john on Christmas Gift-Giving

While Christmas traditions vary the world over, gift-giving is a central practice just about anywhere Christ's birth is celebrated. Sometimes gifts are exchanged on De­cember 6, the feast day of S...

All the Christmas presents in the world are worth nothing without the presence of Christ.

Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.

In many Christian lands Epiphany is the most important feast of Christmas. Especially in Latin countries the arrival of the Wise Men, the Three Kings, looms large in the imagination. My native city, N...

A preaching professor at Harvard University tells the story of the year his 5-year-old son was working on an art project in his kindergarten class. It was made of plaster, resembled nothing in particu...

In rural Msinga, a municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, the highlight of Christmas Day festivities is when men, newly returned home from work in the big cities, gather to sing a...

Christmas is about receiving presents, but consider how challenging it is to receive certain kinds of gifts. Some gifts by their very nature make you swallow your pride. Imagine opening a present on C...

Late on a sleepy, star-spangled night, those angels peeled back the sky just like you would tear open a sparkling Christmas present. Then, with light and joy pouring out of Heaven like water through a...

The man behind the unlikely tradition of Christmas stockings is usually thought to have been Nikolaos of Myra. He was a Greek Christian who became bishop of Myra, a city of Asia Minor. Nikolaos, or Sa...

The incarnation has often been described as “The Great Exchange,” whereupon God took on human form so that we might participate in God's divine life (through the Holy Spirit). In a sermon on the n...

“Dear Santa, there are three little boys who live at our house. There is Jeffrey; he is two. There is David; he is four. And there is Norman; he is seven. Jeffrey is good some of the time. David is go...

For the real good of every gift it is essential, first, that the giver be in the gift–as God always is, for He is love–and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift. Every gift of...

Grace is a gift that costs everything for the giver and nothing for the recipient.

What can I give Him Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb; If I were a wise man I would do my part,- Yet what I can give him Give my heart.

Dear Lord, We come to you this evening with great expectations. Expectations that your Son Jesus has been born, and that his life is a light for us and all people. We come with expectations that He c...

To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year.

The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.

Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Reflection In Isak Dinesen’s 1958 short story, “Babette’s Feast,” we see Babette Hersant, a 19th century French chef from Paris, seek political asylum in the Jutland region of Denmark in the home of ...

Leader: As we go from here,   May the love of the Creator, The joy of the Christ-child And the peace of the Spirit be with you this C...

It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you.

Christmas is Over It’s Christmas morning, not yet light. I am ten years old, creeping down the stairs, and I am full of hope. My siblings and I were told there will be no Christmas. Our mother told u...

Leader: People of God, rejoice! The sun of righteousness has dawned with healing in His wings. To us a Child has been born; to us God’s Son has been given! His eternal reign has broken throug...

Christmas: the Son of God expressing the love of God to save us from the wrath of God so we could enjoy the presence of God.

I have a friend who teaches in the upper peninsula in Michigan. He has one of those schools that run from kindergarten all the way up through eighth grade, including special ed. One of his students wa...

Our family started watching our Christmas movies early this year. We love Christmas Vacation , Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Home Alone (one and two), Rudolph, and Frosty the Snowman ...

Pastor: Gracious God, with joy and thanksgiving we gather as Your people to ponder anew the timeless story of Christ’s birth. For at just the right time, You worked in the most unlikely ways to fulf...

In the sixteenth century, Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci journeyed to China, bringing religious art to share the Christian story with those unfamiliar with it. The Chinese readily embraced images of t...

Ann was a working mother in her 30’s, and one of the millions of women who saw the marshmallow castle on the December cover of a popular women’s magazine. Ann confessed, later, that she felt like a “b...

Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream: A cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star, the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby, th...