"Nothing That is Possible Can Save Us"

Profound Christmas meditation here.

David Zahl:

The poet W.H. Auden once wrote, “Nothing that is possible can save us/ We who must die demand a miracle.” This is a bold statement, and one whose truth might not be self-evident in everyday life. Many of the problems we face on a daily level can be fixed, or at least, addressed: If our car breaks down, we can take it to the garage. If we get a headache, we can take some aspirin. If we say something mean, we can apologize, and so on.

Auden’s meaning becomes clearer when we consider problems of a less everyday nature. The kind that keep us up at night. I was speaking with a friend recently who had just separated from his wife. He told me, “I’ve done everything I can think of. Even couples’ counseling hasn’t helped. She just doesn’t want me. It’s going to take a miracle to save our marriage.” He had pursued all the right options, and nothing had worked. The problem was simply beyond him. So it is with us. Our condition is not fixable. That is, we can empirically say that the solution to human nature has not been found in the realm of “what’s possible”. Instead, we need a miracle to save us – from ourselves, from our sin, and ultimately, from death.

It should comes as no surprise that the birth of the one “who will save his people from their sins” was full of the Impossible. Mary’s pregnancy is merely the first part. Equally miraculous is the fact that Joseph actually believes what the angel tells him here. And he not only believes, he obeys. These are miracles! To explain them away or downplay their importance is to deny the extent of the Good News.

Is there a situation in your life where nothing short of a miracle will help? An impossible problem or person that just won’t go away? This passage gives us permission to acknowledge that some problems are indeed too big for us. You are not imagining things – “we who must die demand a miracle”. Yet the “glad tidings” of Christmas are that Jesus is the miracle we have been waiting for, the one who saves us. The impossible problems of this life have found their impossible answer in him. Repeat the sounding joy!

(HT: Tullian)

Bethlehem Wasn't The Beginning

David Burnette:

As you reflect on the significance of Christ’s coming this Christmas, allow me to make one suggestion that may actually add to your holiday cheer: Don’t begin in Bethlehem. That may sound scrooge-like, but hear me out. 

Bethlehem looms large in our minds during Christmas, and rightfully so. The prophet Micah had predicted centuries earlier that a ruler would hail from this obscure town (Mic 5:2). As King David’s birthplace, Bethlehem would also be the scene of the Messiah’s birth. In that sense, it’s difficult not to think of Bethlehem this time of year.  That’s fine, but don’t forget that the Christmas story was set in motion long before the nativity scene.
Bethlehem wasn’t the beginning. 

Jesus spoke of the glory he had with the Father “before the world existed” (Jn 17:5). As the Second Person of the Trinity, He was in communion with the Father and the Spirit from all eternity. We’re even told that the world was created through Him (Jn 1:1; Col 1:16). To be sure, He took on flesh at a point in time, but His role in God’s plan of redemption did not begin in a manger in Bethlehem nearly 2000 years ago. Christ was not thrust on the scene unexpectedly. Out of His own free grace He set His sights on rebellious sinners like you and me before the foundation of the world. The eternal Word became flesh for us and for our salvation (Jn 1:14). This is the infinite grace of the Incarnation. And the nativity scene was our first glimpse. 

As you reflect on Christ’s birth this Christmas and as you talk about it with others, be sure to include the little town of Bethlehem. But don’t start there: go back, much further back, and marvel at the One who planned the nativity scene from the beginning in order to rescue us from the judgment we deserve. Marvel at the grace of the Son of God who, as Paul says, “loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). 

Give thanks that in those dark streets of Bethlehem shone the Everlasting Light.

The Dude's Guide to Christmas: Serve Your Way to Christmas Bliss

Darrin Patrick:

We all want Christmas to be special, just like a scene from a movie. We want snow to be falling on Christmas Eve and we want to wake up to a warm, cozy house overflowing with gifts. More than that, we want our families to feel loved and cared for. We want what Clark Griswold wanted: for our families to grow closer over Christmas.

Some of us try to force the Christmas spirit on our families, like our boy Clark. Others of us secretly hate Christmas as evidenced by our lack of passion and planning for it. Many of us are in the middle. We want Christmas to be meaningful, but we aren’t quite sure how to make that happen. Perhaps these suggestions will help you as you try to be the true and better Clark Griswold.

