Our feature article Tree Talk will help you to consider the myriad ways there are in communicating the gospel. Some of the ideas presented about those many ways will likely surprise you. Some may even sound a bit weird or foolish at first, but give them time to percolate.
Until I began to work with this article, I really hadn’t thought about Christmas trees very much. I certainly wasn’t aware of the controversy their use has stirred from time to time.
I’ve never cared for freshly-cut real trees. I can recite my long litany of reasons that I feel this way but I’ll spare you. For many years I’ve been quite content to haul our artificial tree out of storage, lug out the bins of lights and decorations, and then leave decorating the tree to the rest of my family.
Oh, I like having our beautifully decorated tree around for the season. It evokes many happy memories and the hope for manymore. Recently I’ve begun to string lights on the little spruce in front of our house that we affectionately call Bruce. Bruce the Spruce serves as a companion to our front-yard Nativity scene. But I really never gave Christmas trees much thought.
There is some theological exploration going on in this article where you may find that, like me, you needed to read some parts a couple of times to grasp their significance. If you do, you will discover ways of thinking about Christmas and the Bible that may never have occurred to you before.
If you were to visit my home this Christmas and discovered me gazing at our Christmas tree, I don’t expect you would hear me asking the tree a bunch of questions. But you would likely find me thinking a bit more deeply about what it has to tell me.
John’s gospel proclaims that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This article tells us that when that Word dwells among us, is rooted in us and we translate the Bible’s message into our own words (our personal vernacular), what is wholesome in us is affirmed and worthy of proclamation. We can indeed go tell it on the mountains and everywhere.
A blessed Christmas to you and yours and those whose lives you touch.
Answers to the ‘Name the Christmas Carol’ activity from the December 2018 issue:
- Eight P.M. to six A.M. without noise (Silent Night)
- Miniscule hamlet in Near East (O Little Town of Bethlehem)
- Exuberance directed to the planet (Joy to the Earth)
- Listen, aerial spirits announcing (Hark! The Herald Angel)
- Yonder in the hay rack (Away in a manger)
- Assemble everyone who believes (O Come All Ye Faithful)
- Cherubim audited from aloft (Angels We Have Heard on High)
- Hollowed post meridian (O Holy Night)
- Befell during the transparent bewitching hour (It came upon a Midnight Clear)
- Trio of monarchs (We Three Kings)
Kenn Ward, Editor
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