John the Baptizer, having received...
Illustration
John the Baptizer, having received the word of God in the wilderness, moved to the Jordan to proclaim it. The church, hearing the proclamation of life and hope in the sanctuary, must move into the world to apply it.
For many people, Christmas is a depressing and hopeless time of year. On the day after Christmas Day, a twenty-year-old Oak Park, Michigan, woman, entered the Belcrest Hotel on Cass Avenue across from Wayne State University. She took an elevator to the seventeenth floor, opened a window off the corridor, and jumped. She was taken to Henry Ford Hospital, where she died two hours later.
A volunteer at a suicide crisis center commented that family, social, and economic pressures combine to make the Christmas season a most explosive time for those who are lonely or alienated. "For some people, killing themselves is the only hope they have left."
To celebrate Christmas well, we have a task. Like John the Baptizer, we have a life-giving hope to proclaim that "all flesh" might "see the salvation of God."
For many people, Christmas is a depressing and hopeless time of year. On the day after Christmas Day, a twenty-year-old Oak Park, Michigan, woman, entered the Belcrest Hotel on Cass Avenue across from Wayne State University. She took an elevator to the seventeenth floor, opened a window off the corridor, and jumped. She was taken to Henry Ford Hospital, where she died two hours later.
A volunteer at a suicide crisis center commented that family, social, and economic pressures combine to make the Christmas season a most explosive time for those who are lonely or alienated. "For some people, killing themselves is the only hope they have left."
To celebrate Christmas well, we have a task. Like John the Baptizer, we have a life-giving hope to proclaim that "all flesh" might "see the salvation of God."
