Deep-End Discipleship

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,     though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me     one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old,     from ancient times.” – Micah 5:2 NIV – Have you ever misjudged something or someone? There’s an expression “don’t judge a book by its cover.” It means not to assume a book is good or bad based on whether or not you like the cover. A book certainly is more than its cover. A book is full of words coming from the heart and/or mind of the author. To assume a book is good or bad based on the cover alone would be to miss out on all the book has to offer. We can do the same thing with people, places, or situations where we assume something based on what's on the "cover" but don't take the time to flip through the pages of the situation. We know Bethlehem is the city in which Jesus was born. As the prophet Micah states, Bethlehem was a small town. Not much was expe

“ The Lord your God is in your midst—a warrior bringing victory. He will create calm with his love; he will rejoice over you with singing.” - Zephaniah 3:17 CEB - I love getting packages! Something about even the expected order from Amazon that is sitting on your doorstep is great! I think I am joined by many, many others for whom just the sheer joy of opening a package is fun. Even if you think you know what you are getting, opening it in person is filled with just a moment of the unknown. Will it be what I think I am getting? Is it what I imagined it would look like? Do I even know or remember what this package might be? The physicality of seeing the package revealed paired with the actual moment of claiming what is yours is wonderful. Obviously this raw giving nature of Christmas taps into just this with wrapped gifts and surprises. What I think is so tricky about Christmas for us at times is that we have had to open the same package from God over and over again. “O

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being…The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it… And the Word became flesh and lived among us…” John 1:1-5 and 14 NRSV The Gospel of John is rather different from the other three gospels, which we call the synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke all share similar stories about Jesus, so much so that we can put them side by side and see parallels. This is not the case for the Gospel of John. In this season of Advent, we hear a lot of scripture from the Gospel of Matthew and of Luke, as these two include some type of birth narrative about Jesus. Matthew tells us about the Magi visiting the infant Christ, while Luke tells the majestic story of the heavenly host coming to tell the shepherds about the birth of Christ. Both of these texts

May the Lord cause you to increase and enrich your love for each other and for everyone in the same way as we also love you. May the love cause your hearts to be strengthened, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his people. Amen. 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 CEB The other day my roommate and I were in Hobby Lobby looking for some Christmas decorations. We were walking up and down the aisles trying to find some good decorations to help us get in the holiday spirit. Every aisle we went down we found a billion things we loved (of course because it’s Hobby Lobby). As we walked down this one aisle, for probably the 5th time, I said something along the lines of “oh man everything is so cute, this is dangerous, maybe we shouldn’t have come here”. Right after I said it, a woman in the same aisle said “I know! Isn’t Hobby Lobby the best!”. We joked about how much money we were going to spend, and how we definitely shouldn’t have come to