A Social Network Christmas

Continuing on the clever Christmas videos with post-modern and technological twists, I'm including another addition: A Social Network Christmas.

The Christmas Prophecy

Advent Video

Advent is my favorite time of the year, in large part because in church communities we read through sections of the prophets, in particular Isaiah.  I find it to be a deep spiritual time for me, a renewing of hope, an articulation of what the world is meant to be(come) and be about.  This year there have been numerous creative digital and electronic creations around Advent and Christmas.

Here's one I heard about through a French friend, a creative way to retell the prophetic poetry of Isaiah in and for our context today.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

The Digital Story of the Nativity

I've been sent links to this video by several friends this week.  An interesting take on a sometimes too familiar story.

Trader: the video.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

This one seemed appropriate to me in this season of Advent.

Blogging Towards Sunday, December 12, 2010

The 3rd Sunday of Advent: JOY

Isaiah 35:1-10 | Psalm 146:5-10 | Luke 1:47-55 | Matthew 11:2-11

Is Jesus for real? Do we really want him in Christmas?

This is my new favorite Christmas song this year, "There's Still My Joy"[VIDEO] : [lyrics] by the Indigo Girls.  I'm haunted by the repeated chorus line: "One tiny child can change the world.  One shining light can show the way."

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Blogging Towards Sunday, December 5, 2010

Isaiah 11:1-10 & Matthew 3:1-12

The Isaiah passages in the readings proposed for this Second Sunday in Advent grab me.  Filled with word pictures, I find my mind's eye inundated with possibilities, stimuli and connections.  The Stump of Jesse is contrasted with the wind of the Spirit.  This stump, symbol of the ancient royal line of David (Jesse was his father) is stumped, dead, finished after the Babylonian and Assyrian invasions of the 6th and 8th centuries BCE.  The once great line of wise God-fearing rulers is gone.  But a new leader is coming, blown by the wind, filled with the spirit, called to be a great leader who will rule with justice in particular in regards to the meek and the poor as opposed to rule in a partisan way blowing with the winds of propaganda, gain and public-opinion.  The stump is immobile, unwilling and unable to change, to adapt, to grow.  The Spirit, or wind (in Hebrew and Greek it's the same word) is fluid, active, transformative, inviting, moving all those that it comes into contact with.  And so this first half of this passage (1-5) is dominated with these two images: Stump & Wind.