1. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  2. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  3. Forty days after giving birth, Mary, along with her husband Joseph, presented their firstborn Son at the temple and "bought" him back with a sacrifice of two small birds. This is known as the "Presentation of Our Lord."
  4. Even as he was dying, the heart of God poured itself out for the sake of sinners.
  5. I think the problem with the idea of eternity is that we do not have any direct experience of it, but we encounter enough of its possibility to be unsettling.
  6. The gospel's message is the scandalous announcement that Yahweh has stooped to our frame, to where we are.
  7. Fullness, truth, reality – all this God gives us as his gift in Christ.
  8. The usual acclamation when one becomes King is: “Long live the King!” But this King of kings, this son of David, has come to die.
  9. 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."
  10. God resolves his wrath through the unexpected giving of his Son.
  11. Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
  12. Toy Story is indeed a Christmas story.