I find myself returning to the Nicene Creed this Advent season
This is an excerpt from this year’s 1517 Advent Devotional.
Thanksgiving, then, is not just about plenty. It is about redemption.

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The Church becomes anti-church when the new world order Christ inaugurated by eliminating demographic division through the commonality of Baptism is exploded by allegiance to cults of personality.
Fullness, truth, reality – all this God gives us as his gift in Christ.
The answer to our messages is God's "yes," Jesus, who sends his preachers to proclaim that there's no place for us now other than in the grip of our God and Savior.
He will safely birth us from this world, which is like a womb, into Heaven itself. On that day we will truly see the creation as it was made to be, restored and perfect in eternity forever.
When all the people had been baptized, when all the people had washed the filth of their sins into the water, Jesus went into the water to draw their sins unto Himself.
Human history and especially the Christian life have a shape, and Jesus is its shaper at every point, infusing even the mundane and the difficult with sanctifying purposes, ultimate meaning, and enduring hope.
The sermon takes place in the context of a multi-facetted set of relationships experienced through the weeks and months of being together in congregation and community. Those relationships shape the credibility of the preacher in the pulpit. 
As the writer to the Hebrews affirms, what makes the Christian gospel so much better is that we are no longer dealing with “types and shadows."
God resolves his wrath through the unexpected giving of his Son.
Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
In Memory of My Friend, James Arne Nestingen
Because we could never intuitively figure it out, God reveals Christ to us.