Christmas Read-alouds, Anthologies, Essays, Reflections on the mystery

Index of Christmas posts | Christmas Nights at Home

“Our culture is celebrating a giddy, overhyped pseudo-Christmas while we are attempting the more serious task of observing a holy Advent, but the reason the cultural messages are so powerful is that our human yearning is so real, and so profound.” (Feasting on the Word, cited below)

The following works each contain marvelous, shorter readings on various topics ideal for a quiet evening at home alone, and to read aloud together.

• Madeleine L’Engle and Luci Shaw, WinterSong (excellent!)
• Michael Card, The Promise
• Jim Rosenthal and Joe L. Wheeler, St. Nicholas: A Closer Look at Christmas
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger.
• Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas. Contributors include Dietrich Bonhoeffer, T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, C. S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Philip Yancey, and many others.
• Nancy Guthrie, ed., Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus. Recommended chapters: Ryan on Christ as the Tabernacle; Tim Keller on the Gifts of Christmas; Augustine on John 1; Alcorn and Schaeffer on shepherds; Ryle and Boice on the magi.
• The above titles are shorter readings for single evenings, or for multiple evenings, but digested one reading at a time per evening. But if you’re seeking something more substantial to reflect upon this season, would this be a good year to tackle a longer study of the theology of the Incarnation? If so, try:
  • Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (2008).
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger; see also Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons.
  • Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives
  • Karl Barth, “Schleiermacher’s Celebration of Christmas” (1924), in Karl Barth, Theology and Church (New York, 1962), pp. 136-158. This essay is an incisive probing of the meaning of Christmas.
  • Barth on the virgin birth: Church Dogmatics, 1.2 §15.3. See Matthew Dowling, Blogging with Barth, “The Miracle of Christmas” pp. 172-202; and Dustin Resch, Barth’s Interpretation of the Virgin Birth: A Sign of Mystery (Ashgate, 2012).