One December afternoon a number of years ago, I stopped by a nursing home to visit a member of my church. She happened to be attending a holiday program in the cafeteria, so I stopped by there to see her. The residents were being entertained by a jolly plump man in a fancy suit. No, the suit was not red, and the jolly plump man did not have a white beard. Santa was present, but he was not entertaining anyone. He was leaning against the back wall of the room with a bored look on his face. The man with the microphone was wearing a gem-spangled white suit. He had dark hair and long sideburns. He was singing one of his big hits—I no longer remember if it was “Love Me Tender” or “Heartbreak Hotel,” or which song it was.

Yes, the King was upstaging good old Santa Claus, and Santa did not seem to appreciate it one bit. But that passing moment opened a new chapter in my family’s holiday lore. Since that day, I have told my children that Elvis lives at the North Pole with Santa. During the year, Elvis makes toys for Santa to bring to children on Christmas Eve. Elvis helps Santa manage his database recording who has been naughty and who has been nice. Elvis is Santa’s helper, and if you thought Santa is assisted by elves, you have simply been hearing that name wrong all these years.

Of course we will have to rewrite some of the Christmas songs and poems and books. The man in red and the man in white are a holiday team, working together so that none of us has to face a Blue Christmas. Together they deck the halls, ring the bells, and rock around the Christmas tree. Together they bring Christmas joy to every girl and every boy around the world.

One of my favorite Christmas decorations shows Santa kneeling in prayer at the manger. Surely someone can create an image that has Elvis also at the manger, kneeling to honor the King of kings. That scene would go a long way toward bringing to the world the real meaning of Christmas.

To each of you, and to all those who are special to you, I wish a very Merry Christmas. J.

Throughout history, certain kings and emperors and other executive authorities have enjoyed the privilege of rule without accepting any of the responsibility of rule. Sometimes they were considered too important to do the work of government. Sometimes they were incompetent. Sometimes they were merely lazy. In every case, someone else was found to do the real work of governing the land. Joseph became such a man in Egypt. After interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh, predicting seven years of bounty followed by seven years of famine, Joseph was put in charge of Egypt, collecting supplies during the good times to take care of people during the bad times. Joseph ran Egypt, while the Pharaoh sat on the throne and enjoyed the worship of his people. In a similar way, in the book of Esther, first Haman and then Mordecai took royal authority in Persia. The real emperor sat on the throne, but his prime ministers did the work of running the empire.

We call such a power a “right hand man.” As the right hand of the king or emperor, he does the work to run the country while the chief executive gets the credit. Medieval France had a “mayor of the palace” doing the real work while the Merovingian kings got all the credit. Medieval Japan had a Shogun doing the real work while the Japanese emperors got all the credit. Modern corporations and universities often have a President who receives all the credit while a presidential assistant is doing the real work that brings success to the business.

After his resurrection, Jesus told his apostles, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). The apostle Paul shared the same message in a different way, saying that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God the Father (Ephesians 1:20 and Colossians 3:1, among others). The right hand of the Father is not a ceremonial position. Sitting at the Father’s right hand means doing the work of the Father. Because Jesus has been given power and authority by the Father, Jesus is the only Way to approach the Father. Those who try to come to God the Father through their own good deeds, or because they were created by him, cannot reach the Father. Only through Christ can the Father be approached.

As the Pharaoh’s right-hand man, Joseph had power to reward people and power to punish people. Though they did not recognize Joseph, his brothers placed themselves under his power when they came to buy food in Egypt. Joseph, unlike Jesus, was not sinless. He could not resist the temptation to toy with his brothers before he finally told them who he was. Like Christ, though, Joseph forgave his brothers all their sins against him. He provided generously for his family without accepting any payment from them. In the end, he brought them to live with him, as Jesus brings his people into Paradise and into the new creation. Our sins caused Jesus to suffer, as the sins of his brothers caused Joseph to suffer. Yet Jesus does not hold a grudge against any of us. He forgives us, he provides for us now, and he has guaranteed us a home where we will live with him forever in peace and joy. J.

While I am studying Joseph the son of Jacob in the book of Genesis, I am also learning about Joseph the husband of Mary in the book of Matthew. Beyond sharing a name, the two men are similar in other ways as participants in God’s plan to save his people from their enemies.

