Christmas Greetings, Both Merry and Happy!

Both the joy and meaning of Christmas are amplified and magnified
when Christ's nativity is set within the larger Gospel story. Two anci-
ent creeds found in the New Testament set Jesus Christ's birth with-
in the recognition and declaration of all that God has been doing
through Him.

We believe in the Gospel,
promised long ago through the prophets,
written in the Holy Scriptures.

We believe in God's Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ:
as to his humanity,
born a descendant of David;
as to his divinity,
shown with great power to be the Son of God
by his raising from death.
Amen
(Romans 1)


Let us proclaim the mystery of our faith:

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ-
he was revealed in the flesh,
attested by the Spirit,
seen by apostles,
proclaimed to the nations,
believed in throughout the world,
and taken up to glory.
Amen.
(I Timothy 3)

If you live on this side of the 'Pond'- Happy Christmas!
If you live on the other side- Merry Christmas!
Christmas blessings to you and yours this Christmas season.

God the Father's Advent Preparation

As we enter into the final day of Advent, I'd like to share one way
some Christians view the Advent candles:

As we light the candles in our Advent wreath we remember the prep-
arations which God our Father made for the coming of his Son into
the world.

Our first candle reminds us of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and David who
looked forward to the coming of Jesus.

Our second candle reminds us of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Micah
who told of the coming Messiah.

Our third candle reminds us of John the Baptist who came to prepare
the way for the Lord.

Our fourth candle reminds us of Mary who was obedient and became
the mother of Jesus.

(from Prayers for the People)


Blessings to you and yours as we draw near to Christmas!

An Advent Prayer from Me to You

In my wanderings around Scotland during the past three years, I be-
came aware of a group of women and men of great and lively faith with
whom I have a sense of kinship. They were Celtics who lived in Ire-
land, Scotland, and northern England from the 5th century to the 8th.
There are people in these days who are fascinated with Celtic spiritu-
ality from that era, and rightfully so. But what attracts me to them is
that there was a number of them who yielded their lives to God, exper-
ienced the forgiveness of sins based on the death of Christ, and moved
in the power of the Holy Spirit.

For these Celtic Christians Advent was like a second Lent, a time of
preparation and repentance in anticipation for the Second Coming of
Christ. Believers spent time apart from daily activities in order to wait
upon God. Advent was a special time of wonder, warning, and waiting.
They took time to reflect on the four great facts of life: death, judg-
ment, Heaven, and Hell. This has given Advent and Christmas a whole
different sense for me the past few years. I would encourage you to do
the same.

A dear friend and Christian brother who, for many years, has ponder-
ed the meaning of Jesus Christ, Advent, and the Christian life has writ-
ten a prayer that is my prayer for you and me this Advent season:

Calm us to wait for the gift of Christ;
cleanse us to prepare the way for Christ;
teach us to contemplate the wonder of Christ;
touch us to know the presence of Christ;
anoint us to bear the life of Christ.
(Ray Simpson)

Advent: The Three Comings of Jesus Christ

Throughout the ages, purple has been a primary color of the Advent
season. Not all churches observe the Advent season, but for those
that do purple represents both repentance and royalty. In many
churches, especially those that are Roman Catholic and Anglican, pur-
ple is a primary color of suffering that is the foundation of Lent and
Holy Week.

This has enabled me to be sensitive to the intimate connection be-
tween Christmas and Good Friday, that Jesus was born to die on the
Cross for the forgiveness of our sins. How often I need to be remind-
ed of that! During the Advent season I have always been reminded
that the Son of God's birth as a baby boy could not be separated from
His redeeming death on the Cross of Calvary. Although it is some-
what lost in these days, Advent has traditionally been a season of pen-
itence and fasting. Because Advent and Lent were linked together as
times of penitence, the two seasons shared the color of repentance,
purple. Jesus, the Word made flesh, came into the world in order to
reveal God and God's tenderloving mercy through His suffering, death,
and resurrection.

