I keep thinking about the radical meaning of Christmas: God is in our flesh.
There is no divine being some far distance away (at the north pole, for example). Instead, early Christians seemed to slowly realize that God was truly present in the body of a Jewish rabbi who traveled around a backwoods region north of Jerusalem, before being killed by the Roman government for being a threat to the “peace” of the empire. God was in his body. His Body was God’s Body…
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If we want to, we can read bad news all day. There are almost 8 billion people living on the earth, so there are numerous tragedies vying for our attention. Television “news” stations know that we are captivated by bad news, so they feed it to us 24 hours a day.
So we have a choice: Do we pay any attention to the good news? In other words, do we actually trust that God is doing anything in the world? Or are we faithless?…
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The man named his wife Eve because she is the mother of everyone who lives. The Lord God made the man and his wife leather clothes and dressed them. The Lord God said, “The human being has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Now, so he doesn’t stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever, the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to farm the fertile land from which he was taken. —Genesis 3:20-23
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The Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre while he sat at the entrance of his tent in the day’s heat. He looked up and suddenly saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from his tent entrance to greet them and bowed deeply. He said, “Sirs, if you would be so kind, don’t just pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought so you may wash your feet and refresh yourselves under the tree. Let me offer you a little bread so you will feel stronger, and after that you may leave your servant and go on your way—since you have visited your servant.” They responded, “Fine. Do just as you have said.” - Genesis 18:1-5
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For my pastor’s column for August, I want to relay to you some portions of the official report from the 2022 Session of the Annual Conference, which took place July 13-15 in Tupelo…
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