We Are Not Alone

But into that fear, that heart of darkness, there is another voice, another message. It's hard to hear, amidst the cries of danger, especially those that call for overreactions to those things that scare us. It's a small voice, easily buried and forgotten, but it's there. And it's the reason we are gathered here tonight.

All of the Hype

I wonder how many things we miss getting caught up in the hype surrounding Christmas. What other stories do we not hear because we are focused solely on the gifts, the parties, the stuff of Christmas? What other important things in life are we ignoring? For Americans and Christians, December 25 is Christmas Day, the day we celebrate Jesus's birth. But for everybody else, it is just Thursday, a Thursday like any other, full of work and stress and hopefully play and rest. What else will happen in the world that day that no one will ever know about because Christmas is that day?

Booooooooring

I think the truth, the scary truth, is that we look at our ordinary lives, our ordinary families, our ordinary cars, our ordinary houses, our ordinary town, and we are frightened by what we see; or rather, we're frightened by what we don't see—something extraordinary. We are nothing special, nothing worth noting. If we died tomorrow, would anyone outside our small extended families notice or care?

Out of Control

Advent reminds us that we can't stop wars from happening, that we can't prevent people from murdering other people, that we can't cure every disease, that we can't prevent every suffering, that we can't prevent every (or any) natural disaster. Like when we witness a hurricane or a tornado tearing through our feeble human-made constructions, Advent is a time when we are humbled by the fact that so very, very little is really in our control.

Christ the… King?

The sign on his cross reads, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” That sign was meant to be a bit of extra mockery, a warning to the people about what happened to those who claimed lordship over the land. It was meant to degrade the notion of a king, to dash the hopes of the proud and to bring sorrow to the oppressed. It was meant to say, “This man is no king."