My little surprise was a four-year old at the nursery school Wednesday morning chapel service asking me if I believe in Santa. This possibly came in response to my complimenting their holiday decorations in how the Christmas Spirit is there soon as I walked in the room. I paused; remembering my daughter asking the same question and the answer was the same, yes there is a Santa Claus. Dangerous as this was, I shared the story I created for my daughter in which Santa Claus is a party planner preparing the most wonderful birthday party ever for all to receive the most wonderful gift. The birthday party is for our Lord, Jesus Christ and we need to be “good” and ready for his coming. Sitting in a circle the children listened carefully and then one little boy asked why we don’t sing the “happy birthday” song and my response was we sort of do every Sunday in worship. Needless to say we then sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. Was this experience to be part of my Advent message?
It was time for me to begin what Florence calls “study it” and take time for the scholarly approach. I returned to the Luke text and decided to explore my earlier Moravian connections first before looking to commentaries. Looking through the Moravian Ground of the Unity, I was drawn to the paragraph on personal belief …show more content…
It was James Carroll’s 2014 book, Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age that returned my focus to John the Baptist and the relationship to Jesus. Carroll argued of the relationship that, “John enabled Jesus to embrace his first idea of himself. John therefore, was a source of meaning for Jesus. And the meaning was structured around John’s preaching of the apocalypse.” His use of the 1998 scholarly work The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide by Theissen and Merz supported his image of young Jesus as a follower/disciple of John. This was pointing to the connection of John “preparing” Jesus for his
It was time for me to begin what Florence calls “study it” and take time for the scholarly approach. I returned to the Luke text and decided to explore my earlier Moravian connections first before looking to commentaries. Looking through the Moravian Ground of the Unity, I was drawn to the paragraph on personal belief …show more content…
It was James Carroll’s 2014 book, Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age that returned my focus to John the Baptist and the relationship to Jesus. Carroll argued of the relationship that, “John enabled Jesus to embrace his first idea of himself. John therefore, was a source of meaning for Jesus. And the meaning was structured around John’s preaching of the apocalypse.” His use of the 1998 scholarly work The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide by Theissen and Merz supported his image of young Jesus as a follower/disciple of John. This was pointing to the connection of John “preparing” Jesus for his