Although the scribes could explain where the Messiah should be born, they remained quite unperturbed in Jerusalem.

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.

All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,

Come and stand amazed, you people,
See how God is reconciled!
See his plans of love accomplished,
See his gift, this newborn child.

It’s dark, in the bible, when Christmas is spoken.
Always a bolt from the blue for the broken.

Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, l honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger…

The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised the baton.

Lord Jesus, master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas.

Advent is the hush in the theatre between the house lights going down and the curtain going up.

No one can celebrate

a genuine Christmas

without being truly poor.

May the sounds of Advent
stir a longing in your people, O God.
Come again to set us free from the dullness of routine…

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

If only God can bring peace and good will, if only God can create "a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells," then what is the point in our doing anything?

Look up, you whose gaze is fixed on this earth, who are spellbound by the little events and changes on the face of the earth.

There can’t be very many of us for whom the sheer fact of existence hasn’t rocked us back on our heels.