Humanity of Christ

As fire threatened people in Jasper National Park, Colleen Knull sprang into action. “I like to be able to help people,” said the 18-year-old. “I like the fact that what I do in my work does good.”

Knull is a volunteer firefighter in North Okanagan in Alberta, Canada. She was working a summer job as part of the kitchen staff at a Jasper lodge when one night an evacuation order was issued for the area. “The smoke was coming up from the mountainside,” said Knull. “It was big.”

Knull quickly spread the word to guests of the lodge and tracked down any other people camping out in the area. In total, she rallied 16 people together for a four-hour hike in treacherous terrain to safety.

Rebecca Tocher, a hiker who was in Knull’s group said, “There was more intense smoke, my eyes were burning, there was ash falling constantly. She was an amazing leader and was just making sure that everyone was working together.”

Knull used her knowledge of the area and tracking skills to navigate in the dark. Knull said:

I had previously ridden a horse up to that lodge on that same trail and throughout the way me and my employer, we had cut logs on the way up," said Knull. "There were 67 logs, so there would be 67 cut logs on the way down…So, I used my tracking skills – following horse tracks, and horse manure.”

“She was just on it and she led it, the whole way,” said David Richmond, another hiker in the group.

“I do it because at the end of the day, I’d want somebody there to help,” said Knull.

During the hike down, the group was able to communicate with search and rescue crews to help with the evacuation. Knull eventually drove all 16 people in her pickup truck out of the evacuation zone. No one was seriously injured.

Knull said the experience reinforced her motivation to become a full-time, professional firefighter.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Rescue; Salvation; Savior, Christ only - Christ, our compassionate Savior, personally leads us through the valley of death, just as He promised, 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me' (Psalm 23:4). His prior experience ensures our safe passage. 2) Evangelism, Witnessing - Christians can show others the way to safety in the Lord since they know the way (John 14:6).

Author Philip Yancey writes:

Where I live in the Rocky Mountains, you can see several thousand stars with the naked eye on a clear night. All of them belong to the Milky Way galaxy, which contains more than 100 billion stars, including an average-sized one that our planet Earth orbits around—the Sun.

Our galaxy has plenty of room: 26 trillion miles separate the Sun from the star nearest to it. And traveling at the speed of light, it would take you 25,000 years to reach the center of the Milky Way from our home planet, which lies out in the galaxy’s margins.

Until a century ago, astronomers believed the universe consisted of our galaxy alone. Then, in the 1920’s, Edwin Hubble proved that one apparent cloud of dust and gas in the night sky, named Andromeda, was actually a separate galaxy. Now there were two. When NASA launched a large telescope into space for a clearer view, they appropriately named it after Hubble.

In 1995, a scientist proposed pointing the Hubble Space Telescope at one dark spot, the size of a grain of sand, to see what lay beyond the darkness. For ten days, the telescope orbited Earth and took long-exposure images of that spot. The result, which has been called “the most important image ever taken,” would astonish everyone. It turns out that tiny spot alone contained almost 3,000 galaxies!

Scientists now believe that if you had unlimited vision, you could hold a sewing needle at arm’s length toward the night sky and see 10,000 galaxies in the eye of the needle. Move it an inch to the left and you’d find 10,000 more. Same to the right, or no matter where else you moved it. There are approximately a trillion galaxies out there, each encompassing an average of 100 to 200 billion stars.

Possible Preaching Angle:

How should we adapt to this humbling new reality? Back when people assumed the universe comprised a few thousand stars, a psalmist marveled in prayer, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Ps. 8:3–4).

The answer, of course, is found in the New Testament revelation that God loves the world so deeply (John 3:16) that he sent his Son in the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6-7) to die for humanity. In an act of humility beyond comprehension, the God of a trillion galaxies chose to “con-descend”—to descend to be with—the benighted humans on this one rebellious planet, out of billions in the universe.

Carrie McKean writes in an article on Christianity Today online:

When I think about the night of Jesus’ birth, the first picture that comes to mind is straight from my childhood. It’s like I’m peering into a snow globe manger scene. Snow falls softly, blanketing the hillside in a carpet of quiet. All is calm. All is bright. Give it a good shake, the snow gently swirls, then settles over the pristine couple and silent baby once again.

