We usually talk about fasting during Lent. So it seems wrong to talk about fasting when we are supposed to celebrate Advent by looking at the meals around Jesus (This link takes you back a decade). But I want to suggest we can understand fasting as sharing rather than as giving up. Usually, fasting is giving […]

Rich Dixon is back: +++ Last time I told you about a conversation around Adoption. Moïse invited us to look at another passage. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he […]

When I was a kid learning about John the Baptist, we learned that he wasn’t really a Baptist, though my mom secretly wished he was, being Baptist herself. We learned that he worn burlap bags, because that was the roughest fabric we had. And we learned that he ate locusts and wild honey, which was excitingly […]

It was a quiet Sunday lunch. No one was talking much; we were lost in our own thoughts. “His name is John,” she said. I looked up. Elizabeth went on. “Before Zechariah wrote on that tablet, I said it. But no one wanted to take the mother’s word.” She paused. “I’m not surprised. A godly […]

A prayer for when the Advent candles are lit in the middle of the morning. +++ God, we light candles when it is light,knowing that when it is dark,the light that is little nowwill be large then. We speak your words of promise when it is light,knowing that when it is dark,the promises that are […]