Unless
Luke 2: 1-16 New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE Christmas Eve 2024 The cover of this year’s Christmas bulletin comes from the Dr. Seuss book The Lorax . It’s the place the Lorax was last seen, on a rocky platform with the word “Unless” engraved on a large stone. In addition, there is the Christmas star shining overhead, and if we’ve read the book, perhaps we remember these words: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” As Rev. Munther Isaac, the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, has once again placed baby Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh on a pile of rubble for a nativity, I can also imagine a baby Jesus on this rocky platform with the word “unless” as his manger this year. If Christmas is about anything, it is about getting us to care a whole awful lot. American journalist and Presbyterian minister Chris Hedges says that the Christmas story is about learning how to human, how to knee...