But that image is quickly crowded by another. 15 years ago, my husband and I lived in a dusty Chinese village on the outskirts of Beijing. We volunteered for four years at New Day Foster Home, a private, Christian nonprofit organization. In those days…they helped fund surgeries and provided long-term foster care for medically fragile orphans. We lived in an apartment complex about a mile from the organization’s campus, and most mornings we walked behind a flock of sheep and their shepherd on our way to work.

You could smell that shepherd’s stable before you saw it. Fetid and filthy, the sheep crowded in at the end of a day. In the summer, flies buzzed. In the winter, sludge froze solid. I would pass the sheep and their shepherd, pitying him a little. Around Christmas, I pictured my Savior born amid fresh, sweet hay in an inexplicably warm and comforting stable. The snow globe in my mind was just how I wanted to imagine Jesus’ entrance into the world. But the stable I walked past told the truth: Stables smell like dirty sheep.

I wanted to throw a snow globe against a brick wall. That clean Nativity was plastic, fraudulent, and fake. I felt angry at myself for all the ways I’d cheapened and tamed the gospel. My own faith felt fake and plastic too.

The world I saw outside my window needed a God-become-flesh in circumstances far messier than those perfect little snow globes. And here was this shepherd and his sheep, upending my picture of the Incarnation and revealing that the lack was in my seeing, not in Christ’s coming.

There’s no way around the fact that incarnation means coming to a filthy and fetid world, just like that stable in China…. It’s a world with disease and mental illness. A fallen creation groans with earthquakes, floods, and fires. Sorrow, unending sorrow. It is all too dirty, and yet he came near.

Jesus is God-made-flesh who doesn’t ask us to clean up the mess before he comes. He enters into our messes, always, always with us. He put on human skin…willingly emptying himself (Phil. 2:5-8), becoming a shepherd for you and me, a bunch of dirty sheep (John 10:11). He didn’t leave us in our squalor but led us to green pastures—to healing, rescue, and restoration of our souls (Ps. 23). I love a God who sees dirty sheep and tends them himself.

At approximately 1:30 a.m. on March 26, 2024, a cargo ship leaving the Port of Baltimore struck the (I-695) Francis Scott Key Bridge. This caused a devastating collapse of the bridge.

Completed in 1977, the Francis Scott Key Bridge was a practical, final link to the beltway of roads that circled Baltimore Harbor, a much-needed solution to reduce Harbor Tunnel congestion. But for so many, it was more than that. For decades blue-collar workers crossed the bridge. Teenagers celebrated new driver’s licenses by traversing it. And couples were known to get engaged near it.

For some, it symbolized the working-class communities around it—for others, the city itself. The bridge also served as a reminder of a storied chapter in history: Near Fort McHenry, the bridge is believed by historians to be within 100 yards from where Key was held by the British during the War of 1812. It was here that he witnessed the siege of the Fort in September 1814 and wrote the poem that became the national anthem.

And the Key Bridge was simply a presence in people’s everyday lives. Since the collapse, residents have been processing the loss on many levels, from profound grief for the six workers who died, to concern for the immigrant communities affected by the port’s shutdown, to a sense of emptiness that has cast a pall over their memories.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Bridges have tremendous significance. It’s the way to travel safely from one destination to another. No wonder we invest a bridge with deep meaning. As the Eternal Son of God, Jesus is the ultimate bridge, through his work on the Cross, reconciling God the Father with a sinful humanity.

Britain's so-called "loneliest sheep," which was stuck at the foot of a remote cliff in Scotland for at least two years, has been rescued. Cammy Wilson, who led the rescue mission, said it was a risky one. That's why, despite past attempts by others, the sheep had been stuck for so long.

The sheep was first discovered in 2021, on the shore of the cliff in Brora by kayaker Jillian Turner. Photos show the sheep at the base of the cliff surrounded by steep rock on one side and water on the other.

In October of 2023 Turner said she has spotted the sheep several times since and the sheep hasn't been able to move off her spot on the base of the cliff. Turner said, “It is heart-rending. We honestly thought she might make her way back up that first year.”

