Acts 17:11
Consider this
“The time that made Advent meaningful, that made the Incarnation come alive, is we had a family tradition where we viewed slides on an old technology called View-Master, and one of the slide sets was the Christmas story. There was this one picture of the wise men following the star, which covered the wall of the house that we were sitting in, and it was just amazing and mysterious…”
What does the Incarnation mean to me? What does it mean that Jesus, the Son of God, became flesh and lived among us? I am not sure I have the language for a sufficient answer. Rather, let me borrow these words from the first verse of “O Holy Night.” O holy night, the stars are brightly shining, It is the night of our dear Savior's birth, Long lay the world, in sin and error pining 'til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
“When I was thinking about the Incarnation and a Christmas song that meant a lot to me, I was thinking back to when I was expecting our second daughter and she was due mid January and we knew she had Down syndrome and would need a major open heart surgery shortly after she was born. And I think the weightiness of that Christmas…”
“The part that most intrigues me [about the Christmas story] is just Joseph's willingness to go along with this plan. He's engaged to this woman who ends up being pregnant and he doesn't want to shame her, he doesn't want to bring shame to her or to his family or her family. He plans to divorce her quietly. But then just having an angelic visitation come to him and say, ‘No, this is from the Lord’ …”
“We sing quite a number of songs for Christmas, both in Uganda and here. One of the Christmas songs that stands out is “Joy to the World, the Savior Has Come…” Growing up as kids — first of all, I grew up in Uganda. To be specific, in the village where a majority of people treasured Christmas and look towards that day…”
“One of my favorite Christmas carols is “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” I just love the invitation in there. I love the words, O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, and those are descriptors that I don't normally think to label myself, especially in mid December. I think of myself as frazzled, exhausted, drained. But that carol is an invitation to worship the Lord …”
“The one Christmas carol that stood out for me, and not only musically, but certainly the words, is ‘Holy Night,’ or ‘O Holy Night.’ One particular verse that is in it ... In fact, I wrote it down here, ‘The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger in all our trials born to be our friend. He knows our need, to our weakness no stranger…’”
“For me, the church calendar is something that's fairly new, I would say in the last few years, that's become something very meaningful to me on a private level. I'd actually like to incorporate it more into our family life. But I'll just say that Advent itself is a time of longing and it's an expression of our desire and ache for something that is, and isn't yet…”
