Israel, long acquainted with darkness, still awaited daybreak. Remembering invasion, dispersion, and exile, a recently returned remnant felt homesick in their homeland where they faced much rebuilding amid suspicious neighbors. As...

A new calendar year stretches before us, stirring up fresh resolve in many of us to change our circumstances or ourselves during the next twelve months. Some will write official New...

How are we to live in the waning light of the Christmas star? Our hearts and lives quickened in breathless anticipation as we prepared to receive the Christ child. But here...

By the time Jesus turns twelve, Mary and Joseph have carved out life-as-usual routines and traditions for their household, including the annual Passover pilgrimage from Nazareth to Jerusalem and back again....

The story of Samuel begins one chapter before our reading. In the scriptures we first meet his father, Elkanah, and mother, Hannah, and learn that Hannah is barren. Year after year...

From Creation’s first breath, we are reminded through the poetry of the Psalms that every single part of life imagined, formed, and spoken into being by God is imbued with the...

Nestled against Mary’s heart, her arms still awkward with first-time mothering, this newborn squirms against the cloth that binds him. He whimpers a bit, to which his young mother responds with...

In our time, we have a keen awareness of lurking darkness as close as family secrets and as distant as tribal genocide across the globe. As we approach Christmas and read...

Elizabeth is surprised that the child within her leaps for joy at the sound of Mary’s voice. Elizabeth’s greeting in return surprises Mary. Elizabeth, “filled with the Holy Spirit,” confirms Gabriel’s...

Micah speaks of little Bethlehem suddenly becoming great. The greatness will come about not because Bethlehem suddenly grows, develops a great advertising campaign, or is discovered to be the center of...