Wilson, runs a Facebook page called "The Sheep Game" that chronicles his life as a farmer. After another farmer brought the sheep to his attention, he named the sheep Fiona and continued to give updates about her on Facebook.

Wilson then had an exciting update for followers. He and four others used a winch, a mechanical device that can act like a pulley, to get to Fiona. One person stayed at the top of the cliff, while the others traveled about 820 feet down the cliff to get to her.

In a statement, the Scottish SPCA said the group was notified of the rescue. Scottish SPCA said, "Our Inspector checked over the sheep and found her to be in good bodily condition, although needing sheared. The ownership of the sheep then was handed over to Dalscone Farm, a tourist attraction in Edinburgh with activities for children.

You can view pictures of the sheep and the cliff here.

Todd Brewer writes in an edition of Mockingbird:

Happy Holidays! Happy Advent! Happy Elf on the Shelf? Ha, there’s nothing happy about that Elf reporting every misdeed back to the big man at the north pole. This week, my daughter told me that her class’s elf on the shelf carries a Bluetooth Santa Cam, as if to make the Big Brother surveillance even more explicit. Perhaps it’s all fun and games … but the all-seeing Santa of the holidays can feel eerily similar to the Eye of Sauron.

Writing in Christianity Today, Russell Moore contrasts the watchful eye of the Elf-on-the-Shelf with that of God:

What stands out … is how strikingly more comprehensive the seeing of the God of the Bible is. Hagar … encounters God in the wilderness. “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’” (Gen. 16:13). This is a woman who is considered dispensable, no longer useful, and thus invisible to her community. But God sees her. She is not alone in the cosmos. His eye is on the sparrow, and his eye is on her.

Perhaps that’s why one of the most remarkable things about Jesus in his encounters with people … is his seeing them as they are, such as the private character of Nathanael: “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you” (John 1:48). After Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well, she tells her fellow villagers, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (John 4:29).

This is not an Elf-on-the-Shelf religion; this is good news of great joy.

A routine Tuesday morning in a remote mountain village turned into a harrowing ordeal as a cable car malfunction left eight passengers, including schoolchildren, suspended hundreds of feet in the air. Shortly after departure, two of the car’s supporting cables snapped, sparking a dramatic 12-hour rescue operation by the Pakistani military.

The rescuers faced immense challenges as they attempted to save the stranded passengers. With helicopters and zip lines, they launched a complicated plan to bring everyone to safety, while villagers watched in helpless suspense. As the rescue team battled the elements, those trapped inside battled their own fear and anxiety, exacerbated by the car’s movements and the gusts of wind from the helicopter rotors.

This particular cable car system is a vital lifeline for the isolated village of Pashto. It provides access to the schools and hospitals in the rugged terrain previously unavailable to residents of the poverty-stricken village. Since its construction five years ago, it has significantly improved the lives of villagers by providing a quick and affordable means of crossing the valley.

As the last passenger was rescued, relief and joy washed over the village, highlighting the importance of this lifeline for the community and the resilience of its residents in the face of adversity. The cause of the cable car failure remains unknown, prompting calls for safety inspections on all private mountain lifts.

Possible Preaching Angle:

These well-trained professional first responders who save lives are only a faint shadow of the work of a caring Savior who came to rescue us from death and bring us safely home.

There’s a well-known story about a famous violinist who took his $3.5 million Stradivarius onto a platform of a Washington DC subway and started playing music. He was dressed in a T-shirt and a ball cap. Joshua Bell was accustomed to playing for packed concert halls and getting paid $1,000 a minute. During his 43-minute solo concert in the subway a total of 1097 people passed by. But only seven people stopped to listen. He earned $32 in change.

J.T. Tillman, a computer specialist, was one of the people who walked by. He said, “I didn’t think nothing of it, just a guy trying to make a couple of bucks.” Tillman would’ve given him some cash, but he spent all his money on the lotto. When he was told that he stiffed one of the best musicians in the world, he asked, “Is he ever going to play around here again?” The reporter said, “Yeah, but you’re going to have to pay a lot to hear him.”

Exactly one person recognized Joshua Bell. Her name was Stacy. She positioned herself 10 feet away from Bell, front row, center. She had a huge grin on her face. She said, “It was the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen in Washington. Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush-hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and some more flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?’”

