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THE END OF ADVENT is here:
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Showing posts with label advent series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advent series. Show all posts
Monday, December 24, 2012
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Day 22 - THE WINTER SOLSTICE
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Day 6 - SAINT NICK'S DAY
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Day 6 is colorful and interesting.
(Santa is always interesting.) See it here:
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Sunday, December 25, 2011
CHRISTMAS DAY
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"Digging Into The Birth of Christmas"
by Ariel David,
The Associated Press
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ROME - The church where the tradition of celebrating
Christmas on Dec. 25 may have begun was built near
a pagan shrine as part of an effort to spread Christianity,
a leading Italian scholar says.
Italian archaeologists last month unveiled
an underground grotto that they believe ancient Romans
revered as the place where a wolf nursed Rome's
legendary founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus.
A few feet from the grotto, or "Lupercale,"
the Emperor Constantine built the Basilica of St. Anastasia,
where some believe Christmas was first celebrated on Dec. 25.
Constantine ended the frequent waves of anti-Christian
persecutions in the Roman empire by making Christianity
a lawful religion in 313. He played a key roll in
unifying the beliefs and practices of the
early followers of Jesus.
In 325, he convened the Council of Nicaea,
which fixed the dates of important Christian festivals.
It opted to mark Christmas, then celebrated at
varying dates, on Dec. 25 to coincide with the Roman festival
celebrating the birth of the sun god, Andrea Carandini,
a professor of archaeology at Rome's La Sapienza University,
told reporters Friday. The Basilica of St. Anastasia
was built as soon as a year after the Nicaean Council.
It probably was where Christmas was first marked on Dec. 25,
part of broader efforts to link pagan practices to
Christian celebrations in the early days of the
new religion, Carandini said.
"The church was built to Christianize these
pagan places of worship," he said. "It was normal
to put a church near these places
to try to 'save' them."
Rome's archaeological superintendent Angelo Bottini,
who did not take part in Carandini's research,
said that hypothesis was "evocative and coherent"
and "helps us understand the mechanisms of the passage
from paganism to Christianity."
Bottini and Carandini both said future digs
could bolster the link between the shrine and the church
if structures belonging to the "Lupercale" are found
directly below the basilica.
The "Lupercale" shrine - named after the "lupa,"
Latin for she-wolf - is 52 feet below the ground.
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From THE URANTIA BOOK
Part IV, 122, 8
The Birth of Jesus
All that night Mary was restless so that neither of them slept much. By the break of day the pangs of childbirth were well in evidence, and at noon, August 21, 7 B.C., with the help and kind ministrations of women fellow travelers, Mary was delivered of a male child. Jesus of Nazareth was born into the world, was wrapped in the clothes which Mary had brought along for such a possible contingency, and laid in a near-by manger.
In just the same manner as all babies before that day and since have come into the world, the promised child was born; and on the eighth day, according to the Jewish practice, he was circumcised and formally named Joshua (Jesus).
The next day after the birth of Jesus, Joseph made his enrollment. Meeting a man they had talked with two nights previously at Jericho, Joseph was taken by him to a well-to-do friend who had a room at the inn, and who said he would gladly exchange quarters with the Nazareth couple. That afternoon they moved up to the inn, where they lived for almost three weeks until they found lodgings in the home of a distant relative of Joseph.
The second day after the birth of Jesus, Mary sent word to Elizabeth that her child had come and received word in return inviting Joseph up to Jerusalem to talk over all their affairs with Zacharias. The following week Joseph went to Jerusalem to confer with Zacharias. Both Zacharias and Elizabeth had become possessed with the sincere conviction that Jesus was indeed to become the Jewish deliverer, the Messiah, and that their son John was to be his chief of aides, his right-hand man of destiny. And since Mary held these same ideas, it was not difficult to prevail upon Joseph to remain in Bethlehem, the City of David, so that Jesus might grow up to become the successor of David on the throne of all Israel. Accordingly, they remained in Bethlehem more than a year, Joseph meantime working some at his carpenter’s trade.
At the noontide birth of Jesus the seraphim of Urantia, assembled under their directors, did sing anthems of glory over the Bethlehem manger, but these utterances of praise were not heard by human ears. No shepherds nor any other mortal creatures came to pay homage to the babe of Bethlehem until the day of the arrival of certain priests from Ur, who were sent down from Jerusalem by Zacharias.
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Christmas children, is not a date,
it is a state of mind.
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Mary Ellen Chase
American Author & Educator
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He who has not Christmas in his heart,
will never find it under a tree.
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Roy L. Smith
Bible Educator
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I will honor Christmas in my heart,and try to keep it all the year.
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The character Ebenezer Scrooge in
Charles Dickens'
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
THE END OF ADVENT 2011
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I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
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When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.
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If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of God's Angels in heaven to sing
He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King
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I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
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John Jacob Niles
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I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
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When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.
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If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of God's Angels in heaven to sing
He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King
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I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
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John Jacob Niles
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The One Who Cries in the Wilderness
This is another passage from a piece we used
earlier in the series, written by a Father Alfred Delp S.J.,
who was condemned as a traitor in Nazi Germany.
He wrote this shortly before he was hanged in 1945.
Woe to an age when the voices of those who cry
in the wilderness have fallen silent, outshouted
by the noise of the day or outlawed or swallowed up
in the intoxication of progress,
or growing smothered and fainter
for fear and cowardice. The devastation will soon
be so terrifying and universal that the word
"wilderness" will again strike our hearts and minds.
I think we know that.
But still there are no crying voices to raise
their plaint and accusation. Not for an hour
can life dispense with these John-the-Baptist
characters, these original individuals, struck by
the lightning of mission and vocation.
