Back in mid-October we saw some vivid Christmas decorations down the street a bit next to a house decorated with grisly Halloween scenes. One doesn’t have to be a liturgical calendar geek to know that’s just too early. The Trump signs next to Santa’s sleigh didn’t compute, either. It got me cranky; maybe that’s why our annual Advent book list wasn’t any earlier this year. (Well, there was that national election that you might have heard about.) Now, at last, here we go — with some hot cider in the mug, here’s the latest BookNotes with some descriptions of new Advent and Christmas readings.

A second one will come soon listing children’s books to help families celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Of course there are a lot of great titles from other years, so if you love book browser, you might enjoy checking out these old BookNotes from previous years. (You can use our search box at the Hearts & Minds website, too, if you’re looking for what we might have described and recommended before.) Many of these seasonal books are still in print and may be in stock here at the shop now:

• https://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/2023/11/2023-advent-books-20-off/
• https://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/2022/11/7905/
• https://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/2022/11/advent-resources-for-families-with-children-2022-some-new-some-older-all-20-off/
• https://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/2019/12/childrens-books-for-advent-and-christmas-and-a-gem-or-two-illustrated-by-ned-bustard-on-sale-now/
• https://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/2021/11/advent-2021-resources-for-groups-classes-families-and-for-personal-use-all-20-off/

Given the heaviness of our times for many of us these days, might I suggest (from previous lists) perhaps The Advent of Justice, a keen, brief, Biblically-based set of mediations by Brian Walsh, Richard Middleton, Sylvia Keesmaat, and Mark Vander Vennan. Or perhaps the passionate, insightful hardcover, The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope by Kelley Nikondeha or Keep Watch With Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers with contributions by Shane Claiborne, Sami Awad, Becca Stevens, Padraig O Tuama, and more, who will inspire a gracious sort of faith-infused social activism. Honest Advent (by Scott Erickson) would be good for some of our readers, I’d bet. And we simply must, each year, remind readers of the excellent, hefty collection of sermons by the Reverend Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, a must-have volume in my view.

For those new to the meaning of Advent, don’t miss the small Advent: The Season of Hope in the ongoing “Fullness of Time” series edited by Esau McCaulley. You’ll see in last’s year’s BookNotes my rave review of Christmas: The Season of Light and Life in that series by Emily McGowan and Epiphany: The Season of Glory by Fleming Rutledge. Thanks be to God.

 

Glad and Golden Hours: A Companion for Advent & Christmastide Lanier Ivestor, illustrated by Jennifer Trafton (Rabbit Room Press) $35.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

We’ll start off this BookNotes Advent newsletter listing not with a daily devotional or reflective study of Biblical texts or the spirituality of the journey to Bethlehem but rather, a big, sprawling, wonderful, wonderful keepsake volume that a offers, well, a guide to thinking about and doing something with the themes of Advent, Christmas Eve, Christmastide and such, in light of a rich theology of incarnation and hope. Glad and Golden Hours, done exquisitely by the creative folks at Rabbit Room, has lovely watercolor illustrations on good paper, with lots of colored ink a pastel pages, each offering ideas of how to celebrate, how to engage the ups and downs of the season, things to do, stuff to make, prayers and songs and cookies and candles and more. If you long for some sort of coherent and thoughtful framework for thinking about family rituals and seasonal customers and feasting and fasting and more, Ivestor and Trafton have given you a delightful, tangible, almost lavish guidebook.

There are a lot of popular books about holiday crafts and home-based celebrations but none hold an (Advent) candle to this. It is upbeat but honest, deeply aware of sorrows and losses, and the best resource we know to reshape the landscape of our daily holiday lives.

I adore this paragraph from the back cover. They had me at Capon, even more at Supper of the Lamb, but the rest is worth pondering all season.

Like Robert Capon’s Supper of the Lamb, this is a book that defies the trappings of a mere cookbook or a collection of craft projects. It’s an embodiment of a rich theology of Creation of what it means to be human when everything is both falling apart and coming back together.

As Investor says, “If the full radiance beyond the darkness of this world was unmasked at once, I don’t think we’d be able to bear it.” This book will help you unfold along with the season, wrestling with feasting and mourning and the “coexisting forces of great grief and great joy” She calls her home Ruff House and you are invited in for some glad and golden hours. Join in!

