Category: Morning Musings

Songs of the Season

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“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever had one of those albums where every single song on it is your favorite song? For me, around this time of year, it is Meredith Andrews’ Christmas album, Receive Our King. Last year around this time I introduced you to the first track on the album, Andrews’ version of Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. This morning as we continue in our Advent series, I want to share with you another from the same album (and, spoiler alert, I’m going to offer you one more from it next Friday which is going to be instrumental in our Christmas Eve service). What was it like being a shepherd in the fields around Bethlehem on the night Jesus was born? What was the song of the angels really like? Let’s ponder that together.

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Morning Musing: Luke 1:43-45

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“How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill what he has spoken to her!” (CSB – Read the chapter)

How trusting of a person would you say you are? That depends on a number of different factors, doesn’t it? It could be that your parents weren’t so good about keeping their word to you, and so you default to believing everyone around you is lying. Maybe you’re a very trusting person by nature, but that trust runs along the edge of naiveté and has gotten you in trouble a time or two. There’s a balance point here. You don’t want to be blindly trusting because people do lie, but if you don’t trust anyone, you can’t have any relationships. There is one person, though, who should always have our trust.

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Morning Musing: Matthew 1:21

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“She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The first Christmas involved faith. A lot of faith. It involved a great deal of individuals no different from you and me being willing to trust God on a series of adventures they didn’t plan on, and which – if they were being honest – they didn’t even want at first. But in the end, they were all willing to take their plans, hopes, dreams, desires, and set them aside in favor of His. The result was nothing less than the world being irrevocably changed. We talked about one of these stories yesterday in Mary. Today, let’s take a look at Joseph’s story.

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Songs of the Season

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“This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’ – and I am the worst of them.” (1 Timothy 1:15 – CSB – Read the chapter)

When I was in high school, I was first introduced to a cappella music. This came by way of an invitation to try out for a new a cappella group the new choir director was starting. Thus began a brief career with The Patriots. It was a ton of fun and something totally new in the district which made us all little celebrities around town (which itself was hilarious as we were all band and choir and orchestra nerds of the highest order). That was toward the beginning of a cultural moment when a cappella music generally was catching on. It reached its highest point a few years later with a brief TV series followed by a trilogy of films celebrating the art. This morning, let me introduce you to a Christmas song that came out of all of this cultural movement.

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Morning Musing: Isaiah 61:1-3

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“The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Who did Jesus come to save? I know the “right” answer to that question is everyone. But let’s actually think about it for a minute. Who did Jesus come to save? Here’s an answer that’s just as correct but isn’t in terms we usually use. Jesus came to save people who are in need of saving. Now, if that seems tautologous, it is, but that doesn’t make it any less important to understand. In this prophecy from Isaiah that Jesus claimed for Himself, we get a better sense of just what this means.

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