ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
November 28, 2025
As I write this on Thursday evening of Thanksgiving, I am eating some leftovers from an earlier feast, while my wife watches “It’s a Wonderful Life” in the other room. It is my favorite Christmas movie, and I find the time to watch it every year. Though in this moment, I have to laugh because it feels like a threshold moment—still eating some of the Thanksgiving dinner, yet of the most nostalgic Christmas movies, at least in my opinion, is playing.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, commonly known as the Old Testament, there are numerous threshold moments. So often in these moments, a marker is placed for future generations, and the hope is for the next generation to ask, “What does this marker represent?” And the story can be retold, and the history is not forgotten. Yet I do not believe the sole purpose was simply to remember, but to allow what was learned to inform the present. History, for no other reason than remembering, is interesting. But remembering the cause, the failures, the lessons learned, and truth revealed are what allow history to step beyond the confines of its original context and speak to the current moment.
At this pivotal moment, as we near the end of Thanksgiving and eagerly anticipate Advent and Christmas, it’s likely that we can’t list all the traditions, both minor and significant, that we anticipate in these final weeks of the year. However, is it merely a matter of remembering? Or is there a story to be told, and in the telling, are there certain aspects of that story that inform and shape how we think about the present? For me, that’s the essence of tradition. It’s not meant to confine us, but rather empower us to move forward as well-informed individuals.
Holy God, it is your story of love and mercy that stands behind so many of the traditions we hold close. As we celebrate and share in these wonderful aspects of the season, allow your powerful truth to inform this present moment, helping to point us toward a more faithful future. Amen.