Tara Edelschick was raised in a home that was loving, loud, and fun, but an undercurrent of anxiety coursed through it all. The world was seen as a scary place. Tara said, “The message of my childhood was clear and insistent: Work, play, and love hard. Stay in control at all times, because something scary is waiting to take you down. I heeded that message into adulthood.”

She went to a great college, found the perfect job, and chose a wonderful husband. She thought to herself, “Weaker souls might need a god, but I needed no such crutch. I can orchestrate the perfect life. But that belief was obliterated when my husband, Scott, died from complications during a routine surgery. Ten days later, I delivered our first child, Sarah, stillborn.”

During the next year, she began a search for God. She visited psychics, read New Age thinkers, and attended meditation classes. Her forays into faith were attempts to make sense of what had happened to her and to control a world in which she had far less control than she thought she had.

Then she started reading the Book of John with a friend. Tony was the only Christian she knew who didn’t try to explain away the loss of her husband and baby. He said that if she would just read the Bible, God would do the convincing. So, they read the Bible together over the phone on Saturday mornings.

Tara writes,

I especially loved the story of (Jesus and) Lazarus. Unlike the Eastern philosophies that maintain that suffering is the result of our attachments, this story was about a man who was unashamedly attached. A man who behaved as though death was not natural. As though everything was broken, and that the sane response was to snort and weep. I loved that man.

After months of reading the Bible, Tara had to admit what she had fought so long to resist: She was hungry for Jesus. For the Jesus who hung out with whores, who wept when his friend died, and who claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. She said, “All of my searching for something in which to place my faith … led me to God who offered me himself in the form of Jesus. I didn’t have to find him or explain him; I just had to say yes.”

After that, Tara returned to school to study childhood bereavement. She married a wonderful man, and they had two beautiful sons. After getting married, she facilitated a support group for surviving parents whose spouse had died, and taught a class at Harvard on bereavement. She often found herself the repository for stories of loss, told in lowered voices at parties and grocery stores.

She says,

I try to listen deeply as people share those stories, nodding in agreement with how awful it is. I bear their story and, in so doing, remind them that they are not alone. These days when I sit with the broken and mourning, I pray for God’s love to do what I cannot: to bind up the wounded places, leaving their scars to bear witness of the power of both loss and love.

Philip Yancey wrote in a blog on the seemingly infinite expanse of space and the smallness of our earth by comparison. The sheer scale is enough to make you dizzy, but Yancey stares at the sky and recalls the Book of Job—and Jesus. He writes:

Scientists now believe that if you had unlimited vision, you could hold a sewing needle at arm’s length toward the night sky and see 10,000 galaxies in the eye of the needle. Move it an inch to the left and you’d find 10,000 more. Same to the right, or no matter where else you moved it. There are approximately a trillion galaxies out there, each encompassing an average of 100 to 200 billion stars.

Job got a closeup lesson on how puny we humans are compared to the God of the universe, and it silenced all his doubts and complaints. I’ve never experienced anything like the travails Job endured. But whenever I have my own doubts, I try to remember that perspective — the Hubble telescope view of God.

In his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul quotes what many believe to be a hymn from the early church. In a … lyrical paragraph, Paul marvels that Jesus gave up all the glory of heaven to take on the form of a man — and not just a man, but a servant — one who voluntarily subjected himself to an ignominious death on a cross. (Phil 2:6-7)

I pause and wonder at the mystery of Incarnation. In an act of humility beyond comprehension, the God of a trillion galaxies chose to “con-descend” — to descend to be with — the benighted humans on this one rebellious planet, out of billions in the universe. I falter at analogies, but it is akin to a human becoming an ant, perhaps, or an amoeba, or even a bacterium. Yet according to Paul, that act of condescension proved to be a rescue mission that led to the healing of something broken in the universe. […]

We hear the roar of God at the end of the Book of Job, a voice that evokes awe and wonder more than intimacy and love. Yet Philippians 2 gives a different slant on the Hubble telescope view of God. A God beyond the limits of space and time has a boundless capacity of love for his creations, no matter how small or rebellious they might be.

