Feeling a tad stressed this December 10? Just two weeks shy of Christmas Eve, and amid all the hustle and bustle of holiday parties, or shopping, or decorating, or writing your Advent 3 sermon (yes, Working Preachers, I’m thinking of you), or studying for finals and writing papers (yes, my students, now I’m thinking of you!), or of making lists and checking them twice (oh, yeah, that’s supposed to be Santa’s job!)? Well, wherever you may find yourself or whatever you may be doing, I’d invite you take a three-minute Advent mental health break and enjoy this early Christmas present from The Piano Guys. It’s a rendition of Angels We...

The Christian Church does not reckon time according to the civil year.  It goes by its own system, called the church year, and its calendar differs in many respects from the civil one.  It is not determined by scientific exactness, but by spiritual experience.  In the civil year, days and seasons are determined by the revolution of the earth about the sun.  In the church year, however, the formative principle is the life and teaching of the Son of Righteousness. –Luther D. Reed, in Worship, p. 34. The Greeks had two words for time.  The first, “chronos” (from which we get our word “chronological”) refers to...