Good morning!

For Christmas to mean anything, we must shift our focus less than 10 miles from Bethlehem. I’ll explain what I mean at the end of today's Texas Minute. (Or, you can listen now.)

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, December 24, 2021
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RECAP: Gubernatorial Conversations

• Earlier this fall, we offered all the Republican gubernatorial candidates (at the time) the opportunity to sit down for uncut interviews in the 1836 Studios. While Gov. Greg Abbott ignored the invitation, the interviews with Don Huffines, Chad Prather, and Allen West are quite enlightening – and even entertaining.
   
• Each of those links includes not only video and audio-only versions of the interviews, but also written recaps of the conversations.
   
• Meanwhile, Brandon Waltens summarized the positions Huffines, Prather, and West are taking as the gubernatorial campaign heats up.
   
• NOTE: We’ll have more conversations with statewide candidates coming up the next several months!

Upcoming Conversations

• Our Conversations series will continue next week. On Monday afternoon, it will be Jeramy Kitchen with Freedom Caucus member Briscoe Cain, a Republican state representative from Deer Park. They have a wide-ranging interview about the issues facing Texas… and the most controversial legislation that Mr. Cain directly impacted during this legislative year.
     
• On Thursday, check out my conversation with Buck Johnson, who hosts the CounterFlow podcast from his home in Lockhart, Texas. I think you’ll agree he’s a fascinating fellow in the fight for liberty.

Exposing EXPOSED

• The EXPOSED podcast series is continuing to gain momentum around the state and nation – already hitting #76 on the Top 100 news and political podcasts in the country.
   
• On The Headline this morning, Brandon Waltens and Jacob Asmussen will discuss the findings of this first season – which focused on the problems in a central Texas school district – and what it means for parents elsewhere. Join them at 11 a.m., or catch the video archive or podcast shortly afterward.

The Top Stories!

• Next week’s Texas Minute offerings will focus on the top 10 stories of 2021 – as selected earlier this month by readers.
     
• Here were the top storylines of the year, as determined by page views and social media interactions:

Friday Reflection: Real Joy In The World

If one can get past the inflatable snowmen, tinsel, and wrapped presents, Christmas’ focus is on a baby in a manger. Yet even that is just a meager sign pointing us to the destination of a joy that lasts not for a season but eternity.

The coming of the Messiah was prophesied as including a virgin birth in the town of Bethlehem. But it was just a sign. 

We marvel at the thought of an angelic host singing over the shepherds. It’s easy to fixate on the helpless babe in the manger; it’s pleasant to think of a cooing child smiling at the visiting wise men. 

But our months-long preparations for Christmas are a lot like standing on the roadside for hours admiring the “distance” marker to our destination. The view might be nice, but its not where we’re going. 

To fully appreciate Christmas, we must travel less than ten miles from Bethlehem to the city of Jerusalem. We’re not going inside the walls of the Old City, though; our first stop is the place known as Golgotha. To meaningfully understand the baby in the manger, we must also see Him as a man hanging from a cross. But not just hanging on a cross –– many died in such a manner under the brutality of the Romans. What made this Man so important is that He rose from the dead afterward.

Two places, a 15-minute walk from each other, vie for the title of the burial site of Jesus. One has close to a millennia of history on its side, the other has a geologic formation and a pristine tomb. At one place you can feel the millions of pilgrims who have visited the site, at the other you can see how it must have looked that first Easter.

The significance to both places isn’t what is there, but what is not. That baby in the manger became the Son who, after hanging on a cross until dead, was buried, conquered death on our behalf, and then rose to take his place at the right hand of God the Father.

The joy of Christmas is but a foretaste of the joy of Easter and eternity hereafter. Baubles and trinkets under a tree will perish, but the gift of salvation through the risen Christ lasts for eternity.

As Isaac Watts wrote:

“Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns:
let men their songs employ;
while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
repeat the sounding joy.”

Merry Christmas!

Quote-Unquote

“And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all.”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer​​