Debates about acceptable holiday greetings occasionally roil American retail stores and cable news shows. But when it comes to cards, most people prefer “Merry Christmas.” According to an industry survey, Americans send about 1.6 billion Christmas cards every year, and 53 percent carry the traditional religious greeting. “Happy Holidays” ranks second in card choice, and the more generic “Season’s Greetings” comes fourth after “other.”

The Christmas card tradition has proved surprisingly durable. It dates back to the Victorian era, when the celebration of Christmas was transformed into a family-centered commercial holiday. Queen Victoria started sending Christmas cards in the 1880s. Calvin Coolidge sent the first one from the White House about 40 years later.

The tradition sagged a little in the 21st century with the rise of social media; especially Facebook. But then Millennials revived the tradition as a way to add a personal connection to holiday celebrations. Card-sending households mail, on average, about 30 cards, and most people prefer pictures of kids and an old-fashioned “Merry Christmas.”

Preferred Christmas Card Greetings:

Merry Christmas 53%

Happy Holidays 21%

Season’s Greetings 12%

Other Messages 14%

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even amid today’s growing secularism, people are drawn to the joy and hope that the traditional “Merry Christmas” greeting brings. It is a constant witness to the birth of the hope of the world.

When the President of the United States travels by car, the Presidential motorcade is both the safest and the riskiest convoy on the planet. This globe-trotting fleet of vehicles is basically a rolling, armored White House, complete with its own response force, communications office, press corps and medical facilities. All these vehicles are moved via USAF heavy-transports, such as C-17s, and those flights come at a steep cost.

The Presidential Motorcade consists of a wide variety of vehicles. Generally, the Presidential Motorcade is made up of the following components:

• Route Car & Pilot Car – Which travel ahead of the motorcade checking the route and providing guidance.
• Sweepers – Consisting of motorcycles and patrol cars clearing the way.
• Presidential Limousine – This very heavy Cadillac is really an extremely survivable armored car. "The Beast" is outfitted with top-level ballistic armoring, night vision/infrared driving systems, a sealed cabin with an independent air supply capable of enduring a nuclear-biological-chemical attack, and even a supply of the President’s blood type. All of this is in addition to a state-of-the-art communications system.
• Identical Limousine – At least one identical car always accompanies it, and sometimes many more. These cars are used as a backup as well a serving as decoys.
• Additional Vehicles – Following the motorcade is the security detail SUV filled with heavily armed agents. There is an Electronic Countermeasures Vehicle so that if a threat is detected, smoke, chaff, and targeted jamming could disrupt an attack. Then there is the Press van, an ambulance in case there is an accident or attack and helicopters overhead to provide over-watch.

All the technology that goes into protecting the President is amazing and so is the price tag. It is estimated that the White House spends $350 million a year on the President’s transport. Just one trip costs $2,614 each and every minute to transport the leader of the free world.

Possible Preaching Angle:

On Christmas Day when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords came to earth there was no heavily armed security detail, high tech defensive systems, medical personnel, or press corps. Instead, his arrival was witnessed only by Mary and Joseph and a few humble shepherds. However, it was the costliest trip in history, since though he was rich, he became poor (2 Cor 8:9), he emptied himself and took the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6), and he left the glory and worship of heaven to be born in a stable (Luke 2:7).

Most of us are probably so familiar with the Lord’s Prayer that we never stop to think what an amazing thing it is that we have this prayer. What if you had the opportunity to ask the greatest basketball coach of all time to teach you how to shoot a basketball? Or if you were able to ask the greatest chef to teach you how to cook? Or if you were to ask the greatest fighter pilot to teach you how to fly a plane? You'd be on the edge of your seat ready to hear what the expert has to say and then to put the advice and example into practice.

How much more should we be ready and eager to hear from Jesus. He is much more than an expert in prayer, and prayer is infinitely more important than any hobby, skill, or vocation. Prayer is absolutely indispensable for the Christian. We can't live without it.

Who is the most-powerful being in the Marvel Multiverse? It’s not Spiderman, Iron Man, Thor, or Thanos, but someone called “the One Above All.” Here’s how he makes his appearances in the universe:

Appearances of the One Above All are few and far between. The deity sometimes appears as a blinding white light, or a nondescript homeless man. However, one of the most notable sightings of the being was seen in Fantastic Four #511. Traveling through a realm that could only be described as heaven, the four pass through a door and emerge in an ordinary living room. Before them sits the One Above All, sketching comic panels and characters on a drawing board--and he bears a striking resemblance to the legendary artist Jack Kirby.

