You can imagine each of these kissings appearing in the Christmas story: Joseph and Mary share a lover’s kiss; the Virgin kisses the cradled head of the infant Jesus; Elizabeth and Mary exchange a sororal kiss of greeting; etc.
Read moreWho is the 'Spirit of Christmas'?
The Spirit of Christmas is the answer to the riddle given to Adam and Eve at the Fall: that a Seed would rise from the woman and crush the head of the Serpent (Gen. 3:15). The Spirit of Christmas is the Holy Spirit who overshadowed the virgin Mary and filled her womb with the body of Jesus (Lk. 1:35), fulfilling the promise given to Eve. The Spirit of Christmas fulfills promises.
Read moreThere'd be chaos: 'Arthur Christmas' and 'Children of Men'
Jesus said that the secrets of our hearts will be shouted from the rooftops (Lk. 12:3). Very often the voice that does it is our own.
Read moreChristmas is for rotten people
Advent judgments and the Christmas film
…what makes a good Christmas film good is the degree to which the film levies an apocalyptic judgement on the world and redeems it…
Read moreTwelve thoughts on Advent
1. Advent means “appearing”: it is a season focused on the hope of His appearing.
Read moreDon't lay a hand on the son
When Abraham lays Isaac on the altar, he hears a voice crying-out from heaven “Do not lay your hand upon the boy-child” (Gen 22:12). Abraham, in some sense, wasn’t planning to “lay his hand on the child” though, right? Wasn’t he going to sacrifice him? Why doesn’t the voice say “Don’t sacrifice the boy-child” instead? Certainly, that would have been more accurate.
Read moreThe hour that the rooster cries
“Rooster-cry” names that hour when, for anyone who’s been on a farm or who lives in Liliha (where feral roosters prowl the streets), the rooster heralds not so much the breaking of day, but the aching of the night. The rooster crows, as Agamben suggests, as an inquiry in the darkness, asking when the light will return: “His – if you listen carefully – is the heartbroken cry of those who watch in the night and until the last do not know if the day will come.”
Read moreAllhallows and the Feast of Booths
If Easter celebrates God’s deliverance over Sin and Death, the greater House of Bondage, Allhallows celebrates the implications this has for us as the people who follow in the wake of his victory.
Read moreThe theology of the "The Office" at a local high school
In a talk I gave on “The Office” earlier this week I suggested that this convicting and humorous force of awkwardness works in the show like the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was sent into the world, after all, to bring “conviction concerning sin, righteousness, and judgement” (Jn. 16:8). A chief part of what occurs in those uncomfortable awkward silences is a convicting work.
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