The weirdness of Christmas 2020
“To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.” Isaiah 61:3 (NLT) A movie seemingly made for Christmas 2020 appeared almost 30 years ago—a creepy little stop-motion musical, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Was it a Christmas movie, a…
Watch and Listen: A 2020 Christmas Playlist
If you’re missing the songs you are used to singing and hearing in church at this time of year, Canadian Mennonite has just the thing for you. We have created a playlist of videos that have been uploaded to YouTube in recent weeks that feature Mennonites from across Canada singing traditional hymns. You can check…
Under the sparkling stars
The carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” paints a Christmas card picture of the ancient town of the Nativity: sparkling stars lighting quiet streets, a Holy Baby resting in a manger as the townspeople sleep, unaware. That idyllic view was replaced by a fuller perspective when my family moved to Israel in 1996. What drew…
Making sense of the bleakness
“An urgent reality … a state of public health emergency.” This is how our premier, Jason Kenney, described our situation in Alberta last week because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is probably not news to anyone that the number of new cases in Alberta has continued to rise dramatically over the last couple weeks. Hospitals…
Gifts received, gifts given
As Christmas approaches, many of us are thinking about gifts. The beautifully wrapped packages under the Christmas tree, of course. Also other types of gifts—the kind that we can receive and give at any time of the year. The gifts that require more than a click on a website or a trip to the mall.…
A gift to faith
Advent is the season of waiting for the gift to come. Advent moves into the season of Christmas, which ends at Epiphany, when the Magi—possibly Zoroastrians—famously gave gifts to the infant Jesus. In these monthly columns I have tried to emphasize the mind as a gift essential to faith. Another emphasis is that our objective…
Waiting in the dark
waiting in the dark this season and place tilted away from the sun provides generous hours of darkness darkness may harbour breathtaking fear endless dread of unknowns aching hearts darkness may host healing rest lovemaking visitations in dreams babies grow strong in dark wombs turnips and beet roots stretch and fatten in dark earth darkness…
An Anabaptist does Advent
I don’t recall talking about Advent in the church in which I grew up, an Anabaptist church with a conservative evangelical bent. Certainly we didn’t mention Lent. And those other church days, with names like “Epiphany” and “Trinity Sunday” and “Feast of Christ the King”? Those weren’t even in my universe. We celebrated the five…
Goshen College’s annual online Advent devotions to start Nov. 25
GOSHEN, Ind. — Goshen College will offer annual online weekday devotions to help believers make time and space in their hearts and minds to reflect during the season of Advent. Beginning Nov. 25, the week before the first Sunday of Advent, and culminating on Christmas Day, Goshen College students, faculty and staff will provide weekday…
An everlasting light
God of grace, today we pray for peace for the City of Bethlehem. It has had more than its share of conflict, as it has changed from a sleepy little town to a bustling city that is visited by millions each year. Lord, you know the walls that separate people in Bethlehem: walls of concrete,…