Their heart goes before them,
and that is why their eye is so clear-sighted,
their judgment so incorruptible.
They do not cry for the sake of crying
or for the sake of the voice.
Or because they begrudge earth's pleasant hours,
exiled as they themselves are from the
small warm companionships of the foreground.
Theirs is the great comfort known only to those
who have paced out the inmost and furthermost
boundaries of existence.
They cry for blessing and salvation.
They summon us to our last chance,
while already they feel the ground quaking
and the rafters creaking and see the firmest of
mountains tottering inwardly and see the very stars
in heaven hanging in peril.
They summon us to the opportunity of warding off,
by the greater power of a converted heart,
the shifting desert that will
pounce upon us and bury us.
Let us ask for clear eyes that are able to see
God's messengers of annunciation;
for awakened hearts with the wisdom to hear
the words of promise. Let us ask for faith
in the motherly consecration of life as shown
in the figure of the blessed woman of Nazareth.
Let us be patient and wait,
wait with Advent readiness for the moment
when it pleases God to appear in our night too,
as the fruit and mystery of this time.
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And let us ask for the openness and willingness
to hear God's warning messengers and to
conquer life's wilderness through repentant hearts.
We must not shrink from or suppress
the earnest words of these crying voices,
so that those who today are our executioners
will not tomorrow become accusers because
we have remained silent.
Let us then live in today's Advent,
for it is the time of promise.
To eyes that do not see, it still seems
that the final dice are being cast
down in these valleys, on these battlefields,
in those camps and prisons and bomb shelters.
Those who are awake sense the workings
of the other powers and can await
the coming of their hour.
Space is still filled with the noise of
destruction and annihilation, the shouts
of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping
of despair and helplessness.
But just beyond the horizon the eternal realities
stand silent in their age-old longing.
There shines on us the first mild light of
the radiant fulfillment to come.
From afar sound the first notes as of
pipes and singing boys, not yet discernible
as a song or melody. It is all far off still,
and only just announced and foretold.
But it is happening. This is today.
And tomorrow the angels will tell
what has happend with loud rejoicing voices,
and we shall know it and be glad,
if we have believed and
trusted in Advent.
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Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books.
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John Updike
American Author
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“You must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say ‘Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation’ … But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
2 PETER 3: 3-4, 8-9
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We live in astounding times. The combination of momentous political change and unusual natural phenomena in recent years has many folks wondering just what the heck is going on. The evangelist Billy Graham recently wrote that he has never in 50 years of ministry had so many people ask him if the end of the world is at hand. The timing of the Second Coming has always titillated Christians, perhaps because it is concealed. For as Jesus said, “No one knows that day or hour, not even the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
That instruction often gets forgotten when believers see events that correspond with the signs Christ said would foreshadow His return. There is growing speculation that the Second Coming is imminent, a trend that will only intensify as the turn of the millenium approaches. Christians must take care to not be deceived – either by those who insist He’s coming tomorrow, or those who claim He won’t return in our lifetime. For the “scoffers” are also many, and are on thin ice as well. For decades, progressive thinkers ridiculed “Bible believing” scholars who insisted that Christ’s return would be immediately preceded by such unlikely events as European political union and a cashless society. No one’s laughing today.
But as Peter understood, a comma on a page in the Bible could be 50 or 100 years for us. God defines “soon” much differently than we do. God’s desire is for “everyone to come to repentance” – for us to invite Christ into our hearts and our lives. On a Bethlehem night 2,000 years ago, He came as a babe. One day, He will come in glory.
In our world, He comes to us through the love and caring of forgiven people living changed lives. Christ means for us to join him in eternal life. For now, His will is for us to be here, loving our neighbor until they ask us why, and then pointing them toward the Cross.
These meditations were prepared by Rich Miller of Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Rich is a lay speaker who attends the The Hopewell United Methodist Church in Hopewell Borough, N.J.
From the Christmas in Cyberspace website
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Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books.
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John Updike
American Author
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“You must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say ‘Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation’ … But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
2 PETER 3: 3-4, 8-9
.
We live in astounding times. The combination of momentous political change and unusual natural phenomena in recent years has many folks wondering just what the heck is going on. The evangelist Billy Graham recently wrote that he has never in 50 years of ministry had so many people ask him if the end of the world is at hand. The timing of the Second Coming has always titillated Christians, perhaps because it is concealed. For as Jesus said, “No one knows that day or hour, not even the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
That instruction often gets forgotten when believers see events that correspond with the signs Christ said would foreshadow His return. There is growing speculation that the Second Coming is imminent, a trend that will only intensify as the turn of the millenium approaches. Christians must take care to not be deceived – either by those who insist He’s coming tomorrow, or those who claim He won’t return in our lifetime. For the “scoffers” are also many, and are on thin ice as well. For decades, progressive thinkers ridiculed “Bible believing” scholars who insisted that Christ’s return would be immediately preceded by such unlikely events as European political union and a cashless society. No one’s laughing today.
But as Peter understood, a comma on a page in the Bible could be 50 or 100 years for us. God defines “soon” much differently than we do. God’s desire is for “everyone to come to repentance” – for us to invite Christ into our hearts and our lives. On a Bethlehem night 2,000 years ago, He came as a babe. One day, He will come in glory.
In our world, He comes to us through the love and caring of forgiven people living changed lives. Christ means for us to join him in eternal life. For now, His will is for us to be here, loving our neighbor until they ask us why, and then pointing them toward the Cross.
These meditations were prepared by Rich Miller of Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Rich is a lay speaker who attends the The Hopewell United Methodist Church in Hopewell Borough, N.J.
From the Christmas in Cyberspace website
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