This poem by Thomas Hardy is the perfect one for New Year's Eve. I usually offer it every year as a reminder that there is always hope. Written on New Year's Eve 1899, as the world faced impending wars and a century of tumult and catastrophe, Hardy, like many other poets and philosophers, feared what lay ahead. But in this bleak poem, Hardy allows a glimmer of hope to which we too can hold. Listen this day for the voice of the darkling thrush in your part of the world and sha

"...an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’" Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 In eight short verses in the gospel of Matthew, Joseph has three dreams which guide him to make major changes for him and his family. First the angel of the Lord tells him to leave Bethlehem and go to Egypt, then from Egypt to Israel,

And so he was born, this gloriously impossible baby, in a stable in Bethlehem...God come to be one of us. from The Glorious Impossible by Madeleine L'Engle. In a cave or a stable, the Son of Man was born to a poor young girl and her beloved husband with whom she had never had marital relations. All of us who have given birth know what this means...what it looks like and how it feels. The risk of sanitizing this birth is great, because it was hardly a decent place or way f

Much of the birth narrative of Jesus is overly sanitized, in my humble opinion, and we gloss over the essence of the moments and of the language used to describe them. For example, the term virgin in description of Mary which is incomprehensible. I dare not presume to understand the miracle of the virgin birth, but I have found enlightenment in descriptions of the conditions of a virgin soul, particularly in Thomas Merton's poignant explanation of le point vierge, the virgin

In this Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary, we are reading the gospel of Matthew, but rarely will you hear the reading below from the first chapter of the genealogy of Jesus. It is full of unpronounceable and obscure names which do not make for good sermon material. * see below In the wonderful old Advent book Watch for the Light which I have been reading since 2001 the year it was published by the Plough Publishing House, Gail Godwin's entry for December 16 reminds u

Zechariah 1:7. On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah son of Iddo. On the tenth day of the twelfth month of the year 1966 of the Gregorian calendar in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall England, the bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev. Maurice Key, laid his hands on my head, confirming me and empowering me for service to God*, praying that God would sustain me all

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Matthew 23. 27. - 39 What makes one wise? According to Mr. A. I. Google, wisdom is "the skillful, God-honoring application of truth in everyday life, starting with reverence

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. 2 Peter 3. 1 - 10 Yet again in today's reading from 2 Peter, we are warned that "the Lord will come like a thief" and in Sunday's gospel we heard the daunting prediction that "two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left." What is this Second

"This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. " 2 Peter 1. 12 - 21 In my quest to put on the Armor of Light, the reading from 2 Peter this morning reminded me of one of the wonderful ways to bring Light into the world. As he recalled the Transfiguration, Peter remembers the voice from heaven that came down on that holy mountain as he was a witness to that prophetic message. That little world "beloved" can brighten a face, a scene, a situation in so many ways.

"Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." Romans 13. 11 - 14 Yesterday I confessed that my goal this Advent is to put on the Armor of Light, and I questioned what that might look like. In a beautiful sermon I heard yesterday, I was reminded of the answer. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians we get a literal description of the Armor of Light, when the writer says: Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstan