I don’t know about you, but when I think of the Christmas story, I think of, well, the Christmas story. There’s a kind of seamless whole that I have in my head made up of angels and shepherds and Mary and Joseph and the baby in the manger and the stable animals and the star and magi and all the rest. What I don’t think about is how I learned this story; how, that is, it was told to me. Certainly I learned a lot of it from the Bible, hearing the various – and distinct – portions of the story read from Matthew and Luke. But I also learned it from the Christmas carols. And from the manifold crèches in all shapes and sizes that I’ve...
Luke 1:38
posted by DJL
Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her. “Here am I.” There is an openness in those three simple words, a complete availability, that is simply breathtaking. The rest of this Mary’s famous...
The Annunciation
posted by DJL
We are not yet at the point of Advent where we hear the story of Gabriel’s visit to Mary. But, to be honest, I think we save that reading too late in the season to give it due attention. Perhaps it’s because, as Denise Levertov notices in her poem “The Annunciation,” we...
Luke 1:34-37
posted by DJL
Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also...
Bible Story Jam
posted by DJL
We’ve grown pretty accustomed in the church to having someone – usually a pastor – teach us what the Bible means. Maybe that’s during the sermon or, if we’re adventurous or have extra time on our hands, during the an adult education class. But what would happen if we...