As the co-creator of the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Spider-Man, Thor, Black Panther, the X-Men, and countless other characters over the decades, Jack Kirby is an ideal representation of the God of the Marvel Universe. Even so, he takes a phone call from a "collaborator" in a later panel (heavily hinted to be Stan Lee), much to the amazement of the Fantastic Four.

Marvel's depiction of the One Above All as a simple human artist works perfectly within their universe. As the OAA-as-Jack Kirby himself says "That's what my creations do. They find the humanity in God.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Often when humans imagine God, they imagine him to be a really big version of themselves. What if God, our creator, stepped inside his creation, in a way we could understand and find relatable? And amazingly, he did!

Women and girls across the nation are lamenting the notoriety of their name being associated with virtual assistants. Since the release of Amazon’s voice assistant in 2014, anyone named Alexa has been subject to an uptick of joking and teasing about their name.

When The Washington Post did an analysis of data from the Social Security Administration, they found that approximately 6,000 baby girls were named Alexa in 2015, bringing the total number of American citizens with the name to about 130,000. But in the years since, the popularity of the name has plummeted.

Alexa Morales was contacted by The Washington Post about her predicament. Says Morales, “When I hear my name now, it’s not good thoughts … it’s like, tensing.” Morales eventually started going by “Lex,” as a way to distance herself from the Amazon product. “It was like, you guys have so much money and so many people working for you and not one person thought to be like, ‘Listen, Alexa is a name that people use.’”

Alexa Smith said, “I’ve heard all the jokes at this point. Somebody thought it was funny at work to just call me Siri.”

When contacted, Amazon offered the following statement:

Bullying of any kind is unacceptable, and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms. We designed our voice assistant to reflect qualities we value in people — being smart, considerate, empathetic, and inclusive. As an alternative to Alexa, we offer several other wake words customers can choose from, including Echo, Computer, Amazon and Ziggy.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Servanthood - No one wants to be called a name that's associated with subservience, but that's exactly what Jesus did by emptying himself and taking on the form of a servant. 2) Mocking – It is never acceptable to mock or put someone else down to showcase our own “humor.” We should be considerate of the feelings of others and stand with them.

Christmas is a celebration of a real event, according to most Americans. Just don’t expect them to know exactly why Jesus was born and came to earth. A new study from Lifeway Research finds close to three in four Americans believe Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Even more say Jesus is the Son of God the Father, but less than half believe Jesus existed prior to being born on that first Christmas.

According to a Lifeway Research study:

• More than 9 in 10 Americans (91%) celebrate Christmas.
• For most of those celebrating, Christmas is about a historical occurrence.
• More than 7 in 10 (72%) say the Jesus Christians believe in was born in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. Few (9%) disagree, while 18 percent aren’t sure.

• Most Americans (80%) agree Jesus Christ is the Son of God the Father, while 10 percent disagree and 10 percent aren’t sure.
• The average person isn’t quite as sure about the Son of God’s existence prior to Jesus’ birth. Around 41% say God’s Son existed before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. 32% of Americans disagree, and 28 percent say they’re not sure.

The religiously unaffiliated are least likely to agree with any of the statements surrounding Jesus’ birth and identity:

• Almost half (48%) believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God the Father. A third (33%) say Jesus was really born in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. Fewer (15%) believe the Son of God existed before Jesus was born.

• Among Christians, those who attend church four times a month or more, are most likely to believe each of the statements about Jesus and his birth: 98 percent believe Jesus is the Son of God the Father, 95 percent say he was born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, and 63 percent agree the Son of God existed before Jesus was born.

A small bowl bought for just $35 at a yard sale in Connecticut has turned out to be a rare 15th-Century Chinese artefact. The white porcelain bowl was spotted by an unidentified antiques enthusiast near New Haven last year, and they quickly sought an expert evaluation.

The experts came back with good news, revealing that the bowl is thought to be worth between $300,000 and $500,000. In fact, it is believed to be one of only seven such bowls in existence and most of the others are in museums.