Comfort and Joy: Readings and Practices for Advent Sherah-Leigh Gerber & Gwen Lantz (Herald Press) $16.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Speaking of books with recipes and concrete ways to embody both the waiting/longing themes of Advent and the feasting of coming Christmas, this book offers both a daily devotional format (looking at lectionary texts drawn from Wilda Gafney’s A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church) and brings the Mennonite sympathies of the authors to bear in a really, really good Advent reader. There are devotional entries that are Biblical and solid, even thought-provoking, but there are other entries that are about finding grounded practices allowing us to “notice the sacred amid the ordinary.” Both of these Anabaptist women are serious thinkers and have forged a friendship around their shared love of writing well.

As it says on the back, “in these pages you’ll find ways to engage more deeply with favorite traditions and cultivate creative space for new ones.”

“Reading this book was a gift to me, and I’m happy to recommend it as a gift of grace for the Advent and Christmas season.” — April Yamasaki pastor and author of Four Gifts: Seeking Self-Care for Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: A Liturgy for Daily Worship from Advent to Epiphany Jonathan Gibson (Crossway) $29.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

If you know Gibson’s beautifully done, Celtic-themed (in a green and gold box slip-case) Be Thou My Vision then you will understand the format and design and power of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. This is written by a theologically conservative, straight-arrow Reformed pastor who is drawn to ancient liturgy and formal prayers and rubrics. In each entry, the day’s “liturgy” (printed with red ink highlights) includes meditations and calls to worship, times of adoration and prayers of confession. There are of course assurances of pardon and some catechism teaching from the classic creeds of the church. From intercession to the Lord’s Prayer, there are fabulous rhythms of daily worship — good for individuals, families, small groups.

This 40-day devotional offers rich, classic liturgical devotions to worship during the season of Advent and Christmastide.

Rediscovering the Magic of Christmas: An Advent Adventure from Genesis to Revelation John Hayward (IVP/UK) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Hayward has directed the Jubilee Centre in the UK and is known throughout the world as a mission leader and proponent of a holistic, evangelical vision. With endorsements from the likes of respected human rights activists such as Baroness Caroline Cox of Queensbury, you can be sure this is no simplistic or truncated perspective. Some have said it is a rare book, even, not only because of its deeply relevant Kingdom orientation but because it draws, day by day, on Biblical texts not usually associated with the season of Advent or the texts of Christmas. It starts with Genesis and works each day through the unfolding drama of Scripture to show how these interrelated texts point to Christ.

Surely a good reminder, refreshing, maybe even surprising for a Christmas-season read. It’s a nice hardback with gold embossing on the cover.  25 readings.

Season’s Greetings: Christmas Letters from Those Who Were There Ruth L. Boling (Upper Room Books) $14.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

Over the decades of our selling holiday books for our customers here in Dallastown we’ve come to very deeply appreciate Upper Room as a publisher of contemplative, well-written, easy-to-read, reflective books. Almost without a doubt their Advent and Lent releases are well worth having. We were excited to see this one because Ruth is a PCUSA minister who has served several churches here in the mid-Atlantic region. Her books on children and worship are stellar and enduring. She also, later in life, got a Doctor of Ministry degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in a program on Creative Writing and Public Theology.  We are fans.

Season’s Greetings is creative writing par excellence. It is not goofy (even if the very notion seems a bit whimsical.) As the great Thomas Long puts it, “Be prepared to meet the people of the Christmas story in ways you have never encountered them before.”

Each of 12 chapters starts with a letter from one of the characters of the story.  (Imagine opening your mailbox to find a bundle of Christmas letters addressed to you from all the biblical characters who were there for the birth of Jesus!)

There are pieces here from Mary, Joseph, the innkeeper, a shepherd. Don’t forget the midwife. You can hardly imagine the one from Herod and praise the Lord for the epistle from the Magi. These “vividly imagined letters”, the back cover says, “speak to the many meanings of Christmas — awe, wonder, disruption, scandal, and hope.” And more.

In the hands of a less thoughtful theologian or a less competent writer, this could turn maudlin or simplistic, a cheesy device. That would be okay, even, for the sheer fun of it, but in Ruth Boeing’s hands, these letters become a powerful bit of straight talk, compassionate insight, culturally-informed wisdom. What a book filled with, as one reviewer put it, intellectual rigor and a touch of humor.