Mary’s husband is called a carpenter in English translations of the Bible, but “builder” might be a better translation of his occupation. Joseph probably worked more with stone than with wood, and he helped to build more houses and public buildings than tables and chairs. When the wise men came with gifts for the King of the Jews, they found Jesus and his mother in a house in Bethlehem–Joseph may have built that house during the infancy of Jesus. Joseph appears to have died between the childhood of Jesus (He is mentioned when Jesus is twelve.) and the preaching career of Jesus when Jesus was in his thirties. From the cross, Jesus assigned his mother to the care of his disciple John, something he would not have done if Joseph were still alive.

Early Christian traditions assign later ages to both Mary and Joseph, but those traditions are based more on Greek attitudes about marriage and family than on life for Palestinian Jews of the first century. Mary was probably fifteen years old, give or take a year, when an angel appeared to her and told her that she would have a son without the help of a man. Joseph was probably about thirty then. Women were married when they were in their teens, but men did not marry until they were successful in their careers and could support families. Nevertheless, marriages were based on love as well as convenience. Mary and Joseph were betrothed, which was a formal agreement between Joseph and Mary’s parents (but which probably included Mary’s acceptance and approval of Joseph as a husband). The wedding had not yet happened, but no doubt wedding plans were being made. On the day of the wedding, the groom with his friends would come to the house of the bride and escort the bride and her family and friends to his house. The celebration of the event included food and drink, music and dancing, and much merry-making. Communities looked forward to the joy of a wedding, and many wedding celebrations lasted several days.

Imagine Joseph’s consternation when he learned that Mary was going to give birth to a baby. Joseph knew that he was not the baby’s father. He had the right to demand that Mary be punished, even that she be stoned to death by the community for the sin of adultery. No doubt he found it impossible to believe Mary’s story of an announcement by an angel about her son. Being a righteous man, Joseph did not want Mary killed, so he was planning a quiet divorce–breaking the betrothal before the wedding could take place–when an angel spoke to him and explained the situation to him.

When Joseph accepted his pregnant bride, the whole town of Nazareth must have smiled and winked. Joseph was acting like a man who had been enjoying the privileges of a husband before the wedding day. That happened from time to time, then as now, and people knew that such behavior was sinful, but they tended to regard it as a natural fault rather than a grave sin. To protect Mary and her child, Joseph was willing to allow the appearance of guilt in his life, even though he had done nothing that was wrong. Joseph son of Jacob, in Egypt, was also treated as guilty though he had done nothing wrong. His master’s wife accused Joseph of attempted rape, and for that he was thrown into prison. Both men named Joseph became pictures of Jesus, who also was punished for sins he did not commit, taking guilt upon himself that others would be spared and protected.

In Egypt, Joseph son of Jacob was able to care for his father and brothers and their families. He became their protector during the famine and kept them safe from hunger. In Nazareth and Bethlehem, Joseph Mary’s husband was also a protector. Mary and her son would have been vulnerable to poverty and starvation had Joseph not taken her as his wife. In this way also, both men are pictures of Jesus who protects his people in a world that is filled with dangers.

Finally, dreams are important to both men. While he was a teen, Joseph son of Jacob had dreams that foretold the future, picturing how his family would bow down to him and honor him. Later, he interpreted the dreams of others. Joseph Mary’s husband heard from angels in a series of dreams that guided him to make Mary his wife, to take her to Egypt to protect the life of Jesus, and to return to the Promised Land after the death of King Herod. Not every dream is a message from God. Most of our dreams are shaped either by our hopes or by our fears. When he chooses, though, God can communicate through dreams, as he did in the case of both men named Joseph. Before accepting a dream as a message from God, though, the dreamer should first compare that dream to the message of God recorded in the Bible. If the dream contradicts the Bible in any way, the dream is just a dream and no message from God. J.

Jacob begot twelve sons and at least one daughter. They were conceived by Jacob’s two wives, sisters Leah and Rachel, and by the servants of each of those wives. Jacob’s favorite wife was Rachel, and her firstborn son was Joseph. To show his preference for Joseph, Jacob gave him a formal garment, usually described in English as “a coat of many colors.”

