Holidays & Holy Days

The Grace of Sacred Days

Regular readers of The Baptist Courier are familiar with physician-writer Edwin Leap. His columns have appeared in The Courier for years, most recently under the standing head of "Wholly Healthy," where he serves up a monthly take on health and wellness issues. What latecomers to Leap's articles may not know, however, is that his writing interests have always extended beyond the bounds of medicine. From a faith-driven introspection, repeatedly returning to the jaw-dropping realization that God chose to step into a broken world to live among and redeem His creation, Leap has written several columns on the "most wonderful" Christian celebrations of Easter and Christmas. The columns originally appeared in the Greenville News, The Baptist Courier and other publications. In his newest book, "Holidays & Holy Days: The Grace of Sacred Days," Leap has collected those columns for the first time. Writing from the perspective of a family man and emergency room physician, Leap happily admits to falling victim to the trappings and traditions of the holidays. But he goes beyond the tinsel and dyed eggs to remind the reader of the profound truth that undergirds the celebrations of Easter and Christmas: that God became man in order to rescue a lost world. "God's outpouring of grace," he writes, "is for all - not just the well-dressed and well-behaved, but also the meth addict, the money-launderer and the one masking her depression with pills."