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Have a Blessed Christmas

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For unto us a child is born…
—Isaiah 9:6a

The Virgin and Christ ChildWhenever I hear that line from the prophet Isaiah sung in Handel’s Messiah, Christmas comes alive to me. Doesn’t matter if the singer is Kathleen Battle or little Kathy in the elementary school’s brave attempt at oratorio, the words carry the power of the voice of God announcing great news.

Where I live, the nearest large city newspaper features scads of bad news on its front page. But for one day of the year, Christmas Day, that front page is wrapped in a full-size, four-color rendition of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, as depicted by a famous painting master of the past. For this one day, all the news in the world is covered by something more earth-shattering—the Messiah has come.

I think the Cincinnati Enquirer’s tradition should inform us all. Wrapped in the knowledge that the Messiah has come, what evil power can rock us, what sadness curtail our joy?

This is my wish for everyone this Christmas Eve. Take a moment to reflect that we no longer wait like the faithful in the intertestamental period, that four hundred years of brutal silence. Like Simeon, we can now grasp peace, a peace made all the more certain because of an empty tomb.

Have a blessed Christmas,

Dan Edelen

{Image: Detail from a Russian icon. Artist unknown.}

Insights into This Blog

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There have been a few bloggers who have noticed that the tenor of the Godblogosphere has turned more cannibalistic in recent months. Christian bloggers increasingly savage other Christian bloggers, the tone of posts is more critical, and everyone's trying to play "King of the Mountain" on doctrinal issues.

Yes, I see it too.

While I may blog about doctrine from time to time, Cerulean Sanctum exists to call the Church back to its roots in Acts, so my focus here is praxis. The practical living out of what we believe is what this blog is about—the Church in action. Sure, I talk about writing, personal issues, homeschooling, and a few other topics, but primarily I look at how the American Church walks its talk.

So yes, this site can be critical of the Western Church. My writing style is also very much no holds barred for those who can cope with it. What I hope distinguishes this site from others is that I almost always try to talk about solutions. It does nothing to build the Church if we talk about what's wrong with it without also discussing how we can fix what's broken. If I served as nothing more than a critic, with no solutions or help, then the Church is not bettered, nor are the people in it challenged to improve the practice of the Faith.

Many of the posts here are "Physician Heal Thyself" in that I'm just as guilty of blowing it as anyone. I'm learning, too. I can be as good as the next guy in the pew in talking about the Faith while not living it out in a practical way. I hope that people notice that I tend to use the collective "we" when I blog; this is intended to reveal that I'm probably stumbling in my own practice, too, and that I identify with all of us who fall short of the glory of God. This blog serves to challenge my own practice as much as it does anyone else's. If that means that some of the posts here seem a bit too "blanket" in their critiques, it's for this reason.

This has been a year of skyrocketing growth for Cerulean Sanctum. Plenty more people read this blog than they did in January 2005. I hope that 2006 reveals no slackening in the quality of writing, nor in the calling of the Church for the betterment of her practice of the Gospel.

I appreciate every person who reads Cerulean Sanctum. My prayer is that no one leaves here unchallenged. We all have room to grow. Thanks for growing with me.