From Treasuring God in Our Traditions:

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the long season of Lent. Lent comes from an Old English word that means lengthen, signifying that the days are getting longer because Spring is here.

Traditionally Lent is a season of sober, realistic reflection on our own lives and our need for a Savior. It is a time for turning away from anything that has kept us from God and for turning or returning to him. It is a time to pray that God renew our love for him and our dependence on him.

Lent is a season of waiting. In that sense it is like Advent. But while Advent waits eagerly for the appearance of the Savior, Lent waits, with heavy responsibility, for his death. The light of the Advent candles grows brighter as we approach the Savior’s arrival. In Lent, all grows darker as we draw nearer to the unthinkable—the death of God.

To symbo…

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How will our home look if our celebration is a picture of anticipation and waiting for God’s plan to be completed, a picture of our joy in the salvation he has begun for us? What visible things will fill our house as we celebrate what God has done through Jesus?

Our very first Christmas was in the middle of our honeymoon, so our traditions began the second year of marriage. We visited our families before Christmas, and returned across the country to our small place late at night on December 21. We didn’t have any decorations, the time was short, and our budget was limited, so we decided not to buy a tree. I had found a tiny nativity set at an international gift shop.

On Christmas morning, the two of us sat on the floor beside a low, small table with that creche between us. Christmas carols played softly from the radio as we opened each other’s gifts. It seem…

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Over the years, we have chosen not to include Santa Claus in our Christmas stories and decorations. There are several reasons.

First, fairy tales are fun and we enjoy them, but we don’t ask our children to believe them.

Second, we want our children to understand God as fully as they’re able at whatever age they are. So we try to avoid anything that would delay or distort that understanding. It seems to us that celebrating with a mixture of Santa and manger will postpone a child’s clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. It’s very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part-truth and part-imagination to find the crumbs of reality.

Third, we think about how confusing it must be to a straight-thinking, uncritically-minded preschooler because Santa is so much like what we’re trying all year to teach our children about God…

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Talitha: “Mom, I have a tiny disco ball to hang on the Jesus Tree!”

Me: “Before you do that, you need to tell me how that disco ball relates to Jesus.”

Talitha: “Mmm…well…Jesus is the light of the world…and he shines all around…

Me: “Good. And he’s multifaceted, so there’s always more to learn about his glories.”

The Bible is filled with names and word pictures of Jesus. Every name or image is a facet of the God who is too complex and deep for us to ever know completely. But as we gaze at him from one angle and then from another, we see more clearly the whole, complete, perfect person he is. And the more we know him, the more we love him.

There is no other time in our year set aside to think so happily and thoroughly about who Jesus is and what he’s done. That makes Advent and Christmas a perfect time to put in front of us everything we can think …

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Advent is a time of looking back, remembering the faithful people who were waiting for the salvation God had promised, as 1 Peter 1:10-12 tells us.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,inquiring  what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted  the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Then the very next verses continue by turning our eyes forward in Advent, looking toward the return of Jesus.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, …

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Advent Candles probably are the most common Advent symbolism of looking back to the days of waiting for the Messiah God had promised.

Various helpful schemes of symbolism can be attached to Advent candles, their number, and color. But here are the basics—one candle for each of the Sundays of Advent, and if you wish, a fifth for Christmas Day. Some people have a special candle holder arrangement, a wreath maybe. That’s nice but not necessary. The only requirement for using Advent candles is candles.

On the first Sunday, only one candle will be lit, then two on the second, and so forth. That’s the ritual.But if we want our Advent candles to be more than a centerpiece, we have to ask ourselves, “What makes these more than wax and wick?”

The flame is a symbol of the one who is called “the light of the world.” We who follow him “will not walk in darkness, but…

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During Advent, it’s as if we are re-enacting the thousands of years God’s people were anticipating and longing for the coming of God’s salvation, for Jesus. Then at the end of the four weeks of Advent, Christmas is a heartfelt celebration because that ancient waiting is done.

And yet we are still waiting.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. (Romans 8:22-23)

Our spiritual redemption came to us with the baby of Bethlehem. But still, “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

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We are a people of promise. For centuries, God prepared people for the coming of his Son, our only hope for life. At Christmas we celebrate the fulfillment of the promises God made—that he would give a way to draw near to him.

Advent is what we call the season leading up to Christmas. It begins four Sundays before December 25, sometimes in the last weekend of November, sometimes on the first Sunday in December. This year it was November 29.

1 Peter 1:10-12 is a clear description of what we look back to during Advent.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves b…

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Today is a very important day in my life—my mother’s birthday.

At my blog, I’m in the middle of a series, telling our adoption story. Today, I skipped ahead a few episodes to describe Mother’s response to our adoption news.

I’m thanking God for Mother, who to this day points me toward him through her life and practical advice.

When I came home from running errands yesterday, I found a florist’s delivery on my back porch—rich, red long-stemmed roses. The gift card had no words, only numbers: 6-6-66.

Yesterday, 6-6-09, was the 43rd anniversary of the day I met Johnny Piper in the lounge of Fischer Hall at Wheaton College. God has brought us a long way since then.

When I got the flowers, Johnny was in Raleigh. Remembering the many times he’s told a favorite what-if story, I texted him: “Oh Johnny, they’re beautiful! Why did you?”

He responded: “It’s my duty”—which, of course, is a joke that always gets a laugh. (You can scroll to the bottom of this message to see the story I'm talking about.)

It gets a laugh in America, but some audiences elsewhere might not get the humor, according to a friend who lives in China. When she was hospitalized there a few years ago, a group of he…

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