The gospel -- provocative? Surprising? Who'd known.

Imagine hearing news of the child - to be the savior of not only Israel, but of every nation that was and would ever be.

It still astounds me that God --powerful, sovereign...a pretty much amazing fella-- would choose to be ordinary. One of us. That song -- you know, Joan Osborne's mid(?)-90s hit "What if God Was One of Us" (I loved it)...it seemed to ask that one central question on the minds of those seeking:

Would God know what I'm talking about? Where I'm coming from?

Joan's question resounds in my lyrics-laden brain -- If God had a face/What would it look like and would you wanna see/If seeing meant that you would have to believe

The gospel brings us news of God's face -- not in a vision in some overarching cloud about to rain down on Creation, but an infant, born to a virgin (who?!) in a manger (what?!). God's face -- in that newborn -- God's face -- in a son.

If God had a name/What would it be and would you call it to his face?

Maybe this year we can speak a resounding, "Yes!" to that question, saying, "Come, Jesus."

This song has spoken to me quite a bit lately.

I hope its lyrics are meaningful to you as well.

Cry Out to Jesus
Third Day

To everyone who's lost someone they love
Long before it was their time
You feel like the days you had were not enough
when you said goodbye

And to all of the people with burdens and pains
Keeping you back from your life
You believe that there's nothing and there is no one
Who can make it right

There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
Love for the broken heart
There is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus, Cry out to Jesus

For the marriage that's struggling just to hang on
They’ve lost all of their faith in love
They've done all they can to make it right again
Still it's not enough

For the ones who can't break the addictions and chains
You try to give up but you come back again
Just remember that you're not alone in your shame
And your suffering

When you're lonely
And it feels like the whole world is falling on you
You just reach out, you just cry out to Jesus
Cry to Jesus

To the widow who suffers from being alone
Wiping the tears from her eyes
For the children around the world without a home
Say a prayer tonight

I'll have to tell you later how an article I recently read in the magazine Relevant gave so much more meaning to this song.

Take care, folks.

Natural diasters ravishing entire cities, homes and lives across the world.

A country at war abroad.

Its citizens at war within themselves.

2005 has been tough for a lot of people. Brokenness doesn't even begin to encompass what most have experienced.

Recently, a friend told me that even tears, the normal coping mechanism for 99.9% of Creation (or so it seems), couldn't do her brokenness justice. I'm not sure how that works, but it seems to accurately give a glimpse into the hurt that has dug so deeply into the hearts of God's children.

Amidst the darkness, however, there's hope. We can't comprehend it, because it is too vast and beyond U.S., metric or any type of human measure. Though we lack understanding, we can be assured it is there. And in abundance.

"Hope without patience results in the illusion of optimism or, more terrifying, the desperation of fanaticism. The hope necessary to initiate us into the adventure must be schooled by patience if the adventure is to be sustained. Through patience, we learn to continue hope, even though our hope seems to offer little chance of fulfillment...Yet patience equally requires hope, for without hope, patience too easily accepts the world and the self for what it is, rather than what it can or should be." -Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character

More to come.