Ruth 4:1-12

The reason I can continue watching and waiting, even as the world is shrouded in darkness, is because the things I long for are not rooted in wishful thinking or religious ritual but are as solid as a stone rolled away. - Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night

Ruth 3:1-18

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. It can be received gladly or grudgingly, in big gulps or in tiny tastes, like a deer at the salt. - Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

Ruth 2:1-23

The best testimony to the truth of the gospel is the quality of our life together. Jesus risked his reputation and the credibility of his story by tying them to how his followers live and care for one another in community.... How we live together is the most persuasive sermon we'll ever get to preach. - Christine Pohl, Living Into Community

Ruth 1:15-22

We cannot save ourselves. We cannot do life on our own. God does not ask us to have it all together. Quite the contrary, he invites us to admit our weakness, confess our sin, and receive his strength and salvation. He invites us to acknowledge our insufficiencies and allow others to carry our burdens with us. - Eliza Huie and Esther Smith, The Whole Life

Ruth 1:1-14

We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.... - Madeleine L'Engle, The Rock that is Higher

Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, man in God, God in man, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body. - St. Peter Chrysologus, 5th Century

Isaiah 61:10-62:3; John 1:1-18

You could more easily catch a hurricane in a shrimp net that you can understand the wild, relentless, passionate, uncompromising, pursuing love of God made present in the manger. - Brennan Manning

Isaiah 35:1-10

The human race cannot expect to receive any lasting comfort from the world. The comfort we so desperately need must come from somewhere else - in a burst of transcendent power breaking upon our ears from beyond our sphere altogether. - Fleming Rutledge, "Advent Begins in the Dark"

John 1:1-14

Lessons & Carols 2025

Into this world, this demented inn in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited. - Thomas Merton, "The Time of the End is the Time of No Room," in Raids on the Unspeakable

Isaiah 11:1-10

Working against injustice and all that is broken in our world begins with seeking God, who loves justice and who longs for the world to flourish... But the work of justice is hard and long. And while seeing justice accomplished brings one of the most exhilirating joys a follower of Jesus Christ could ever know, the journey to victory is fraught with difficulties. More often than not, perseverance is the deciding factor. - Bethany Hanke Hoang and Kristen Deede Johnson, The Justice Calling