Christmas can arrive wrapped in lights and joy while grief, loss, and the sense that this world is deeply broken remain close at hand. The Gospel of Mark opens with “the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ,” echoing creation itself and pressing an Advent question beneath all the decorations: What kind of beginning can Jesus bring to lives that do not feel whole?
Rules, hypocrisy, conflict—those are the words people most often reach for when they describe the church, and if we’re honest, we’ve sometimes given them reason to. Galatians 5 doesn’t flinch from that indictment; it sets the works of the flesh against a vision of the church so different, so beautiful, that it could only come from one source.
Jim Wolfe traces God’s redemptive plan through four Old Testament “roadside attractions” that foreshadow Christ — skins, boxes, baskets, and snakes. Along that scenic route, we arrive at the true meaning of Christmas, an attraction we actually need.
Most of us hear “You shall not make for yourself a carved image” and assume the second commandment is aimed for some folks worshipping a metal statue long ago. But the same human frailty that raised the golden calf still reaches for something visible, manageable, and reassuring. What have we begun to trust, protect, or worship in place of the God who rescued us?
Solomon, Rehoboam, and Jeroboam all treated God’s promises like something they could improve on or control on their own terms only to encounter the pavement courtesy of the black ice of sin. Our efforts end like that, but God’s faithfulness outlasts our failures.
Jim Krenning continues our adventure through Scripture with a special Palm Sunday edition of #ThisWeekAtLittleHills, looking at 1 John. Please join us!
We think status, heritage, and credentials make us a somebody or a nobody, yet those are not what God values. In Matthew 8 a Gentile centurion—nobody by race—approaches Jesus with a suffering servant, forcing the question of what actually makes anyone able to approach God’s kingdom.
