N.T. Wright WJK Press, 128 pages Advent, like Lent, provides a structure for the focused attention of a daily devotional. It’s common for people to use these seasons in a special way, either alone or with a small group. N.T. Wright brings his usual historical and exegetical skills to bear on the Gospel of Luke in a pastorally thoughtful and accessible manner. On the one hand, there is a candid acknowledgment that Advent for most people is preparation for Christmas. Accordingly, he brings forward the history of Israel’s yearning for a Messiah and the various Scriptures that provide the background for the fulfillment of this yearning in the coming of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, Wright doesn’t neglect the more difficult “Second Advent,” which puzzles and makes some people very uncomfortable. Holding the first and second Advent in creative tension is not easy. But Wright is an experienced pastor and a scholar who does this as well as anyone. Each Sunday of Advent receives … [Read more...]

Fleming Rutledge Eerdmans, 426 pages Fleming Rutledge has gathered from her repertoire of (mostly) unpublished materials a number of sermons and writings to help others who preach to understand and grapple with the rich themes of Advent, often passed over lightly. Rutledge is not fussing about the way Christmas seems to have seized Advent and misshapen it so that it matches the secular holiday that begins before Halloween. She is concerned that the Advent themes are too central to the gospel to be easily surrendered in an annual rising tide of sentimentalism. Mainline Protestant churches, acutely uncomfortable with the apocalyptic, have tended to avert their eyes from it, leaving it to fundamentalists, who have seemed overly fond of literal interpretations that favor themes of punishment for a huge cast of characters that probably includes us. Only recently have some mainliners begun to appreciate that God’s project is not a matter of getting to heaven one at a time, but a far … [Read more...]