When Family & Life Feels Tender, How Joy Can Meet You This Christmas

It was on Gaudete Sunday, that third Sunday of Advent when the world lights the joy candle — Gaudete meaning “rejoice” in Latin — it’s our third son, Levi, who stands at the front of the church to preach the Christmas sermon wearing a thrifted flannel plaid shirt and a pair of faded jeans with an old leather belt. Rejoicing is only sustainable if you can find joy in a story you’d rather get rid of. Levi first clears his voice, and his lapel mic crackles, and he says that when he was as