Like Jesus, Joseph was the son who was favored by his father. Like Jesus, Joseph was hated because of the special relationship he had with his father. Joseph’s own brothers rejected him, as Jesus’ own people rejected him. While Joseph was obeying the will of his father, his brothers seized him violently and plotted his death. They ended up selling him for a certain number of pieces of silver (twenty, not thirty). Before they did so, however, they threw him into a pit in the ground, not intending to bring him out alive again. In this way, Joseph acted out the death and burial of Jesus, as well as his rejection and betrayal from his own people.

The picture of Christ in the life of Joseph becomes even clearer because of his formal garment. When his brothers seized Joseph, they stripped him of his coat of many colors. To deceive their father, they stained the coat with animal blood and brought it to their father. They claimed to have found it in a field, and their phony concern for their brother was expressed in terms of, “We hope nothing bad happened to poor little Joe.” Jacob believed the evidence of his son’s death. He accepted the sons who brought him evidence of Joseph’s death, little realizing that they had, in fact, plotted that death and only narrowly turned aside from killing Joseph.

As Isaac was deceived by Jacob because Jacob was wearing Esau’s clothing, so Jacob is deceived by his sons because of the clothing they bring to him. As Christians, we approach our heavenly Father wearing the righteousness of Jesus. We are not holy. We are not worthy of God’s approval. We do not deserve to approach him at all, let alone be claimed by him as sons. Yet, because we come to the Father clothed in Christ’s righteousness, he accepts us. He calls us his children, says that he loves us, and declares that he is well pleased with us.

The garment we bring to our Father is also stained with blood. Jesus died a bloody death to take away our sins. Our heavenly Father claims us, not only because of the righteousness of Christ, but also because of the blood of Christ. Animals once represented Christ on the altars of the Old Testament, as an animal shed its blood to take the place of Joseph. Now that Jesus has suffered and died, we no longer sacrifice animals to God. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice of which all the bulls and lambs and goats of the Old Testament Law were pictures.

Meanwhile, as a slave in Egypt, Joseph suffered further indignities. He did the will of his master and did not fall short of expectations, yet he became the victim of a lie. Potiphar’s wife claimed that Joseph attacked her and tried to rape her, when the truth was that she had tried to seduce Joseph. Once again, Joseph’s clothing was presented as evidence, this time condemning him to punishment he did not deserve. Joseph suffered in Egypt while doing the right thing, just as Jesus suffered on the cross while doing the right thing. Both were sentenced by Gentile governments, yet in the end both prevailed in time over those same governments. After a few years, Joseph was running Egypt. After about three hundred years, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. J.

Earlier this month a woman told me that her mother’s writings are as good as Nabokov’s. In a situation like that, one can only smile and nod, even while one’s mind is silently screaming, “No! No one writes as well as Nabokov!”

The Mount Rushmore of twentieth-century American writers consists of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner. Of the four, only Faulkner even approaches Nabokov’s ability to paint with the English language, and Faulkner tended to stray a bit too often into stream of consciousness writing and other tricks. Nabokov was a master of written communication. The most amazing fact about Nabokov’s skill with English is that English was not his first or second language. He was born and grew up in Russia, learning to speak and to write in Russian and French. He learned English later, after his family had fled Russia. Yet his later novels are written in English, and his earlier novels were translated from Russian to English under his supervision. Both sets of novels sing in a lyrical manner unapproached by any other writer of the last hundred years and more.

Hemingway in particular is credited with crisp, succinct writing which has influenced thousands of composition and journalism classes. Gone are the long Dickensian descriptions found in nineteenth century English literature. Yet Nabokov accomplished something in English that Hemingway and Steinbeck never approached. Nabokov had a profound sense of the sound and rhythm of language. As a master he toyed with language. His mind was capable of creating descriptions of people and events that are multi-textured, complex without becoming verbose. When I read a Hemingway story, I might think, “I never imagined that character or setting or plot, but if I had, I could have written this story.” When I read a Nabokov story, I ask, “How did he do that? And why is it that I cannot do that?”

I just happen to be reading the short stories and novels of Nabokov this month. Currently I am savoring The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. I saw one brief example of Nabokov’s mastery of expression last night, as the title character describes his social awkwardness by calling himself a “colorblind chameleon.” Who but Nabokov could have expressed so much with but two English words?

