Scot McKnight contends that Christmas is about God, and who am I to argue? The subject is the first in his series of Advent posts centering around — well, he introduces it like this:

The first Christmas was a Magnificat kind of Christmas. It wasn’t a Dickens kind of Christmas, and it wasn’t a Midwestern kind of Christmas, and it wasn’t a Tennessee kind of Christmas. It was a Mary kind of Magnificat kind of Christmas that turns our kinds of Christmases on their head. This is our first in four Advent reflections about a Magnificat kind of Christmas.

Of course, Scot’s book on Mary has just come out, The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus. Having seen the sample chapters, I’m looking forward to some good insights. (For some reason, I never did receive the “Street Team” package, so the discussion has to be cancelled or postponed as I don’t have a copy of the book yet.)

More Advent thoughts

J.R. Woodward is starting his Advent studies on the theme “Becoming a People of Hope,” and links a number of Advent resources. Elsewhere, Lucas Land reflects on the lectionary reading for this first Advent Sunday, starting Year C.

I myself haven’t gotten in gear enough yet to have started work on a good Advent series, but I’ll likely put forth some original thought for this year soon. In the meantime, I’m looking over some of my prior thoughts around the themes of Advent and Christmas:

• An Advent Encounter (We All Heard It, featuring the shepherds, a 1999 piece republished December 19, 2005 & December 21, 2005)
• Doing Couch Church (December 19, 2004)
• The 1914 Christmas Truce (December 26, 2004)
• Advent I : The Waiting… (November 27th, 2005)
• Advent II: The Muses of Joseph (December 4, 2005)
• Advent III: The Unexpected Mothers (December 11, 2005)
• Advent IV: They that Wait (December 18, 2005)
• Advent for Kids (December 13, 2005)
• Mixing metaphors, and Kicking your way to the Light (John’s Gospel, darkness & Light; December 20th, 2005)
• Jesus Christ The Apple Tree (December 22, 2005)
• And what of the innkeeper? (December 23, 2005)
• Christmas Presents Past (December 24, 2005)
• Bethlehem (December 25, 2005)