You know the holiday song well! “It’s the most wonderful time of the year… with holiday greetings and hearts all a glowing; kids jingle belling, friends come a calling and much mistletoeing … it’s the ha—happiest season of all! That was until the pandemic of COVID-19 and the shroud of...
Merry Christmas! Joyous New Year! And a blessed Epiphany! As the Advent season comes to the end, we joyfully celebrate the gift of the Christ child born in Bethlehem as foretold by the prophets of old. God’s Word of hope and redemption was fulfilled in the “Immanuel” (God with us),...
How do you envision Christmas this year? A beautiful Christmas tree glowing with lights and ornaments? Colorfully wrapped Christmas presents stacked under the tree? The Advent wreathe, candles and Christmas tree glowing in the front of the church at Trinity? Singing the beloved Christmas carols by candlelight at the Christmas...
In the December 2018 issue of The Lutheran Witness, an official publication of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, a title of one of the articles really grabbed my attention: “When Jesus Ruins Christmas.” It begins, “Up against the glorious reality of Christ’s incarnation, a ‘holly jolly Christmas’ loses all it’s...
I recently ran across two strange, but interesting, folk stories pertaining to some Christmas traditions. One of them was about a spider and the other about a pickle! How peculiar is that? There are many variations as to how and why these traditions got started. So, I’ll try to offer...
I’m sure you remember the well known phrase above from the lips of “Tiny Tim” in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” It may seem like a strange title for an article in the July “Trinity Tidings,” I suppose. It’s not one of those ‘Christmas in July’ attempts, I assure you....
“Let us all with gladsome voice praise the God of heaven, Who, to bid our hearts rejoice, His own Son hath given.” Christmas is the season we praise and thank our heavenly Father for the promised and wondrous gift of the Messiah, Christ-child. The giving and receiving of Christmas presents...
O Come, O Come Immanuel “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and will call Him Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14 The ancient and prominent Advent hymn bids God to fulfill His promise and come to us in His incarnate...
I’m not even sure Halloween was officially over yet, barely, before I was hearing Christmas Carols in stores and on the radio. For me, that’s kind of a record-breaking early date for Christmas songs! My first inclination was to be frustrated – you know, the whole “exploiting Jesus’ birth” atti-tude...