To this day many churches have used an advent wreath with five can-
dles to help people reflect on Advent. The wreath is a circle of ever-
green branches laid flat in order to symbolize eternal life. The circular
aspect reminds us of God and God's loving forgiveness, of which there
is neither beginning nor end. The green aspect points to the hope of
newness, renewal, and life eternal that we have in Jesus Christ. There
are three purple candles on the wreath representing hope, peace, and
love. A fourth candle is rose colored, and represents joy, It is lit on the
third Sunday of Advent while the other three are lit on the first, second,
and fourth Sundays of Advent. The ancient and more historical churches
have tended to associate the the lighting of the candles to be a gradual
process from repentance to rejoicing. Younger churches have exchanged
the theme of repentance for the themes of hope and anticipation. On
Christmas Day a fifth candle, a white candle, is lit, representing the birth
of Jesus Christ. There are other variations of the colors and the order of
lighting of the candles. Regardless of the differences, they all remind us
of the hope, peace, and love that we have in Jesus Christ, when He came
and dewelt among us and died on the Cross on our behalf.

If I listen carefully to the Advent season, especially to various Scripture
passages that are read, I hear of another Advent, Christ's future second
coming. Through the ages Christians have confessed that Christ will come
again. They meditated on the realities of death, judgment, heaven, and
hell. Men and women of faith throughout the Christian centuries have
eagerly awaited His coming again when He will judge and put every-
thing right. And so, I believe it is proper for us to do the same.

I also believe it is right and proper to speak of a third coming of Jesus
Christ; then He is present with us, we are God's people, and God is our
God. During past Advents I have been aware that I constantly wander
from God's presence, hide myself from God, and seek to do my will rath-
er than God's. Advent is therefore a season in which I not only celebrate
Christ's coming into the world and eagerly await His coming again, but
also yield more and more of my life to Him.

My prayer for you is that you would know the joy of the three comings
of Jesus Christ and the blessings that He brings to the world.

Advent Gladness for the Heart

Advent is my favorite time of the year. It is a season in which I learn
more about Jesus and reflect on Him in relation to my life. Even though
Jesus has been central to my life for more than thirty years, only since
1990 have I come to appreciate the riches and treasures of the Advent
season.

Our word advent is derived from the Latin word adventus, which means
arrival. Living here in St Andrews, Scotland, I was surprised to learn
that Advent begins on the Sunday closest to St Andrew's Day, Novem-
ber 30. This year Advent began on Sunday, December 3, and continues
for the following three Sundays, concluding at sundown on the fourth
Sunday of Advent, December 24. Then, technically, Christmas Eve be-
gins. But in other years, Advent ends at midnight between the 23rd
and 24th, and Christmas Eve is all of the 24th.

Advent helps us to prepare and wait for the arrival of Christmas, when
we celebrate that Jesus was born as a baby in Bethlehem almost 2000
years ago. God dwelt among us, and the world has never been the same.
Christians in ancient times not only saw Advent as a season that pre-
pares us for Christmas Day, but also as the beginning of a new year of
the Christian Church. The Christian year follows the life of Jesus. The
first Sunday of Advent is the Church's New Year, and the most impor-
tant day of the year is Easter Sunday, when God's People celebrate
Christ's victorious raising from the dead by God. I have much more
to share with you about Advent, but that will come in the days to
come.

I also share with you-and I do so in a whisper- that I have been writing
on my dissertation the past several days. Today I did 500 words, which
was my goal per day before the surgery. I am excited about that! But I
want to keep it quiet. That's why I'm telling you in a whisper. Don't share
it with just anyone.

May you be richly blessed in this Advent season.

The Reader, the Thinker, and the Writer

Over the years I have come to appreciate three companions who have
been important in my life as a pastor/scholar: the Reader, the Thinker,
and the Writer. The Reader has always had a hunger to be engaged
with a book or an article. It is dangerous to take the Reader into any
bookstore because I find it difficult to restrain the Reader from buying
any book that captures his interest (which can be quite varied and
broad). The Thinker likes to brood and ponder over big and impor-
tant thoughts and some that are not so big and important. Friends
have told me that sometimes the Thinker has me so involved with
him that I am oblivious to people saying hello to me as they pass me
on the street. The Writer nags me about my writing, no matter how
small or unimportant. Nothing seems to satisfy him, and so he is con-
stantly on my case!