Tragically, Nabokov is best-known for Lolita, a novel about a middle-aged man’s obsession with a “nymphet,” a prepubescent girl to whom he is drawn emotionally and physically. The subject is uncomfortable; and, because he writes from the man’s point of view, Nabokov does not directly condemn his character’s thoughts and his actions. Notoriously, the book is frequently banned. Two movies have been made from the book, the first directed by genius Stanley Kubrick and starring genius Peter Sellers–not as the main character, but as his nemesis, Clare Quilty. (The name itself is a beautiful visual pun.) While Lolita contains as much of Nabokov’s skillful writing as any other novel he wrote, the subject matter tends to guide people into the false assumption that Nabokov himself must be perverted. Nabokov makes his characters so convincing, so real, that a reader almost expects each of them to be somehow an autobiographical image of the author.

My favorite Nabokov novel is Pale Fire. The heart of the book is a poem of 999 lines–the thousandth line is missing–but the bulk of the book consists of a preface and annotations by a second character, the poet being the first character. The relationship between the poem and poet on the one hand, and the interpreter on the other hand, is displayed astoundingly throughout the book. While it contains a wealth of literary tidbits of the highest quality (such as “Chapman’s Homer” referring simultaneously to a particular translation of an ancient Greek poet and to a more recent success on the baseball diamond), the entire novel contains levels of meaning and significance that can hardly be described, certainly not without spoiling the charm of the book.

Aside from writing, Nabokov’s passions included chess, butterflies, and opposition to totalitarian governments. A little awareness of these topics assists a reader of Nabokov. (For example, Sebastian Knight has a close associate named Clare Bishop.) Lack of awareness of these matters does not keep any reader from enjoying Nabokov’s work. Many of his clever jokes are discovered only during a second or third reading, when the reader can set aside plot and character and instead swim in the flow of Nabokov’s unequalled prose. J.

Dear family and friends,

It has been great receiving your Christmas cards this year and reading your letters. Congratulations on the spectacular accomplishments of your children and on the wonderful vacations you have taken in the past year.

Our older son graduated from college eighteen months ago and is still looking for a job in his field. If you know of a laboratory or corporation that is hiring chemists, please drop him a line. Meanwhile, he continues to develop his skills mixing paint at Home Depot, which at least supplies him money for rent and groceries.

Our daughter left college last winter and spent three months in the hospital. They have changed her medication a couple of times, and she seems to have stabilized. Of course some days are harder than others for her. She was employee of the month at the McDonalds on the highway in October. Meanwhile, she remains very popular, as she receives letters and phone calls nearly every day from collection agencies that want to discuss her student loans and medical bills.

Our younger son is adjusting to life at the military academy, and his parole officer believes that he has turned the corner in making good decisions. Best of all, the owners of the car have dropped their lawsuit.

The Mrs. and I were not able to get away for a vacation this summer, although we did spend some pleasant Sunday afternoons at the free museums downtown. We also had some pleasant hikes at the two nearby state parks. We did have the opportunity to travel out of state in September for the funeral of my mother-in-law, and we agree with everyone there who said that the family ought to get together once in a while for happier occasions.

My back is steadily improving from last year’s fall down the stairs when the dog attacked me. What a relief it was to learn that the dog did not have rabies! I carry a can of pepper spray on my route now, but I haven’t had to use it yet. Of course the bag of mail has gotten a lot heavier the last two months with all the advertisements and holiday greetings. It’s such a pleasure to be back on the job, though, that I really don’t mind the extra weight.

The Mrs. sends her greetings. She has decided to stay with the housecleaning business for the foreseeable future, although most of her coworkers are younger than she is. She says that she could write a fascinating gossip column for the paper about the things she has learned about people by cleaning their houses.

I guess that’s about all the news from our household this Christmas. We wish you blessings for the new year, and we hope that 2017 is even better for all of you than 2016 has been.

As I’ve written before, I grew up in a ranch house with a full basement. A lot happened down in the basement, including some spectacular floods.

The washing machine and clothes drier were down there, along with a chest freezer and a second refrigerator. My parents stored frozen vegetables and fruits from the garden in the freezer, and also had shelves of canned fruits, jellies, applesauce, and the like. One of my mother’s hobbies was ceramics, which she taught to 4-H children and also to ladies from the church. Year-round, the ladies would gather once a week in the basement to prepare items for their annual Christmas sale. Most of them were cast in molds; my mother had a large collection of molds, glazes, and a kiln for firing the ceramics.

