Tag Archives: nativity

When a Hallmark Christmas Isn’t Good Enough

A Guest Post by Paul Johansen

This is the seventeenth in a series of posts engaging with the sermons in Leaps of Faith: Sermons from the Edge.  This post is a reflection upon a Christmas Eve sermon entitled “When a Hallmark Christmas Isn’t Good Enough” (pp. 78-84). The Scriptural text for the sermon was Luke 2:1-20. Continue reading When a Hallmark Christmas Isn’t Good Enough

A Christmas Conundrum

birthday-candlesThe Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson once published a delightful collection of theological conversations he had with his eight-year old granddaughter, entitled, Conversations with Poppi about God. While I may lack Jenson’s great erudition, my five-year old daughter certainly has no problem supplying the type of questions and comments that make for “book-worthy” theological conversation. (See, for example her question in the Advent sermon previously posted.) Her most recent question was raised the other day as we were driving home from a church Christmas event. Continue reading A Christmas Conundrum

An Advent Parable?

For the last number of years during the season of Advent, the congregation of Byron United Church has assembled a life-sized nativity scene in front of their church building facing a major intersection. Each year, the manger is left empty waiting to receive the Christ-child on Christmas Eve. As we drove by the church on our way to visit family yesterday, it became apparent that this year there would be no place for the little Lord Jesus to lay down his sweet head. Where the nativity scene had once stood, there was now only the unseasonably green grass of the church lawn. Muddy tire tracks cut into the grassy boulevard were the only clue pointing to what had transpired. A few nights earlier a driver had lost control of their vehicle and crashed into the nativity scene. I’m not privy to any of the details, but I don’t believe anyone was hurt. The only casualty appears to have been the nativity scene. A crashed-out crèche may not quite reach the disorienting heights of the climax of a Flannery O’Connor short-story, but for those with homiletical ears to hear the scene is surely suggestive.