At the end of each letter there is a prayer of confession, a whole bunch of thoughtful questions for reflection or discussion, and some journaling prompts.  Of course there is a closing prayer. There is also a nice guide for clergy or church leaders at the back and some suggestions for small groups. She is quite an educator, so offers these aids for your use. But the power is in the letters. Enjoy!

The Christmas Letters: Celebrating Advent with Those Who Told the Story First Magrey R. DeVega (Abingdon Press) $17.99;  The Christmas Letters Leader’s Guide $15.99 / OUR SALE PRICES = $14.39 (book), $12.79 (Leader’s Guide

Well, speaking of letters, get this: This is an Advent study of a few of the Epistles of the NT that allude to the miracle of Christ’s birth. In a way, these are the first to write about the story, so we can dig into Romans, 1 John, Philippians, and Colossians, each which contains “the earliest attempts by the church to understand and celebrate the incarnations of Jesus Christ.”

Rev. Magrey, the Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Floria, says that we are meant to read these letters “as if they’re written to us, to guide us, and to teach us and help us follow Christ.” These are ancient words but can help us more fully appreciate the meaning of Christ’s birth.

Tired of the routine studies of the classic nativity story? Try this It’s a four week study, good for book clubs or classes or small groups or to do on your own. Even without the Leader’s Guide, there are reflective questions and lots to ponder. Nice, basic, inspiring. And believe me, this guy loves the waiting Advent season — he’s written several others that have been popular other years…

The Inklings at Christmastide William Murdock (Lion’s Breath Publishing) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

I’m not going to lie: I wanted to adore this but it’s a little funky — a few typos (even on the back cover) and some odd design that you tend to find on self-published books. I wish this would have been done on a major publishing house with a classy and artful design that it deserves.

Because, self published as it may be, this is really unique. It allows us to “bring home for the holidays” friends like Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams, and other Inklings, not to mention Chesterton, Joy Davidman, George MacDonald, and the like. As Murdock puts it, you can “sit with some of the greatest men and women of faith and reason whose words have resonated throughout the decades.”

Murdock enjoyed the friendship of Sheldon Vanauken (known for his gripping book A Severe Mercy, about the death of his wife Davy and his correspondence with C.S. Lewis.) Curiously, that led Murdock to come to know Larry Norman, the remarkable rock star, who in turn opened the door for him to read the Inklings and Chesterton and more.

There are readings here for Advent through Epiphany. To be clear there is only one line or two from Lewis or Vanauken or Williams or Chesterton (or Larry Norman) for each day along with Bible readings, a meditation drawing on these insights, by Mr. Murdock. There isn’t a lot of writing from the Inklings, et al, per se, but the spirit of these imaginative thinkers pervades the meditations. What an interesting idea!

Prepare the Way for the Lord: Advent and the Message of John the Baptist Adam Hamilton (Abingdon Press) $16.99; Prepare the Way Leader’s Guide; $14.99 Prepare the Way DVD, $39.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59 (book), $11.99 (Leader’s Guide), $31.99 (DVD)

Just when you wondered if the great Adam Hamilton could do another Advent teaching, he comes up with this little study, a major project that few have approached as a key to Advent. Yep, cue “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” from Godspell, if you remember that, because here is a study in four weeks of the relationship of John the Baptist “prepare ye” speech and prophecy and the coming of the Jewish Messiah.

Actually, he brings in the annunciation, Zechariah’s prophecy and gets to John’s ministry and preaching before a chapter called “Witnesses – Testifying to the Light.” This is rich, rewarding stuff, popular-level but not too sentimental. It’s solid teaching, informed by good scholarship. I appreciated the final postscript (yes, I jumped ahead) called “Judgement Day and the second Advent.” Prepare, indeed.

In each of the gospels, the story of Jesus is intertwined with that of his cousin John, the one whom the prophets foretold would come to “prepare the way of the Lord.” The life, ministry, and message of John the Baptist makes us and our world read to receive Christ.

