Whether a Christian enjoys high church, low church, or something in between, aesthetics in the Church are not about any one individual person and their particular tastes. Aesthetics are, fundamentally, not a matter of legalism, but of edification—that the Gospel of Christ might be preached and taught to all peoples, unhindered by its medium.
Let us live by walking with Jesus, so that our Neo-Pagan neighbors, the witch, and frankly a lot of us Christians, can put down our crystals, our superstitions, our vision boards, and our bound sage in order to live out a liturgy of life, with rituals, practices, and behaviors that reflect who we are as followers of Christ.
As Jesus hung on the cross there would be no last second escape. No Greek goddess would swoop in to rescue him. He suffered alone. And yet even in that suffering he declared his victory on the spiritual battlefield to be your victory.

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In Scripture, laments are raw expressions of grief, but they always point to hope. What if our culture’s obsession with holiday lights is an unconscious way of crying out, “We need good news, and we need it now”?
Below is an excerpt from the personal devotional included in this year’s 1517 Advent Resources.
The point of Revelation is to reveal consolation in Jesus, not to revel in chaos and confusion.
This is an edited excerpt from Addendum A, “The Church Year,” On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service, written by Michael Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023), pgs. 113-120.
In Christ, this world’s never-children are his always-children, because he isn’t a God of death, after all.
Heaven is yours now.
What’s the big deal about Jesus’ name?
I didn’t see Christmas as a gift given to me to enjoy, I saw Christmas as a long list of expectations I needed to hold up to love those around me.
Can you imagine Christmas from creation’s point of view?
Luke shows us that when we try to fit God into our life movie, the plot is all wrong; and not just wrong but trivial.
We still think we can sort own own problems with more money, more education, more resources, more techniques, more, more, more.
Show me your righteousness, we can only point to Jesus