1517 Blogcast

A few weeks ago, I watched a video of fireworks going off in modern-day Nazareth on New Year’s Eve. The person filming was on the roof of his building, so he was able to capture quite a spectacular panoramic display. There was anticipation and excitement in the air as the sky was filled with color and flashes of light. Everyone in Nazareth that night would have been able to see the light.

Here’s a radical statement: there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re a creature. You’re a baptized child of God. You’re exactly who you’re supposed to be, regardless of what you or anybody else may say. Whatever is in the past is in the past.

America has bequeathed to the church a fixation on politics. It’s not merely that American Christians are politically active, but that church-institutions in the public space have taken it upon themselves to engage in political action of various kinds and from various perspectives.

The Word of God, the Eternal Logos, Jesus Christ himself is revealed to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Little by little, we find that God hands us his story as our own.

 It is the words the pastor speaks that send the dead out alive.

The following is an excerpt from “Faithless to Fearless” written by David Anderson (1517 Publishing, 2019).

Looking back on the year, the narrative we’re fed is that we should be able to show how much we’ve grown, how much we’ve done, all the successes we’ve had, how improved we are.

Christians are given a new name at baptism. We are given the Triune name of Father, Son, and Spirit.

The real power of his hymn comes from the fact that Bonhoeffer does not offer a rosy picture of life or any of the tropes so typical of cheap piety that tell us that everything is always right, that things happen for a reason, and that we should try to stay positive.

It is that Christmas carol, the curious “We Three Kings” that we are looking at today in our examination of the origin and meaning of Christmas carols