Advent for Exiles: 25 Devotions to Awaken Gospel Hope in Every Longing Heart Caroline Cobb (B&H Publishing) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I’ll admit to being a sucker for this lovely and handsome hardback, compact sized with a lavish green cover. I love that Caroline Cobb is a songwriter and storyteller and assume this will be, as they say, “a more honest, imaginative, and Scripture-rich companion for the Advent season.”

She indeed does weave together God’s Word, song, Biblical imagery and what she calls responsive exercises.

Importantly, she invites us into the lives of the Hebrew exiles in the awful time of 597 BCE, the date Brueggemann reminds us of often, so seminal and generative, when they were taken from their homeland into Babylonian captivity. They ached for return, longed for restoration. Some of our favorite Advent song lyrics— “O Come, O Come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel” — remind us that this is at the heart of the Biblical story we honor during this somber season. Cobb helps us “travel the Advent road from darkness to daybreak, wilderness to garden, exile to homecoming.” I like that approach. We will see what she does with it, but I know of no other Advent devotional that so intentionally leads us into this poetry of longing, set in exile, and hoping for home.

It isn’t every lovely Advent book that quotes solid Biblical teachers like Sandra Richter (The Epic of Eden), the legendary (dense) Meredith Kline, Michael Williams (Far as the Curse Is Found), my Bible heros Craig Bartholomew & Mike Goheen, not to mention Tim Mackie’s great “Bible Project” videos — all alongside Tolkien and and Emily Dickinson. And, yes, Fleming Rutledge. This is a winner.

Rediscovering Christmas: Surprising Insights into the Story You Thought You Knew AJ Sherrill (Waterbrook) $20.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I’ve been fond of AJ Sherrill as an author, not really knowing much about him. I liked his The Enneagram for Spiritual Formation: How Knowing Ourselves Can Make Us More Like Jesus, one of the better enneagram titles on our big shelf of them, and, importantly, I hope you know his great Brazos Press title, Being with God: The Absurdity, Necessity, and Neurology of Contemplative Prayer, which offers just what it say — neurology and contemplative prayer, crazy and important as it is. So I’m a fan, but recently a good, supportive friend told me he knows him well and that just made me all the more happy, hearing about his own story, love of books, and solid, mature faith. Hooray.

And now this little Christmas book appears, with a great foreword by Rich Villodas, with two sections — seven chapters for Advent (“The Gift of Waiting”) and seven for Christmas (“The Gift of Receiving.”) It claims to offer some really fresh insights. Really?

Don’t believe me? Understandable. But check this out:

Rediscovering Christmas opened my eyes to a world of meaning I had never known. — Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art

This little (but powerful) text packs a punch–with insightful historical knowledge, keen biblical sensitivity, biting cultural critique, and compassionate pastoral love. It gives the Advent season a whole new level of excitement for the follower of Jesus. — A. J. Swoboda, professor, pastor, and author of After Doubt: How to Question Your Faith Without Losing It

Rediscovering Christmas draws us into the mystery and messiness of the birth of Jesus Christ in our broken world. . . . AJ invites us to place one foot in the ancient Christmas story and our other foot in our own everyday lives. — Trevor Hudson, minister in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and author of Seeking God: Finding Another Kind of Life with St. Ignatius and Dallas Willard and Pauses for Advent: Words of Wonder

Stay Awhile: Advent Lessons in Divine Hospitality Kara Edison (WJK) $17.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

Kara Edison has an MDiv from Duke and has pastored in rural, suburban, and urban settings, which is a good sign that she knows a variety of readers from a variety of church settings. She’s also worked as a United Methodist campus ministry, which is pretty nifty. She brings to this hospitable table a lovely endorsement by Adam Hamilton who says she writes with “a scholar’s insight, a pastor’s heart, and a storyteller’s gift.” Nice.

The book might seem a companion to the helpful, soulful, Lenten work by Christine Coy Fohr, a title called Meeting Jesus at the Table. Here, though, in Advent, she takes us through images of divine hospitality. In the incarnation, God proves God’s own hospitality to us — Christ comes to us and is for us. But yet, the babe and his holy family needs to be shown quite human hospitality (which doesn’t come easy in first century Palestine, or in twenty-first century USA.) Our own preparation for receiving Christ takes physical and embodied attention, and, obviously, spiritual and emotional attentiveness. These reflections help us ponder the coming of Christ — past, present, and future.

