Tag Archives: incarnation

๐ŸŽ„ #9 The Glorious Incarnation ~ The Mystery

The Glorious Incarnation Logo

ย โ€œThe lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Therefore, children have open, wide-awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by the mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still donโ€™t know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal, and thatโ€™s just what we cannot do with the mysteryโ€ฆ. Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them.โ€

Dietrich Bonhoeffer,ย God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

ย 

๐ŸŽ„ #5The Glorious Incarnation ~ His Wonders

The Glorious Incarnation Logo

ย Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowlyโ€ฆ. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer,ย God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

๐ŸŽ„ #1 The Glorious Incarnation ~ Your Gift

The Glorious Incarnation Logo

Heavenly Father,ย We think we are ready for Christmas โ€ฆNot because we have read the pages of the Bible, but because we have read our credit card statements,ย And they say that we have left no stone unturned, and no gift unbought, if still unpaid for.ย We stand ready to stagger under the weight of Christmas,ย To eat and drink far too much,ย To party with the best of them,ย And to worry all the time that weโ€™ve forgotten something.ย And weโ€™ll do it all, not always because we want to, but because everyone else is doing it, and weโ€™ll go along for the ride.

Somewhere in all of this, Father, please feel free to stop us.ย Any place, any time, just stop us in our tracks.ย Stop us, grab our attention, and then place your gift in our hands where we can see it,ย And in our hearts where we can feel it.ย The gift of knowing that, a little over two thousand years ago, you stepped into the history of this world and placed yourself in a manger in a dirty backstreet stable,ย And called yourself a Christ-Child. It was then that we could see you and understand you as we had never been able to do before: As Creator, as Spirit, and as a man who would walk unerringly towards a Cross.

Everything else, all the food, the fun, the partying, none of it matters, and none of it has any point at all, unless we grasp this simple, beautiful gift and press it close to our hearts and keep it thereโ€ฆ..โ€ฆ.. that we live with you, that we are one with you, Our Lord Immanuel.

What else is there to say?

Except thank you, Amen.

๐ŸŽ„ The Glorious Incarnation #9 ~ The Mystery

โ€œThe lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Therefore, children have open, wide-awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by the mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still donโ€™t know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal, and thatโ€™s just what we cannot do with the mysteryโ€ฆ. Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them.โ€

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

๐ŸŽ„ The Glorious Incarnation #5 ~ His Wonders

Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowlyโ€ฆ. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

ย 

๐ŸŽ„ The Glorious Incarnation #1 ~ Your Gift

๐ŸŽ„ The Glorious Incarnation #1

Heavenly Father,ย We think we are ready for Christmas โ€ฆNot because we have read the pages of the Bible, but because we have read our credit card statements,ย And they say that we have left no stone unturned, and no gift unbought, if still unpaid for.ย We stand ready to stagger under the weight of Christmas,ย To eat and drink far too much,ย To party with the best of them,ย And to worry all the time that weโ€™ve forgotten something.ย And weโ€™ll do it all, not always because we want to, but because everyone else is doing it, and weโ€™ll go along for the ride.

Somewhere in all of this, Father, please feel free to stop us.ย Any place, any time, just stop us in our tracks.ย Stop us, grab our attention, and then place your gift in our hands where we can see it,ย And in our hearts where we can feel it.ย The gift of knowing that, a little over two thousand years ago, you stepped into the history of this world and placed yourself in a manger in a dirty backstreet stable,ย And called yourself a Christ-Child. It was then that we could see you and understand you as we had never been able to do before: As Creator, as Spirit, and as a man who would walk unerringly towards a Cross.

Everything else, all the food, the fun, the partying, none of it matters, and none of it has any point at all, unless we grasp this simple, beautiful gift and press it close to our hearts and keep it thereโ€ฆ..โ€ฆ.. that we live with you, that we are one with you, Our Lord Immanuel.

What else is there to say?

Except thank you, Amen.