Angela McAteer, an expert on Chinese ceramics said, "It was immediately apparent to us that we were looking at something really very, very special. The style of painting, the shape of the bowl, even just the color of the blue is quite characteristic of that early, early 15th-Century … Ming [Dynasty] period.”

How exactly the bowl found itself being sold at a Connecticut outdoor sale remains a mystery. Some have suggested it may have been passed down through generations of the same family.

"It's always quite astounding to think that it still happens, that these treasures can be discovered," McAteer said. "It's always really exciting for us as specialists when something we didn't even know existed here appears seemingly out of nowhere."

Possible Preaching Angle:

God often hides great value behind the veil of the ordinary: 1) Deity of Christ; Humanity of Christ; Messiah - The deity of Christ was cloaked in humanity when he was born in a stable (Isa. 53:2-3; Luke 2:7); 2) Human worth; Insignificance; Small Things - The “ordinary” people in our churches have hidden value (1 Cor. 1:27; Jam. 2:5).

Ryan and Morgan, adopted a child from an orphanage in another country. They'd passed through all the legal processes in that country. Charlie was their son. But right before the day when they were supposed to pick Charlie up from the orphanage, things changed. There were some political upheavals, and the country froze the process. No more children were going to be able to leave the country.

Charlie could not come to Ryan and Morgan. So, they decided to go to him. They flew over from the US and basically camped outside of the orphanage. They spent half their time with their son and the other half lobbying the courts and meeting with government officials, pleading with them to release their son.

After a few weeks Morgan came home, but Ryan stayed. It was at Christmas time. This was not where he wanted to be at Christmas—away from home, far from family. But here was a father who loved his son. Since his son could not come to him, he was going to go to that son, and he was going to fight for that son. There would be more days and weeks of struggle, but, wonderfully, Ryan was eventually able to bring Charlie home.

That Christmas, as Ryan battled corrupt court systems on the other side of the world … he was a picture of the kind of "Eternal Father" that Jesus is for anyone who asks him to be. Jesus went far further for us than Ryan went for his son. He didn't leave a country of privilege to move to a country of poverty. No, he left the riches of heaven to come to a world of pain. He did all that because he loves us. He did all that because he wants to be with us. He came to us to ensure that we could go to be with him, and it cost him far more than a plane ticket.

Jeff Peabody writes in a Christmas issue of CT magazine:

Several years ago, I decided to write a daily Christmas blog post on our church blog. So, I decided to tackle the theology of Christmas wrapping. I vaguely recalled that some cultures use cloth instead of paper to wrap gifts, which sounded intriguing.

That’s when I first learned about the ancient Japanese art of furoshiki. Feudal lords needed a practical way to bundle their belongings while using the bathhouse, and they displayed their family crests on the outer cloth to identify whose was whose.

Over the centuries, people adapted furoshiki into a beautiful means of presenting gifts. I realized that Jesus came to us in furoshiki, wrapped in cloths. The practice of swaddling crosses cultural lines and can be traced to the earliest civilizations.

For centuries, parents believed that wrapping infants tightly in place helped their limbs to grow straighter. Swaddling fell out of fashion in the 18th century, when physicians largely believed the tightness of the binding was not healthy. Babies need to be able to move somewhat freely for natural development.

It was new for me to consider this less pleasant side of swaddling. I can imagine Jesus in that manger, arms and legs straining against the unyielding bonds. What must it be like for a baby—particularly this baby, God incarnate—to be unable to move in any direction? What must it have been like to have your world shrunk and narrowed so severely?

The conditions of his advent were a small metaphor for his entire life. As the Son of God became flesh and bones, he experienced an unfathomable limitation of himself. The universe closed in around him, restricting him with time and space (see Phil. 2:6–8). Having a human body was like being swaddled, as it contained Almighty God in unnaturally small dimensions.

Possible Preaching Angle:

At some point, each of us meets the limits of being human. We all suffer the inescapable reality of sin and its fallout in this broken world. The simple image of Jesus, God’s gift to us, being wrapped up in cloths comforts me with the powerful truth: He understands the bindings on my mind and soul as only someone who has a shared experience can. The concept of Immanuel, God with us, takes on a new and profound clarity.