank into long metal troughs twice a day. I accompanied Edward in his ancient Chevy pickup along a circuit of bumpy dirt trails, watching the sheep with binoculars and listening to Dolly Parton on cassette tape. At the hottest times of the day Edward would materialize in my doorway with an orange popsicle, or an ice-cold bottle of water.
And when it grew dark, Edward brought light.
I remember most vividly my first night there. I had prayed Evening Prayer at the top of a ridge overlooking a dry creekbed, and I lingered as the stars came out, followed by swooping owls and bats.
As I made my way back to the camp, I was astonished to see the ramshackle outbuildings and sheep corrals had been utterly transformed: thousands of solar-powered Christmas lights and garden lanterns, invisible by day, now laced the deepening darkness. They were the only lights for miles, as if the stars above each had a twin here below, blinking and dancing amid the chicken-wire fencing, the rusty rain barrels, and the sleeping sheep. Read More
The Mystery of Bethlehem – Br. James Koester
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We have partnered with TryTank – the experimental laboratory for church growth and innovation – to produce a new preaching resource aimed particularly at smaller congregations (those with an average Sunday attendance of 29 or fewer). That said, any congregation can use it. We have also paired it with an adult forum curriculum. From Christ the King Sunday to Christmas Day, we have six sermons each about 12 minutes long. They are based on the Sunday lectionary. The video sermons will be available on the web and can be played as a sermon during the service.
More information and to watch the video: https://www.trytank.org/vpmdec25.html
Br. James Koester,
Superior
There is a reason we celebrate Christmas at the end of December, when the weather is cold, the days short, the nights long and dark. There is a reason we celebrate Christmas at the darkest, coldest time of the year. There is a reason we come out in the dark and cold, and make our way to churches, chapels, cathedrals and monasteries, all over the world.
Our ancestors in the faith knew why. They knew something about night, and about darkness. They who lived in a world lit only by fire, knew that the world, at least at this time of the year, was indeed a dark, cold place. They knew something about the dark. They knew, as we probably don’t, how easy it is to get lost in the dark. They knew, as we probably don’t, that there are indeed things to be afraid of in the dark. They knew, as we probably don’t, that danger lurked in the darkness of the night.
And so they looked for the light. Any light. While darkness represented cold and fear and death, light was the place of warmth, and love, and life. So they looked for the light. They paid attention to the light. They knew that moment in the night when darkness gave way to light; that time of the year when the light began to overcome the dark, if only by a minute. Read More
The Poverty of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Calvary – Br. James Koester
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Isaiah 9: 2 – 7
Psalm 96
Titus 2: 11 – 14
Luke 2: 1 – 20
When I came to the community now slightly over thirty years ago, we had just begun the process of writing our new Rule of Life. The old Rule had been respectfully laid aside, and we were experimenting by reading portions of the Rules of Life of other communities. We wanted to hear other voices, as we practiced using our own voice, as we began to articulate our own vision for our community.
But just as we listened to other voices, and began to listen to our own voice, we would often hear the voice of our original Rule of Life in the background. How could we not hear it? We had, after all, been listening to it on a nearly daily basis for almost 100 years by that time. Over the decades it had seeped into our corporate, and individual souls and would emerge in conversations, and reflections about the new Rule of Life that we were working on. Even though we were no longer reading our old Rule when I came to the community, certain phrases became familiar to me, so much so that thirty years later, they still crop up every once in a while in my prayer, and conversation.
One such phrase comes from the original chapter on Poverty where we read if the Society in any place is poor. Look to God to do great things by it. God has chosen the poor, the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Think of the blessed poverty of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Calvary.[1] It is this image of the poverty of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Calvary which arrests my attention this Christmas.
Making a Stable in Your Heart – Br. James Koester
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Isaiah 62: 6-1
Psalm 97
Titus 3: 4-7
Luke 2: 1-20
Perhaps this has happened to you. As a child, or even as an adult, you read a book and it quickly became one of your favourites. Maybe you read it several times. With each reading you developed a mental picture of what the people looked like. Maybe this mental image of yours included details such as the look and feel of the surroundings, the house, the room, the landscape. Perhaps you could even see what the characters wore or ate. Maybe your mental picture of the book was pretty detailed. Perhaps it was quite simple. In either case you had an image, a feel that brought the book alive for you, and you could literally see and smell it all.
And then you saw the movie. And boy were you disappointed. The people looked all wrong. The house was not as you imagined it. Important details were left out. Or things were put in the wrong order. And where on earth did that character come from? They weren’t in the book. Read More
Bending the Arc of the Universe – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Isaiah 9:2-7 / Psalm 96:1-4, 11-12 / Titus 2:11-14 / Luke 2:1-20
Christmas is here again! It’s a dark night – it’s a very dark world right now. And yet, on this night, this holy night, joy bubbles up! Joy, that God has come into our world, and given to us a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. The joy that Isaiah announced to Israel: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” (Isaiah 9:2) The joy that the angels announced to the shepherds: “Behold I bring you good news of great joy for all people.” (Luke 2:10)
This joy, this good news, is proclaimed in the very midst of the darkness; “The light shines in the darkness” says St. John, “and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5) Read More
This Christmas: Light A Candle – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Isaiah 9:2-7 / Psalm 96 / Titus 2:11-14 / Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
Christmas is here – this silent and holy night. We are all gathered here in this lovely church to be still – before a great and mighty wonder. “While all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, thy Almighty Word leapt down from heaven, from thy royal throne.” (Wisdom 18:14) And we have come to adore Him.
Spread out before us is this beautiful crèche, lovingly made from olive wood by woodcarvers in Bethlehem. I love to just stand and gaze at it – with wide-eyed wonder, like a child. I love the flickering candles. It reminds me that it all happened in darkest night. Those shepherds were keeping watch over their flock by night. And that deepest darkness was suddenly shattered by an intense light. “The angel of the Lord stood among them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.” (Luke 2:9) Read More
The Christmas Gift – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Luke 2:1-20
This evening, during the serving of Holy Communion, we will be invited to sing the very familiar, “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!” The words of this hymn were penned by the great Boston preacher, Phillips Brooks, in the 19th century, a very different world than we know today.i Read More
Waiting in the Dark – Br. Curtis Almquist
Luke 2:1-20
In the beginning, for all of us, we were enwombed in darkness. And though some children, as they grow up – perhaps even some of us here – learned to be afraid of the dark and of “things that go bump in the night,” our experience of life begins in the safety and security of the darkness of our mother’s womb. Read More