While it's difficult to understand in modernity, Jesus' mighty deeds (healings, exorcisms, surprising interactions with nature) are one of the least disputed facts about Jesus' life and ministry. How do we reenter his world separated by 2,000 years? 

At the beginning of Jesus ministry, no one would of recognized him as "God," and he didn't seem to have a clear claim to the title "Messiah." How would his contemporaries have made sense of him? Perhaps the way he seemed to understand himself: as a prophet. 

"'Among all God's actions," according to Isaac the Syrian, "there is none which is not entirely a matter of mercy, love, and compassion: this constitutes the beginning and the end of his dealings with us." Before Jesus has said or done anything, God declares Jesus to be beloved—and reveals the love he has for all creation. 

Luke, more than any other canonical Gospel author, gives us a glimpse into Jesus' childhood and adolescence. What we see there confounds our understanding of divinity and ordinary humanity alike. 

Most people have a general sense of why Jesus was born, and there lots of theories that describe the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection. But why did Jesus... live? In the Apostles' Creed, the entire span of Jesus' earthly life and ministry is compressed down to a single comma. What might we discover if we expanded that comma and took Jesus' life (not just his birth and death) serious? 

Is "uncertainty" the opposite of "faith"? If that's true, then Christianity is primarily about keeping doubt at bay. The New Testament, however, gives us a different picture of faith, one that inspires us to put our trust in Jesus. 

"Sometimes," Flannery O'Connor wrote, "it seems you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it." If that's true, it's an indictment of how far the Church has veered off course. Maybe we can find some wisdom by looking at the somewhat ambiguous figure of John the Baptist, and consider what it means to not take offense at Jesus. 

The prophet Isaiah declares, "Comfort, comfort my people," yet Rachel weeps in Ramah, refusing to be comforted. Where is God when people suffer? The stories of Christmas point in a surprising direction. 

Our society is experiencing the most widespread and rapid shift in religious affiliation since the Third Great Awakening following the Civil War. Some suggest that we would have to look back even further in history—all the way to the Reformation—to find some comparable to what we're living through today. How do we approach the celebration of the birth of Christ when it seems like almost everyone is rethinking their beliefs? Perhaps we can find wisdom in the stories (and silence) of the first Christmas. 

What if there's more to a posture of thankfulness than a single day each year? Javan Lapp invites us to consider God's words through the Prophet Jeremiah.