Christmas Eve Links

Here are a handful of links that make for good reading on Christmas Eve.

Last Sunday Brian Bill preached an usual Christmas message called Destiny. This sermon has a special message for those who happen to be away from home on Christmas Eve.

Mona Charen explains the significance of Hanukkah, a celebration that has much to teach us about faith and courage in an age of militant secularism.

Rick Reilly called it the oddest game in the history of high school football. Read the heartwarming story of what happened when Faith Christian School of Grapevine, TX played the team from Gainesville State School, a maximum security correctional facility.

Marion Hauser mentioned a moving article called This Chicago electrician was an angel. We knew Tim Phillips from our days in Oak Park. He did some electrical work for us, and I can testify that he was exactly as the article describes. Tim died of a heart attack a few days ago. The closing words of the article remind us of the influence a godly man can have.

And he convinced me, a fallen Catholic in this holy season, that angels do indeed walk among us, and often come in the unlikeliest of forms.

Finally, don’t miss John Morrison Skelly’s article called Be Not Afraid, subtitled “Christian resistance and Christmas.” Skelly recounts the prison experience of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was imprisoned and ultimately executed for his opposition to the Nazi regime. 

Skelly ends his article this way:

At Christmas time in 1942 Bonhoeffer had circulated a long letter to his closest colleagues assessing a decade of resistance, later reprinted as the essay “After Ten Years.” In it he asks the question, “Who stands firm?” Today, there are Christians who quietly stand up to tyranny. On the morning of December 25, they will acknowledge the day’s significance. In Beijing, a husband will wish his wife “Merry Christmas.” In Havana, a family will exchange gifts. A minister in Riyadh will read the Gospel. A priest in Pyongyang will silently say Mass. These men and women, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, resist without fear. They grasp a fundamental fact about the intersection of freedom and faith, as true for Christians as it is for men and women of all religions. They understand that to be human is to know God; to be human and free is to know God fully.