They were always demanding my attention, and sometimes I just
wanted to forget them and escape to a movie! After the movie I
would again realize how much the Reader, the Thinker, and the Writ-
er are who I am. Just before my recent surgery and during the recov-
ery period, they started to act strangely. For example, this summer, as
I waited for a surgery date, they were unable to do much work because
they said they could not concentrate on the dissertation. The week be-
fore the surgery was a complete waste of my time because they were
so preoccupied with it. It seems that the surgery itself traumatized them
so much that they scattered to the four winds. I didn't see any trace of
them until four or five weeks after the operation.

Just over a week ago things started to change quite rapidly. The
Thinker had been relating to me for several weeks and the Reader
and the Writer wanted to start doing that too, but were reluctant to
join in. My strategy was to act cool and uninterested, giving them
the impression that I was doing quite well without them. I had learn-
ed that if I revealed any interest, the Reader and the Writer would
get frightened and scatter into far off regions. The closer they came,
the more I would exhibit disinterest and coolness to them. It was a
slow process, and I had to control myself because I was eager to have
them back. I appreciated having the Thinker present, but I really need-
ed all three. I need the Reader and the Writer working together with
the Thinker. I think my strategy is starting to work!

As I sit at my laptop now, the three are present around me, yapping
away with one another. The Thinker sits on my desk, pondering some
idea connected with my dissertation. Occasionally I have to ask him
to move out of the way because he is sitting on something I want to
work on. The Reader has been chatting up a storm with the Thinker
and is eyeing the books and stacks of papers around me, trying to
find something that supports what the Thinker is thinking. Although
the Writer has been the most reluctant to get back into things, I sense
he is starting to work on writing what the Thinker is thinking and what
the Reader is reading. They may soon demand that I give up non-aca-
demic reading, watching DVDs, and hanging out in the common room
to talk to people so that I can get back to work.

Now that the Reader, the Thinker, and the Writer are starting to get
back into the dissertation, I realize how much I would like to have more
time to read the great bunch of books friends lent me, or continue my
vacation from the dissertation until after the New Year, or take pleas-
ure doing fun reading while my academic colleagues slave over their
own dissertations. I continue my strategy of acting cool towards the
three, hoping they won't want to get serious too soon. The more they
get serious about academic work, the more I wonder if I shouldn't take
it easy for a little longer.

I am torn about what to do. When the Reader, the Thinker, and the
Writer were no where to be found, I was wanting them back; now that
they are in my face, I am yearning for the free time and the easy life
to continue. I'm still recovering from serious heart surgery seven weeks
ago, you know! Unfortunately I expect that I will be back to my disserta-
tion very soon. It's only a matter of time.

The Crockpot, the Microwave, and the Crackpot

For several years now I have realized that people think in at least
two dominant ways: in a crockpot sort of way or like a microwave.
During these past seven weeks of recovery from open heart sur-
gery I have been able to distinguish the differences between the
two ways of thinking in my life. I once thought that I was either a
crockpot thinker or a microwave thinker, but never both. I now rea-
lize that there are times that I think in one way and later in the other,
or even in both ways at the same time.

I have often tended to see myself as a crockpot type of thinker. My
thinking was more of a gradual process than a quick cooking of ideas
and thoughts. As a thinker I was more like the plodding tortoise than
the blazing fast hare. Ideas and thoughts would suddenly come to me
after a considerable time of pondering a matter, or even after letting a
concern rest for some period of time. This often meant that I would
come up with witty remarks or brilliant comebacks well after the per-
son for whom they were intended had gone away. I carry 3x5 note
cards and a pen with me so that I can quickly write down ideas, in-
sights, or thoughts that come to me in the least expected times. This
way of thinking is like a crockpot: it takes a long period of time to cook
a good meal, and you can keep adding stuff as the meal cooks.

But I also notice that microwave thinking is a part of my life. There
have always been times when I had to make a reasonable decision
within a short amount of time or quickly form sentences and para-
graphs as I wrote papers or my dissertation. I did not have the lux-
ury of time to process an idea, or I was facing a looming deadline.
Many times I have had ideas that suddenly came to me and I was able
to run with them and put them into practice with little time spent in re-
flection. There always seemed to be a momentum that quickly led to
resolution of an issue or problem. There are all kinds of things, whether
problem solving, writing, decision making, remembering directions, or
engaging in conversation with somebody, when microwave thinking
was clearly needed.

