Passage: Mark 2:1-19    

  Description: Chapter 26 from Brian McLaren's "We Make the Road by Walking" - If we believe in God's kingdom, then we will make it real. In a crazy world where people think that a little more violence will end violence, a little more hate will end hatred, a little more revenge can end revenge, a little more gold can cure greed and a little more division can create cohesion - we need more than ever the teachings of Jesus.

Passage: Matthew 25:31-40    

  Description: Jesus uses notion of Hell as a teaching tool. He uses Hell as a graphic and powerful way to teach about God’s love, to introduce peace and condemn violence, and to wake people up about their current practice and life choices. The idea of hell arrived quite late in the theological development of Judaism. Even the notion of an afterlife arrived quite late, too. By the time of Jesus, the idea of an afterlife was well situated in the wisdom and teaching of the day, but only after having lived as an exiled people among other cultures and having adapted those understandings of the afterlife. It turns out that the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, and the Egyptians who all had their own versions of what happened after death provided influence in the development of a theology of heaven and hell for Judaism. The Christian theology of the resurrection advances those understandings to the place where the gates of Hell are blown open anddeath has no victory. God in Christ has conquered Hell. Which leaves us with the awareness that hell has no purpose or power in God’s compassionate realm of eternal life except perhaps has a teaching tool.

Passage: Isaiah 60:1-6 & Matthew 2:1-15    

  Description: What does it mean to follow Jesus? The wisemen teach us that people of all faiths are welcome in our community, and help us learn about living our faith.

Passage: Isaiah 40:9-11 & Luke 1:67-79    

  Description: It’s a mild Saturday afternoon and in the spur of the moment, I decide to put up my outdoor Christmas lights. I’m kind of pumped about this for a couple of reasons: it’s not -20C and it’s not the 3rd week of December! I collect the tools I need, the extension cord and set them aside. All I need is the lights. And for the life of me I can’t find them. I look in all the right places. In all the right boxes. In a low state of frustration, I ask Susan if she knows where the nice LED multi-coloured outdoor lights are. She says, “David, what do you mean?” I say, “What do you mean, what do you mean”. And that’s when I realize even though I have the clearest picture of the lights, and where they are that in fact, they don’t exist anymore. They went down the river. I sit rather amazed at this transaction. 2 ½ years later, I’m still looking for things that I can’t find because they left the house long ago. There’s a blessing in this because, on the upside I don’t have to blame my mental pause on my age. I can blame it on the flood.

Passage: Psalms 23:1-6 & Luke 2:8-16    

  Description: Rest in God – rest in the one who provides daily what we need for nourishment, rest in the one who comes with healing and hope, rest in the one who is more than we can imagine, rest in the one of whom the angels sang and the shepherds stood in awe. Come to the manger this Christmas and discover that God is already here – with all you could ever need. God is with us – that is the gift of Christmas! As Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”