Two of my father’s hobbies were woodworking and photography. He had a fairly complete work area in one corner of the basement with a table saw and other tools. In another corner he assembled a darkroom in which he printed photographs he had taken. When he built the darkroom, he also made a second room which he intended to be a recreation room. It had a tile floor and wood panel walls. A ping pong table was in the room, but gradually it accumulated various items for storage, so not much recreation happened there.

Twelve wooden stairs led down from the back entry to the basement. There were four steps and then a landing (which held the cat’s litter box), and then a turn to the right and eight more steps down to the basement floor. Next to those steps was the furnace that heated the house in the winter. When I was young, I kept some of my toys in the cubbyhole underneath the steps and landing.

My parents never threw away a cardboard box, because one never knows when one will need a box of a certain size. I remember a huge mountain of boxes in the basement when I was younger. Of course when the basement was flooded, the cardboard was ruined and had to be discarded. Most of the molds survived and were usable again after they had thoroughly dried. The freezer floated and tipped over, spilling its contents, which (needless to say) also had to be discarded.

Aside from the recreation room and darkroom, the floor of the basement was concrete. It had a number of cracks through which water would seep on rainy days. A sump pump kept the basement relatively dry except during major floods, but most summers the basement had a musty smell.

Our first major flood was caused by a heavy rainfall in the summer. The second major flood, a few years later, happened because of an early spring rain while there was still snow on the ground. We had no heat in the house because of that flood; the pilot light of the furnace was below the level of the floodwater. More floods followed. When the creek was high and water was seeping through the cracks in the floor, my parents and I would try to get items of value out of the basement. I, of course, was most worried about my toys; my parents had other concerns. My father eventually bought a second sump pump to deal with floods. The main sump pump was electric and diverted water into the creek. The second sump pump was gasoline powered; when my father ran that pump, he had to run the hose out the basement window. Of course when floodwaters reached the window, trying to pump water out of the basement was pointless.

My parents were legally required to purchase flood insurance. After a major flood, the insurance company would give them money to replace the furnace, washer, drier, and freezer. They did not cover craft materials or toys. Along with replacement money, though, the insurance also provided funds for cleaning the basement, based on the square footage of the floor and walls that had come in contact with floodwater. As my parents became older and major floods became more frequent, the basement was increasingly unsafe. I know that pockets of mold and mildew existed where they could not be reached to be removed. My father was anxious to move, but my mother was very attached to the house and the village.

After my mother died (a little more than a year ago), my father relocated as quickly as he could. A government agency was purchasing houses in the floodplain. Months of legal negotiations were involved in the transaction, but eventually my father was able to move, and the house was leveled.

I clearly remember many afternoons spent in the basement. I remember using a hand drill to drill holes in a block of wood, which kept me busy while my father worked on more complicated projects. I remember the gatherings of 4-H children and church ladies to work on ceramics, and I remember a few projects I produced at the same table. (One of them won prizes at the county fair and was exhibited at the state fair.) I remember playing with toys on the floor of the recreation room, and I remember frantically gathering toys to take upstairs because it was raining outside. I remember lessons from my father on developing film and printing pictures, many years before telephones were used to take pictures. I remember a sense of security while my mother loaded the kiln and my father sculpted cabinet doors for the kitchen and I played with my toys. All that remains today are the memories. J.

Thomas Becket was named Chancellor of England by King Henry II in 1154. Eight years later Thomas was elected Archbishop of Canterbury. The relationship of king and bishop was tumultuous. Church and state in Europe were embroiled in a fight for power called the Investiture Controversy. (The failure of Henry’s son John to withstand opposition of Pope Innocent III in the same continuing controversy led to the signing of the Magna Carta, one of the most important documents in English history, in 1215.) Thomas was exiled from England for several years, but when he returned he was no more willing to obey his king. Thomas insisted that the Church had greater authority than the king.

During a government meeting, Henry reportedly exclaimed, “Who will rid me of this man?” Four people present at that meeting thought they would do the king a favor, and so they murdered Thomas in the cathedral at Canterbury on December 29, 1170. Henry recognized a political disaster when he saw one, and he made a great show of sorrow over the death of Thomas. Thomas of Canterbury, after his death, became a great hero of the English people. People made pilgrimages to Canterbury to honor his memory.

