In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” —Luke 1:26-33

“Advent is a season of expectant waiting, tapping into the sense that all is not well, the longing for the world to be made right again. It’s a season for restless hearts and people weary of a broken world who want, with all our being, to know there’s more than this.” —Eugene Peterson

Christmas means God loves

of us.

Christmas is the moment God launched a “divine

mission” for humankind.

God’s rescue mission starts with a

-year-old girl who will give birth far from home.

“Our temptation is to believe that if God is God then God must be the biggest thing around. Accordingly, we describe God with an unending list of superlatives: omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. God is all powerful, all knowing, and everywhere present, but these descriptions make it difficult for some to understand how God can be conceived by the Spirit in Mary.” – Stanley Hauerwas

Our temptation is a Christmas of

and spectacle when God’s story is one of suffering and humility. (Matthew 2:13-15)

This year each American on average is expected to spend

on holiday gifts; the highest ever.

It is an expected increase of 3.5% or roughly

.

You’ll never be content with what you have until you make peace with who you are.

Meet the Herdmans

The Herdman children were

and resented by the entire town. Whom do you fear?

The Herdman children decide to come to the church in part because there was

.

It was

that the Herdman children needed help.

There will

be children on earth who need help. (Deuteronomy 10:17-21)

In Oklahoma, the child poverty rate (family of three living on less than $25,000) is

, the 7th highest in the nation.

God asks us to

something about it. (James 1:22, 27)

Jesus’ own family tells us that religion consists of

than devotional exercises.

The point of reading the Bible, prayer, and worship is to

you to help heal the world. (Matthew 25:34-36)

Braving the cold to share a coat or warm food or getting up early to feed others may not be

.

For Christians, we experience the

of the Lord when we become more like our master Jesus.

“The goal of the Christian journey is surrender – the ability to trust God with our whole selves and our very lives – rather than relying on attempts to achieve safety and security, affection and approval, power and control for ourselves on our own terms.” —Ruth Haley Barton

With God You Can Expect the Unexpected

“Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutely unexpected. And sure enough, that was what happened. Imogene Herdman was crying.” —Barbara Robinson (illustration photo & confidence)

Maybe Imogene sensed that God had begun the

mission of the world and was overwhelmed.

“Jesus’ invasion by birth into the dark time of tyrant kings gives us a choice: we can trust in the armed brutality of violent power or we can trust in the naked vulnerability of love. It seems like an absurd choice…We have to choose between the old way of Caesar and the new way of Christ…We have to decide if we’ll pledge our allegiance to the Empire of Power or the Empire of Love, but we can’t do both.” —Brian Zahnd

As of June 2024,

people are forcibly displaced from their homes. This is 1 in every

Reveal Answer

people on earth.

Action Step:

Give $1

to the mission offering than you have spent on yourself and your friends and family.

Keep a bottle of unopened clean

in your car to give to someone you see in need.

Intentionally spend

on things that don’t matter so that you can have financial margin to help others.

My additional notes:

.