Yesterday’s Gospel lesson from the Revised Common Lectionary, from John 1, is about the other John—John the Baptist. There is an especially vicious line about the religious leaders of the day. “Then [the representatives from the religious leaders] said to [John], ‘Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent. What do …
With Epiphany still several days away, this week I decided to focus on a couple other details of the Nativity icon: The cave, the swaddling clothes, and the “mountain” in which the cave is typically located. The twofold purpose of Jesus’ incarnation is to (1) unite all things to himself, so that he can be …
Continue reading About There Being No Room At The Holiday Inn
Every few years during my youth some church or community group would put together a living Nativity scene. No one ever tried to get a camel, although I suspect a Bactrian camel would have done just fine in our northern Montana winters. Cows and sheep were plentiful. The problem was always the donkey. Phillips County …
Continue reading Ox and Ass Before Him Bow (A Story of the Donkey Church)
We westerners (western Europe and North America) love our bad news. Steven Pinker, for instance, has been trying to convince us for years that the world is getting better, but few of us believe him. Global warming, a new, more virulent strain of the pandemic, the reality that the new Matrix movie is even worse …
It dawned on me this week, while driving around a residential neighborhood, that I saw far more Halloween lights and decorations than I'm seeing outdoor Christmas lights. As I think back, it's been a trend over that last several years, but it was the one lonely house with some paltry lights on the house and …
Earlier this month I mentioned Winter Lent. I figure I can’t bring up Winter Lent without a few words on Winter Pascha, better known as Christmas. There has always been a close connection between Christ’s birth and Christ’s death and resurrection in Orthodox and Oriental liturgies. The connection is less overt in the western communions. …
Thursday, Feb 2, is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. It occurs forty days after Nativity. There is a twofold logic to the feast that is more detailed than I want to get into in this essay, but this article offers a good overview. Today most Christian communions consider Christmas to be a …
It started with a rereading of Tuomo Mannermaa’s Christ Present in Faith, I have re-engaged with Protestant theology and thinking in a manner that I have not done for over a decade. What I have found most striking is the differing emphasis on the individual and the society. From an Orthodox perspective, the really hard …
The three lessons for the 4th Sunday of Advent are each about the nature of the Messiah: his humanity his sinlessness, and his deity. Isaiah 7:10-16 deals with it in a prophetic/poetic voice. Paul comes closest to what we might call a theological statement on the subject with his utterance of praise in Rom 1:1-7. …
For a week the snow has hung heavy on the evergreens outside my office window. To the south of the house, the cardinals and squirrels – gathered beak to jowl – sit below the bird feeder trying to fend off the below-zero weather with extra food. The cat slinks in the distance, hoping for a …
Just Another Jim 