In this sermon Peter Haas uses the story of Naomi in the Book of Ruth to teach several insights about the call to compassion and empathy.
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In this sermon, pastor Peter Haas shares a simple analogy to help convey the meaning of Christmas.
© 2012. All Rights Reserved.
ContemplativeChristians.com is an online spiritual resource for the contemplative Christian journey deeper into God’s love, celebrating the gifts of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence, Solitude, Service, Nature, and especially the writings of Thomas Keating, and other teachers, contemplatives and mystics who have contributed to our understanding of the spiritual journey and contemplative Christianity.
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In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. John 1:1, 4
I only remember one Christmas Eve sermon from my childhood and youth. I was 17 years old and distinctly remember my pastor teaching on this most beautiful and profound verse from the Gospel of John about the Word (in Greek, Logos), which can mean the organizing principle connecting everything.
That night I learned that the word Word is also a synonym for Christ, the title Jesus was given that recognized His divinity and messianic lineage. 
Thus, Jesus was fully human from Mary and fully Divine from the Word, and this union is what made Him the Christ.
I recall that it was a very cold Wisconsin night. I walked outside the church sanctuary after the service and looked up into the starry night sky. Just then was when the mystery of Christmas began to feel real for me. I began to see that Christianity was not just about a story of a little baby born in Bethlehem.
It was also a demonstration of what every human being was meant to be. Whereas Jesus was born the Son of God by nature, we can be re-born as sons and daughters of God by grace.
The car was freezing and took ten minutes to warm up, but as I shivered in the back seat I felt very warmed by the love of God and the knowledge I had just received from my pastor’s teaching. I began to realize right then that Christmas is not just about Jesus because the Word that became flesh as Jesus was in existence before Jesus was born!
Thus, it dawned on me that Christmas is also about the Word. I began to deeply ponder; what was this Word that existed before Jesus was born? I suspect I will always ponder this mystery at the heart of Christmas.
Perhaps this Christmas eve you can take a moment to ponder the Christmas mystery too. Perhaps you will go outside and look up into the Milky Way Galaxy and not just ask who is the baby Jesus, but also what is the Word, that is to say, the Logos that became flesh as Jesus?
And perhaps you will feel as I did – strangely warmed by the presence of Love and Wisdom, awakened to the gift of a Christmas not just about the infant Jesus, but about the God who came near to show humankind the way back home in union with the living Word of God, so that we too might become sons and daughters of God and co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8.17).
Holy Spirit of God – with Mary, we ask that Christ be born in us according to Thy Word. Amen.
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ContemplativeChristians.com is an online spiritual resource for the contemplative Christian journey deeper into God’s love, celebrating the gifts of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence, Solitude, Service, Nature, and especially the writings of Thomas Keating, and other teachers, contemplatives and mystics who have contributed to our understanding of the spiritual journey and contemplative Christianity.
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All thanks to God, Father, Son and Hoy Spirit, the Infinitely Compassionate and Most Merciful:
And to Mary, sister, daughter and mother of Jesus, both Signs of God.
And to our Mother Eve, and her husband Adam, and all other names who have paired the Body to bear forth the Family of God into its ever unfolding fullness.
May Life continue to flourish on planet earth, beyond suffering, war, disease and death.
May increasing numbers of the Family of God arise in understanding into the maturity of Christ where through the third-eye of faith we see and know oneness and diversity in harmony and relationship.
May the imagination of Jesus Christ be ours, as we set our minds on things above, chiefly to see the world and one another no longer through the eyes of judgement, fear and law, but through the promise of Resurrection wherein death and the whole program of human violence rooted in desire and judgement are revealed to be passing shadows in the darkness, made ever clear by the Light of the World released at Resurrection, spreading as Life and Love since Pentecost.
Amen.
© 2012. All Rights Reserved.
ContemplativeChristians.com is an online spiritual resource for the contemplative Christian journey deeper into God’s love, celebrating the gifts of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence, Solitude, Service, Nature, and especially the writings of Thomas Keating, and other teachers, contemplatives and mystics who have contributed to our understanding of the spiritual journey and contemplative Christianity.
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Eternal and Loving God:
External life attempts to smother the truth that human beings are the chosen beneficiaries of Your Love.
Help us remember today.
Help us wake up more fully to this truth.
May we recognize, receive, and remember this essential truth of Your Love, despite all external evidence to the contrary.
Your Love operates under a different set of rules that we can’t even understand. But we can feel it, and that makes all the difference.
Amen.
© 2012. All Rights Reserved.
ContemplativeChristians.com is an online spiritual resource for the contemplative Christian journey deeper into God’s love, celebrating the gifts of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence, Solitude, Service, Nature, and especially the writings of Thomas Keating, and other teachers, contemplatives and mystics who have contributed to our understanding of the spiritual journey and contemplative Christianity.
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“My soul yearns and pines for the courts of God. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” Psalm 84.3
Although difficult to remember in our culture, I remember that instinctual drives for survival, power and love do not solely define me. I am also created for union with God.
Thus, I am not ashamed of the drive in me that is awakened by Truth, inspiring hunger and thirst for the Kingdom of God.
© 2012. All Rights Reserved.
ContemplativeChristians.com is an online spiritual resource for the contemplative Christian journey deeper into God’s love, celebrating the gifts of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence, Solitude, Service, Nature, and especially the writings of Thomas Keating, and other teachers, contemplatives and mystics who have contributed to our understanding of the spiritual journey and contemplative Christianity.
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“Whatever villages or towns or countryside Christ entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed.” Mark 6.55-56
Dark emotions arising in reaction to difficulties in life reveal that my inner landscape is full of “towns” still in need of receiving the healing touch of Christ.
Aware of my need for help, I reach out to the divine tassel and receive the grace God so faithfully extends to humankind.
© 2012. All Rights Reserved.
ContemplativeChristians.com is an online spiritual resource for the contemplative Christian journey deeper into God’s love, celebrating the gifts of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence, Solitude, Service, Nature, and especially the writings of Thomas Keating, and other teachers, contemplatives and mystics who have contributed to our understanding of the spiritual journey and contemplative Christianity.
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Beloved:
Today I make the inward turn to silence to feel Your strength as the energy for all my doings and also my deepest rest.
In Christ, Soul of my soul. Amen.
© 2012. All Rights Reserved.
ContemplativeChristians.com is an online spiritual resource for the contemplative Christian journey deeper into God’s love, celebrating the gifts of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence, Solitude, Service, Nature, and especially the writings of Thomas Keating, and other teachers, contemplatives and mystics who have contributed to our understanding of the spiritual journey and contemplative Christianity.
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God of all Creation:
In your grace, our wrong turns become unexpected paths.
Inside this grace enabled surrender, I find your love.
Inside your love, I find silence.
Inside the silence, You Are and I Am.
Amen.
© 2012. All Rights Reserved.
ContemplativeChristians.com is an online spiritual resource for the contemplative Christian journey deeper into God’s love, celebrating the gifts of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence, Solitude, Service, Nature, and especially the writings of Thomas Keating, and other teachers, contemplatives and mystics who have contributed to our understanding of the spiritual journey and contemplative Christianity.
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