Stay Awhile is one of the most useful books on the list this year not only due to the moving stories and important content, but because it includes weekly reflections for personal or small group use (of course) but besides the briefly daily meditations, too, there are ideas for including your whole congregation. As it says on the back, congregational resources include liturgies, sermon starters, children’s moments, and even a no-rehearsals-needed Christmas pageant. How about that?

Show Me Your Ways, O Lord: Devotions on the Psalms of Advent Kathryn Nishibayashi, Beth-Sarah Wright, Nancy Frausto, and Kim Fox (Forward Movement) $12.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $9.60

This small, compact book is a blessing for those who want some inspiring devotions exploring the Psalms for the season. There are Psalms of adoration, lament, repentance, and thanksgiving.  As they say on the back cover:

This collection connects us to the eternal truths of Scripture by reflection on the assigned Sunday Psalms for Advent from all three liturgical years. What a great idea, eh?

Borrowing Wonder: Christmas Poems and Reflections to Open the Heart John Shea (Liturgical Press) $19.95 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.96

When we opened our store in the early 1980s, John Shea was a very big name in popular Catholic renewal, writing a lot of really creative stuff and speaking all over; he was an energetic, passionate, colorful storyteller, poet and organizational leader. I haven’t kept up with his recent work, and was delighted to see this new, handsome, compact sized hardback.

Besides poetry there are a few upbeat essays in creative tones, a couple of very cool line drawing illustrations and a few photos. Nice to know his creative juices are still flowing, offering wisdom and care, wonder and joy, opening our hearts to the gospel of God.

There are some wonderful endorsements on the back, including a great blurb by Ronald Rolheiser who says that Shea is his favorite religion poet. Child-like joy and seeing goodwill will be a “balm for those parts of us that are jaded and cynical.”

Calling All Angels: An Advent Study of Fearlessness and Strength Erin Wathen (WJK) $17.00 / 13.60

Want an Advent study that is solid Biblically, evocative of faith and courage, and yet leaves room for questions and doubts and openness? Better, Calling All Angels (as you might expect with the title drawn from the Jane Siberry song) is fluent in pop culture and draws on songs from Over the Rhine and Mumford and Sons and the Indigo Girls. Her book playlist includes “Christmas Must Be Tonight” by the Band and “Angels from the Realms of Glory” by Annie Lennox, a song by Ella Fitzgerald. From Goo Goo Dolls to Emmylou Harris to Amy Grant to “Gabriel’s Message” by Sting, this is so much fun, and deeply moving.

After the Biblical meditations (each with a closing prayer) there is, at the end, four weeks of worship resources for those tasked with coming up with Call to Worship litanies, candle lighting and children’s messages, communion prayers, and the like.

A Timeless Script from a First Century Doctor: Advent Through the Eyes of Dr. Luke Rick Farmer (WestBow Press) $21.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

Anybody who calls the writer of the third Gospel (and Acts!) “Dr. Luke” has my attention, both because it is obvious the author has done some homework, and is playful enough to wear the scholarship lightly. I enjoy these sorts of books, well conceived and simply told, conversational and inspiring (even as they are informed by professorial insight.) A Timeless Script is this rare kind of book with quotes from Leslie Newbigin, and worldview studies combined with goofy cartoons. The print is a good size, there are quotes and jokes, and the academic stuff is found mostly in interesting footnotes.

More than mere Biblical insight, Farmer offers great wisdom here, devotion in the best sense of the word. He has studied faith formation and religion and has a degree in Psychology. He is a preacher and a teacher — and, truth be told, a former staff member of the fabulous Pittsburgh-based campus ministry organization the CCO. That he has been involved with the big Jubilee conference and has gone on to lead classes and mentor young adults shouldn’t surprise us.

This chatty volume has 300 pages —  plenty to read in a month. Dr. Farmer does Biblical study, practical application, offering keen faith-based visions of God’s Kingdom transforming those who trust in Christ, including those with mental health concerns, parenting needs, desires for healing or desperate for fresh starts. From the Gospel of Luke he draws insight from the life of Jesus, does some analysis of our cultural biases against the supernatural, and invites us to a whole-life discipleship filled with true truth, deep joy and real hope.

