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    Touching Wonder: Recapturing the Awe of Christmas
    Touching Wonder: Recapturing the Awe of Christmas
    Touching Wonder: Recapturing the Awe of Christmas
    Ebook91 pages1 hour

    Touching Wonder: Recapturing the Awe of Christmas

    By John Blase

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    About this ebook

    This bold retelling of Luke 1–2, based on Eugene Peterson’s Message translation, reads like a novel and invites readers to experience the Nativity with fresh wonder.

    To Eugene Peterson’s The Message Bible translation, John Blase adds his own storytelling voice, exploring the familiar events from multiple first-person viewpoints. What emerges is the intimate story of unlikely people—a frightened teenaged girl, a worried carpenter, a collection of senior citizens, a disillusioned young shepherd—meeting up with the divine as they bumble and stumble toward the realization that the little one just born is the One.

    This retold story of Word made flesh invites readers to react appropriately—with eyes opened wide in wonder, jaws dropped in amazement, and hearts rejoicing. The beautiful design and Amanda Jolman’s lively line drawings make this book a fitting gift as well as a Christmas tradition that families will treasure for years to come.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid C Cook
    Release dateNov 12, 2012
    ISBN9781434700704
    Touching Wonder: Recapturing the Awe of Christmas
    Author

    John Blase

    John Blase is a pastor s son, writer, collaborator, and a full-time editor for David C. Cook Publishing. He was a pastor for 14 years in Texas, Arkansas, and Colorado. John has recently co-authored two books with Brennan Manning All is Grace and Smack Dab in the Middle of God s Love. John has been married for 22 years and is the father of three. His writing is intensely personal, filtered through a brass-knuckled optimism, the perspective of a first-born, and the gratefulness of a descendant of a strange thing called grace.

    Read more from John Blase

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      Book preview

      Touching Wonder - John Blase

      for Dad and Mom

      Contents

      Cover

      Prelude

      One Luke 1.1–22 – Speechless

      Two Luke 1.23–25 – Carrying John

      Three Luke 1.26–38 – Angelic Visitor

      Four Luke 1.39–56 – Mothers and Sons

      Five Luke 1.57–66 – The Wild One

      Six Luke 1.67–80 – Prophet

      Interlude

      Seven Psalm 29.3–10 – The Father

      Eight John 17.1–5 – The Son

      Nine Luke 2.1–7 – Birth

      Ten Luke 2.8–20 – Angels and Relatives

      Eleven Luke 2.21–35 – The Dreamer

      Twelve Luke 2.36–40 – Jerusalem’s Freedom

      Coda

      Extras

      Prelude

      Dear friend,

      The author David James Duncan described the plastic shepherds from those Christmas dioramas of his youth as having slack-jawed expressions of wonder. There was a time in my life when the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus left me in the same state. However, for some reason or reasons, I lost the eyes to see or the ears to hear, or maybe the heart to wonder. I set out this year (2007) to read them in Eugene Peterson’s The Message in hopes of recapturing a slacked jaw.

      As I read, I was struck by how earthy the stories are; in other words, how utterly human. Even in this day and age of real and authentic, I fear we keep these stories in the realm of card stock and porcelain figurines. If these stories did not happen to flesh and blood and bone and sinew, then we of all people are to be most pitied.

      Each entry begins with the passage from The Message, and I hope you’ll take the time to read it. Peterson’s renderings of these verses would bleed if you cut them. After each reading, I’ve written down my reflections: the thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams that surfaced as I spent time with the text. I encourage you to approach them not so much to find an answer or respond, but to ponder them in your heart, Mary-like.

      Each reflection is followed by a short prayer. The heart of each prayer is personal, but I’ve found that what is most personal is most general.

      In no way am I indicating that my words are on the level of God’s. The readings are divine, my words are earthly. However, I do believe that every once in a while, there is an intersection of the divine with the human, and in those moments something akin to the word incarnation happens. Incarnation—God with meat.

      The achingly beautiful sketches are from the hand of the artist Amanda Jolman.

      This Advent season I found again a wonder in my jaws. I pray the same for you.

      Grace, always grace,

      John

      December 2007

      Recognition

      Who on earth saw him first, knowing

      truly who he was? Belly to belly, when

      John, prophet in utero, distinguished

      in the natal soup the fetal bones, the body

      curled like a comma, eyes tight, skull

      packed with universal wisdom,

      this unborn cousin began to dance.

      And when she, birth-giver—

      her ordinary vision arrowed down between

      her legs, through pain and straw, to her son’s dark,

      slime-streaked hair, to his very skin, red with

      the struggle of being born—she lifted him

      to her breast, kissed the face of God,

      and felt her own heart leap.

      —Luci Shaw

      Used with permission of the author

      One

      Speechless

      Luke 1.1–22

      So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow

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