Again, the twelve days of Christmas do not guarantee easy and problem-free lives in this world. Like Stephen, though, the martyred Thomas of Canterbury is in Paradise awaiting the great Day of the Lord when all problems will be solved and all troubles fixed. In that promise is peace and joy. J.

Older versions of the song called them “colly birds,” among other things, but most versions of the song published in the last hundred years have named them “calling birds.” At any rate, the fourth day of Christmas is also the festival of the Holy Innocents. Like the festival of St. Stephen, this day reminds Christians that we are surrounded by evil and by many dangers in this world.

After Jesus had been born in Bethlehem, wise men came from the east, following a star, seeking the King of the Jews. Some scholars think they came from Babylon and others from Persia, but there are two reasons to believe that these wise men (or Magi) were Arabs. First, the three gifts they brought are all native to Arabia. Second, the prophet who associated the coming King with a star was Balaam, who came from northern Arabia.

These wise men came to Jerusalem seeking the King of the Jews. Herod feared competition so much that he executed members of his own family because he thought they were plotting against him. Herod told the wise men to find the King and to let Herod know where he was. The wise men did find Jesus and his mother in a house in Bethlehem. (No, they were no longer gathered around the manger when the wise men arrived with their gifts.) Warned in a dream, the wise men did not return to Herod; also warned in a dream, Joseph took the child and His mother to Egypt. In his rage at being tricked, Herod ordered that all the boys in Bethlehem “that had not yet reached their second birthday” be killed. In this way, he hoped to eliminate the true King of the Jews.

God permits tragedies in this world, even as he works to overcome all evil. There was sorrow in Bethlehem over the death of those young boys, but protection for Jesus promises a joy that far outweighs the sorrows and tragedies of this world. In whatever struggles you are facing, may God bring you Christmas joy. For we do have good news of great joy—a Savior, Christ the Lord. J.

The third day of Christmas is also the festival of St. John. This John wrote one of the four Gospels, three epistles (including two of the shortest books in the Bible), and the Apocalypse or Revelation, the last book of the Bible. He presents himself in his Gospel as Jesus’ best friend, or “the disciple Jesus loved.” In fact he never mentions his name in the Gospel, which leads some scholars to question whether or not he wrote the book of Revelation, since in the first chapter of that book he mentions his name twice.

In the original Greek, and in most English translations, John’s writings contain the simplest words and grammar but express the most profound thoughts. His Gospel begins with these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Only one of those words contains more than one syllable, yet the mystery of the Holy Trinity is stated with these words.

Early Christian histories and traditions say that John was the only apostle of Christ not to be martyred. Before dying, Jesus entrusted care of his mother Mary to John. After the resurrection, when Peter asked Jesus about John’s future, Jesus refused to answer, saying only, “What business of it is yours if I chose to let him live until I return?” John quickly points out that Jesus never said that John would not die, but because of his long life some early Christians believed that Jesus had meant John would not die.

The apostle John did die, and centuries later the emperor Justinian built a basilica where John was buried. Yet, like Stephen, John also is with Jesus in Paradise and will return when Christ comes in glory. On this festival day, Christians thank the Lord for faithful witnesses such as John the apostle. We rejoice to have his writings teaching us today about Jesus. J.

The second day of Christmas is also known as St. Stephen’s Day and Boxing Day. In Britain people give gifts and privileges to their servants. Some American families try to mark this day by leaving small presents for mail carriers, newspaper deliverers, and even those who carry off the garbage. The Beatles’ movie Magical Mystery Tour was first shown on television on Boxing Day in 1967.

The festival of St. Stephen reminds Christians that not all things in this world are merry and bright. We are still surrounded by sin, and Christ’s love for us makes us targets for those who hate Christ. Stephen testified to Jesus and his central place in God’s plan for the world. As a result, Stephen was stoned to death by the same authorities who had earlier condemned Jesus and handed him over to the Roman authorities, demanding his execution.

The martyrdom of Stephen is a sobering memory during the twelve days of Christmas. Yet Stephen is celebrated as one of those who is with Jesus, in the Father’s hands, in Paradise. Stephen died confident of the power of the Lord and confident in the promised resurrection. When Christ is seen in glory, Stephen will be with him, and he will live with Christ and all His people in a new and perfect world. Jesus has conquered death, and death cannot prevail against His people. May that good news enlighten your continuing celebration of Christmas. J.