Be of Good Cheer: A Christmas Devotional Susan Hill (Zondervan) $16.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Some books are nice to give as gifts for those who may be first drawn to the lovely aesthetics, a warm-looking and holiday-obvious book with brown pinecones and white marshmallows and tan candles on the cover. There’s an open journal shown on the cover, there, too, inviting in the slightest hint to take time this season of decorations and beauty to think about what it is all about.

There’s nice design here, traditionally inviting like a cool Hallmark card. (And even a “To” and “From” plate in the front if your giving it as a gift. It says on the back, “Has merry and bright got you overwhelmed and exhausted?” This 40 days devotional invites us to quiet our mind, enjoy the nice photos and quaint, seasonal illustrations. Each reading is based on a Bible text and has a random one-word title so one can dip in whenever one has time…

Come Discover Christmas: a 32-Day Advent Devotional Arnold R. Fleagle, illustrated by Timothy R. Botts (Chosen) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

At first glance this is a lovely, trim sized devotional with holiday trappings, some cartoony holly and a great type font drawn so nicely. And, yep, then you realize that this is decorated by the remarkable calligraphy art of the great Timothy Bolts. He has not done books much lately and it is a great joy to see him at it again. Each entry here has the signature Botts animated calligraphy, flowing, shouting, praising. It’s nice.

Rev. Arnold Fleagle has some central Pennsylvania connections as he has served in the Christian Missionary Alliance denomination. He’s a good preacher, has won some writing awards, and here offers good insight, well told.

He writes,

Come Discover Christmas is designed to serve as a road map through the colors and characters, the places and prophecies, and the sights and songs of Christmas.

You will encounter unique views on the advent of our Lord including the ironies of Christmas, the politics of Christmas, and the inconveniences of Christmas.

Several carols are unpacked, too, nicely, I’d say. Well done.

One of Us: Reflecting on the Radical Mystery of the Incarnation A.D. Bauer (Square Halo Books) $16.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

This is not a daily devotional and not exactly a seasonal book, but what better time to read up on the implications of the incarnation than now, in the season leading to the very celebration of this amazing reality, God With Us, in the flesh. There are tons of books these days on the humanity of Jesus and how Christ’s own humanness can mold and shape and inspire us to be ourselves more fully human. There are deep theological studies reflecting on how it can be that this second Person of the Trinity can be an earthling. Most draw on the ancient classic — one of the most important books in the history of the world — On the Incarnation by Athanasius. And some of these are a bit heavy, tedious even.

A.D. Bauer is a small church, Reformed pastor who loves great art and literature and has written several other books that we stock (most recently his helpful How to See: Reading God’s Word with New Eyes.) I’ve highlighted One of Us earlier this fall when it first came out and I’m happy to give a fresh red and green holiday shout out here, now, since it is so very germane. It is short and readable and very clearly Biblically faithful.

One of Us starts with a lovely, inspiring essay about how the incarnation — Christ becoming fully human — should give us great hope. God understands us and in Christ, we are accepted in our frail humanness. The first half of the small book, in fact, is arranged under the heading “Living Like Us” and these chapters remind us of Christ’s baptism, how he faced temptation, and how he lived a very full life. He is fully God and fully human ‘(“man” as A.D. puts it, harkening to an older formulation of theological lingo) and this is an astonishing truth. It is a helpful truth. Pastor Bauer has had conversations with folks who need to hear that Christ was one of us. Maybe you need to hear that, too.

The second half of One of Us shows how this Jesus, the incarnated One, reverses the effects of the human fall into sin. The short chapters are good to name as any one of them could be incredibly helpful for most of us:

• Jesus Lives in Harmony with God and Others
• Jesus Performed Miracles
• Jesus Taught the Kingdom of God
• Jesus Relied on the Scriptures
• Jesus Faced the Cross

In a short epilogue laden with New Testament texts and confident gospel vision, Bauer reminds us again not only how connected we are to Jesus — He is like us! — but also a great assertion that Christ is (as 2 Corinthians put it) YES! Jesus’s life, Bauer tells us, “shows us how to live in opposition to the fall.”  And of course, we do that in Him and for Him. This is a gospel-centered message and is a great resource in our Advent journey as we move to the great celebration of Christmas.

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