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Christmas passed just as quickly as it came this year. I spent a quiet, peaceful holiday with my family in Salt Lake City, Utah, where we even got a few surprise inches of snow that morning to make it a white Christmas.

Last week on the Derek Webb board someone posted a topic called “Christmas is about ME”, in which they told of a recent service they were at where a preacher told the congregation that because Christ came to the world and died for sinners, that Christmas was essentially about US. I have heard preachers say similar things before, not always regarding Christmas particularly, but no matter what context it is put into, it always bothers me. I went with my family to the Evangelical Free Church they attend for a Christmas Eve Service, and the pastor said the same thing. Ugh.

Here’s a decent John Piper sermon on the issue:

Did Christ Die For Us, of for God?

Right now I am in Duluth, Minnesota visiting friends and family for New Years. The city is having a rather warm winter. There is snow, but there are places where you can see weeds and bushes popping up out of the snow banks. The coldness is not as harsh as it usually is in December either. I hope to take a fair amount of pictures while I am up here. At about one am last night, while we were driving up to Schultz Lake from St. Paul, the Northern Lights provided an awesome, colorful backdrop to I-35. What a beautiful and welcoming sight as I headed back to the place I called home for four years.

It’s awfully good to be here.