I became increasingly aware of these two ways of thinking in me dur-
ing my time of recovery after surgery. My brain seemed to be set on
a crockpot mode of thinking, and churned out ideas, thoughts, connec-
tions, and insights at all hours of the day, and continues right up to the
present moment. I have been filling 3x5 card after 3x5 card with the
results of the lengthy process of the activity of my mind. I don't force
these thoughts, they just come. I don't think I do anything to promote
this, I just receive the results of the processes of my brain.

In contrast, my microwave style of thinking seemed to disappear.
From the days just after surgery until just a few days ago I noticed
that I had serious difficulties focusing, concentrating, doing basic rea-
soning, making decisions, giving or following directions, reading, con-
versing, and writing. I realized how much I took for granted that way
of thinking. Fortunately, over the past three weeks, my mind has been
clearing and the mental fog has been lifting. My mental processes seem
to be back on line. The only processes I still have to wait for are my abil-
ity to think, write, and read in an academic mode. But I sense that is
coming soon.

I desire that my crockpot and microwave modes of thinking may soon
work together, especially as I get back to work on my dissertation. I
put crackpot into the title because it is a reminder for me to guard
against taking my thoughts too seriously. I put premium value on my
mind and what I think, and there is a danger in that. In reality I do not
see myself to be a crackpot, but I need to constantly remind myself
that my mind and my thinking are only dimensions of who I am. So,
to refer to myself as a crackpot is to remind myself to put my mind
in its appropriate place in my life. May I never lose sight of that.

Remembering and Reflecting

Nearly 25 years ago I remember my doctor had received the results of a recent test done on my heart. He looked me in the eyes and gently said that I should expect to have major heart surgery done sometime in the future to replace my aortic valve. At that time the doctor was not concerned about my valve, but he saw evidence of leakage and he could only expect that it would get worse over time. He did not predict when I would need the surgery, but he seemed certain that it would be necessary at a future date.

I must admit that since than I had always dreaded the possibility of having open heart surgery. The thought of having my chest opened up and my heart worked on scared me. Those feelings and fears came back to me last February when a local cardiologist looked over the results of recent tests on my heart. He noted that I had not been experiencing the symptoms of heart disease, but the tests revealed that my aortic valve was leaking at an increasing rate, and that if it were not tended to within the near future I would begin to experience serious medical problems. It was so serious that he recommended surgery within the year.

Major heart surgery was something that I did not desire to undergo, especially because I was in the final stages of writing my dissertation. I began to think of reasons to put off the surgery. The only thing I can say is that at some moment in that office I realized that my reluctance was not good for me, and I made the decision to undergo surgery as soon as it could be arranged. I have not regretted making that decision.

It has been over six weeks since my surgery, and it is all behind me now. My recovery has gone well and I feel ready to get on with my life. The fears I had were ill-founded. I was well taken care of in surgery and recovery. Even though I went through a serious chest infection there was never concern whether I was going to make it or not. What I suffered through were periods of waiting for medicines to take effect or wondering when staff would move me onto the next phase of the recovery process. I was often bored out of my mind. But those things or something similar happen both inside of hospitals as well as outside them.

As I reflect on my surgery and recovery I can only see good. I am glad that I went through it because the surgery gave me so many physical and spiritual benefits for which I am increasingly grateful. The surgery that I had feared for close to 25 years became a source of rich blessing for me. I am thankful to God that God put me through it and I am realizing that it is one of the most significant events in my life.

Meanwhile, just over six weeks since surgery, I feel fit and healthy, and I don't feel sluggish or out of breath. I easily do everything that I did before the surgery, and that demands a lot of walking. Perhaps if I pushed myself to do things I normally do not do I would sense my physical limits. Physically I feel great. My mental abilities continue to steadily improve and I am doing a considerable amount of reading and writing. But I have not sensed that it is time to get back to academic matters yet. The time will come, but I won't push it.

I continue to ask you to keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

Blessings, Jeff