Christmas Week and the Gift of the Magi
This is Christmas week. I have been helping to give Holy Communion at church this month, offering the chalice of wine behind the pastor. I will do so on Christmas Eve as well. Next month I will read the liturgy at First Lutheran’s services. There was a time when a woman would never do either of these at a Lutheran service. My religion has evolved just as the theological message has remained intact. That is certainly appropriate. Religion as a practice is a living thing. Theology as a belief is unchanging. The words of Isaiah 9: 2-7 remind us of the story, message and reason for Christmas: For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. It is hard for me to read those words without falling into the lilt of the music of Handel’s Messiah with which so many of us are familiar. For many of us that music represents Christma