Second Sunday after Christmas (Year 1, NL)

We parade into our worship spaces singing “Hosanna,” only to realize we’ve been following Jesus’ hearse.

Maybe we ask too much of ourselves—and too little of God—if we expect to produce light.

To be God’s people is to be caught up in parable, in story and storytelling.

Herod is frightened—or disturbed, or troubled, or all of the above.

When the holy innocents text makes reference to Rachel, it seems worth remembering her story.

The incarnation means God enters the world as it stands, not as we wish it to be.

You rarely see a children’s pageant based on Matthew’s story of escape from a raging despot.

Is Matthew so embarrassed by Bethlehem’s lowly status in Micah that he feels the need to punch it up a little?

Do they later say to their friends, “How could we not have known?”

In welcoming the Magi into her home, Mary opens the door to the whole world.

The God of exiles, refugees, and migrants still shines light amid today’s present darkness.

Surely God isn’t a narcissist who demands our attention.

And six stars they offer for our own

For which he needs to invent some prophecy

It must have been a strange sight: grown adults, prostrate before a toddler.

Before Mary can cut the tags off the brand-new frankincense, the weeping starts.