This volume is tightly packed with surprising insights one simply does not normally hear from the pulpit, but yet are so obviously implied in the biblical narratives of Christmas and Easter. Dr Ellens has a unique way of cracking open familiar biblical sentences and stories and spilling out an entirely fresh cornucopia of life-changing insights about the radical nature of the good news about God’s grace. Ideas and metaphors from the Bible that we have heard or read so often that they have become routine and cliché suddenly flower with refreshing new meanings and intimations. Dr Ellens’ carefully and cogently expressed biblical interpretation and sermon oratory incarnate God’s truth and bring to lively new vitality a vivid experience of God as the driving force of Divine Spirit in our personal lives and in history. Preaching has seldom been this engaging, powerful, and spiritually empowering. “Harold Ellens knows how to craft a memorable sermon and how to always have something new to say, a new angle of vision, a beautifully told anecdote from his own immensely varied life experience. Shows why reading sermons need never become an old-fashioned pastime.” – David J. A. Clines, Professor of Biblical Studies, Sheffield University “As facets on a gem reveal its hidden beauty, so Dr Ellens’ Christmas and Easter sermons disclose the depth and beauty of the scriptures relating to these two great festivals of the Christian year. His long career prepared him well to author this book. With the approach of a scholar, the patience of a teacher, and the understanding of a pastor, he gives the reader new insights into these familiar scriptures. To read one of his Christmas sermons on a glorious summer day is to know ‘Joy to the world, the Lord is come’ or to read an Easter sermon on a day of great need, will give the reader reason to be grateful for this book.” – Beuna Coburn Carlson, Church Administrator and Christian Educator, PCUSA, Retired “I have only actually heard one sermon by J. Harold Ellens, but reading this wonderful collection reminds me why he has long been one of my favorite homilists. More like a conversation than a monologue, these sermons immediately pull me into dialogue within myself and with God. Read them and be challenged, stimulated, provoked, informed, and edified. Receive them as medicine for your spirit and soul. Be prepared to be blessed by the Spirit that inspired them.” – Dr David G. Benner, author of Soulful Spirituality and Spirituality and the Awakening Self “Throughout Harold Ellens’ life he has been called professor, doctor, and colonel. Yet, Ellens is never happier than when people call him pastor. He is a man who loves to preach the good news of the Bible; something he clearly articulates as grace which is universal, unconditional, and radical. Yet, for Harold preaching is not reserved for the pulpit, his students know that God’s grace is available to everybody, his patients know that God loves them no matter what, and the soldiers he counsels straight from the battlefields of Iraq, know that God’s grace gets to the very core of their being and can heal the pain of their souls. However, it is in the traditional setting of a church on Sunday morning where Ellens preaches the message of grace with a craftsmanship honed over sixty years of service as a priest. All of his sermons are written with love and experience, and are always aesthetic, humorous, intelligent, relevant, and life changing. It has been a pleasure to read this book.” – Dr Virginia Ingram, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia “Dr Ellens’ resources are inexhaustible. Now he offers us a collection of provocative sermons for Advent and Easter. He breaths new life into our preaching by sermons that both enrich and challenge. He calls us back to the radical nature of God’s grace at a time when we are not sure that it speaks to our age. I highly recommend this book to anyone, lay or professional, who deals with God’s gracious relationship with us.” – LeRoy Aden, Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Care, Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia; author of Guilt and the Search for Fulfillment “These sermons will inspire from the full power of grace, teach highlights of relevant biblical research with clarity of insight, and counsel the broken heart with meaning from out of the depths of a blend of mature psychology and the rich heritage of Christian thought and struggle. They are the fruit of a professional ministry which counsels with expertise, teaches with academic rigor, and dares to preach with prophetic sensitivity.” – Jack T. Hanford, ThD, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, Ferris State University “In thirty-one sermons, J. Harold Ellens provides a lucid, challenging, and inspiring demonstration of the art of preaching in the two busiest seasons of the Church Year: Advent and Easter. Every page bears testimony to the professional background and life experience of the author, as professor of theology and philosophy, a