God of Grace and God of Glory – rich in love and mercy, all powerful and everywhere present: We come to You at Your bidding, trusting in Your faithful compassion and not in our fruitless efforts to do...
God our Father, Savior and Sustainer— You are the God who knows our name, and the God who revealed Your name as “I Am Who I Am” and shows us Your face in the face of Jesus. You are known to us ... and...
God–our Father, Lord and indwelling Spirit of grace and power: Thank you for hearing us when we pray whether in songs of rejoicing or through tears of sorrow. Thank you for gifts–for the gifts of musi...
Lord of Hope and God of all that’s new—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We’re filled with wonder, gratitude, and joy inspired by the gifts of new life You freely give us. There’s the joy and wonder of eve...
Revelation 1:17-18, Luke 1:38, John 1:14, Micah 5:2, Isaiah 7:14, Luke 1:45, Galatians 4:4-5
The promised Messiah, whose voice sounds like rushing waters, who holds the key to death and Hades, also grew in secret in Mary’s womb. He kicked and elbowed as all babies do, and came at the appointe...
A mother’s service is the most intimate, willing, and dependable of all services, because it is truest of all. None has been able to fulfill it properly but Christ, and he alone can. We know that ou...
Leader: Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations. People: Make your praises heard, and say, ‘Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ Leader: See, I will bring them fr...
Leader: In you, O Lord, we have taken refuge; let us never be ashamed. In your righteousness, deliver us and set us free; incline your ear to us and save us. People: Be our strong rock, a fortress t...
Galatians 4:4-5, Matthew 1:23, Colossians 1:15-17, Isaiah 9:6, John 1:14, Philippians 2:6-8
By stating that Jesus is “born of woman”—this Mary (as both St. Matthew and St. Luke attest)—St. Paul insists that Jesus is most emphatically human, the “firstborn of all creation. That this Mary is a...
Luke 1:30-33, Isaiah 7:14, Hebrews 2:14-15, Luke 1:38, Luke 2:19
And when she, birth-giver— her ordinary vision arrowed down between her legs, through pain and straw, to her son’s dark, slime-streaked hair, to his very skin, red with the struggle of being born—she ...
For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonish...
Luke 2:6-7, Philippians 2:6-7, Matthew 2:1-12, Mark 5:25-34, Matthew 5:3-10, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 61:1
Yet as I read the birth stories about Jesus I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the rich and powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog.
The day of one's birth is a good day for the believer, but the day of death is the greatest day that a Christian can ever experience in this world because that is the day he goes home, the day he ...
John 1:9, Luke 2:15-20, John 8:12, Hebrews 1:6, 2 Corinthians 4:6, Psalm 27:1, Luke 2:25-35
I sing the birth was born tonight, The author both of life and light, The angels so did sound it; And like the ravished shepherds Said, Who saw the light, and were afraid, Yet sarched, and tru they fo...
John 1:14, Isaiah 53:3-5, Luke 2:7, Psalm 22:9-10, Revelation 12:4-5, Genesis 35:16-20
I don’t have the nerve to stand up on Christmas Eve and preach about the choreography of childbirth, but I wish I did. I wish I had the nerve to preach about Mary’s increased estrogen production, a...
Luke 2:13-14, Isaiah 9:6, Luke 2:8-20, Proverbs 16:18, John 12:43, Matthew 23:1-12, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Matthew 5:9, Luke 10:25-37, 1 John 1:9, Psalm 51:10, Luke 22:54-62, Psalm 46:10, Matthew 26:36-46, John 14:13-14
Lord Jesus Christ, at your birth the angels gave glory to God in the highest heaven, and offered peace on earth to all humankind. We struggle to follow the heavenly host. All too often we focus on giv...
It is not birth only, nor propinquity of blood, that makes a king lawfully to reign above a people professing Christ Jesus and his eternal verity; but in his election must the ordinance, which God has...
A House for All People Every summer my church hosts a week-long summer camp where children experience the beauty and majesty of the Lord. The first year we sent our daughter to it, she loved it and l...
“The reason I am a minimalist today,” Troy began, “is because of the color of my house.” I’d never heard that one before, so I asked Troy to explain what he meant. Troy was a tall man of about forty w...
Job 3:1-26, Psalm 94:19, 1 Peter 5:7, Matthew 14:22-33
We greet the world with a cry and a scream, with clenched fists grasping after what we so desperately need. None of us remember the shock and drama of being born, but have you seen a baby’s birth? I r...
The Christian religion begins in a New Birth in the power of the Spirit. It is developed under His guidance, and sustained by His presence; but ignoring the Spirit, it becomes a matter of education an...
Lord, you came among us, not in a way we expected, but as a baby. We had great difficulty seeing you in so small a form, so vulnerable an incarnation. Lord, you came to us where we least expected. Yo...
Luke 2:10-11, John 1:4-5, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Matthew 5:14-16, Acts 9:1-22, Hebrews 13:8, Revelation 7:9-10
It is impossible to conceive how different things would have turned out if that birth had not happened whenever, wherever, however it did ... for millions of people who have lived since, the birth of ...
Genesis 21:1-5, 1 Samuel 2:1-11, Luke 1:11-17, Luke 2:1-21, Isaiah 9:6, Matthew 1:21, Micah 5:2
A century ago, men were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon and waiting feverishly for news of the war. And all the while in their own homes, babies were being born. But who could think ...
God, you come to us and meet us in the strangest ways: sometimes in the stillness at the eye of the storm or in the midnight of our lives; sometimes in the raging whirlwind or in the high noon of our ...
Dr. William Evans, who pastored College Church from 1906–1909, was an unusually accomplished man. He had the entire King James Version of the Bible memorized as well as the New Testament of the Americ...
Matthew 2:11, James 1:17, Matthew 2:1-12, 2 Corinthians 9:7, Proverbs 22:9, 1 Timothy 6:18, John 3:16
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...
I believe any dream worth birthing will require fierce labor to bring it forth. Some of those painful, spiritual contractions you’ve been feeling are not necessarily indicators that you are out of God...