Read the Christmas story
A lot of dudes can get caught up in all the stuff surrounding Christmas. Even though the season is about Jesus, dudes struggle to be the spiritual leaders in their own homes. It can be hard to know where to begin or what exactly to do. Why don’t you just start with the Christmas story itself? Spend time reading the first chapters in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Do it right before or right after dinner. You can even find helpful daily devotionals, like this one here, which we gave out to all the families at The Journey.

Remember your presence, not just the presents
Don’t play on your phone when you should be watching your kids enjoying the stuff you bought them. If you are off from work, refuse to check email and texts from the office. Your family needs you to be all in and totally there.

Become the chief memory maker
Your wife is probably better at overseeing your family’s social calendar, but the holidays are your shot to exert some good leadership. Rather than checking the status of your fantasy football team, find out what’s going on in your community or city. You don’t need to have the best lights in town, but you and your family can certainly drive to see them. Or if you’d rather stay indoors, maybe its time to dust off that old board game. Cue up some good movies or funny YouTube clips with some blankets and popcorn.

Serve your wife
The Food Network and Pinterest might be giving her some great ideas for the house and food, but they’re likely burdening her with unrealistic expectations as well. Let her be creative. But don’t leave her by herself to create. You can help cook and clean. You can entertain and engage the kids. You can get out of the lazy boy and talk with your in-laws. The best leaders are the greatest servants.

Darrin has a new blog.  Subscribe here.  

I Would Pay Big Money For This Ugly Christmas Sweater

Our Great Christmas Hope

Nancy Guthrie:

Our great hope is not just going to heaven when we die, though that is so wondrously good. But God has much grander plans. Our great hope is that Christ will come again, not as a helpless baby in a manger, but as a magnificent king on a throne---a king who will be close enough, and gentle enough, to wipe every tear from our eyes. He will personally put an end to everything that has brought his people pain. He will "raise the sons of earth" by transforming "our lowly body to be like his glorious body" (Phil. 3:21) to live with him forever on a gloriously renewed earth.

The wonder of it made the herald angels want to sing. And as the wonder of it begins to sink in, it makes us want to sing, too.

Read the rest.

Grudem on the Incarnation

Wayne Grudem:

“[The incarnation] is by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible – - far more amazing than the resurrection and more amazing even than the creation of the universe. The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.”

(HT:  Chris Brauns)

Christmas in a Cold Prison

Tony Reinke recounts the writing of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that was penned during his Christmas holiday spent in a Nazi prison.

But it was within this suffocating suffering that Christmas seemed to take a deeper meaning for the 37-year-old pastor-scholar. “A prison cell like this is a good analogy for Advent,” he wrote to a friend. "One waits, hopes, does this or that — ultimately negligible things — the door is locked and can only be opened from the outside."

Read the rest.

Nativity Sets Should Include a Set of Herod's Soldiers

Doug Wilson:

Whenever you have to deal with something like the Connecticut shooting, something that simply crushes the heart, it is important to think carefully before speaking or writing. This is not the time to be debating gun control, drone attacks in the Middle East, and it is certainly not the time to be drawing ham-fisted comparisons to the abortion carnage. The reason for this is that the parents who are broken over this were parents who had chosen life, not parents who hadn’t. This does not mean that abortion is irrelevant to this tragedy, for it certainly is not, but we want to make sure we locate it as a clear point of gospel relevance. Otherwise we just come off as opportunists who are just looking for a chance to haul the topic of conversation over to a particular hobby horse. But in the aftermath of something sick like this, we need to reconnect with the permanent things. If we don’t point to transcendental realities in a time like this—gospel truths—then we might as well sign a peace treaty with the darkness now.

I have often said that nativity sets should include a set of Herod’s soldiers—that is as much a part of the Christmas story as the shepherds, or the star, or the wise men. These traditional figures all glorified Christ in His coming, but the reality of such bloody soldiers was the reason He came.

Further on he makes a point that has to be discussed.  It's probably too soon right now, but mentioned sensitively and winsomely, should be brought up.

It is not possible to build a culture around a denial of God-given standards, and then arbitrarily reintroduce those standards at your convenience, whenever you need a word like evil to describe what has just happened. Those words cannot just be whistled up. If we have banished them, and their definitions, and every possible support for them, we need to reckon with the fact that they are now gone.  Cultural unbelief, which leads inexorably to cultural nihilism and despair, is utterly incapable of responding appropriately to things like this, while remaining fully capable of creating them. In the prophetic words of C.S. Lewis, “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

This shooting was horrendous, but far worse is the fact that our blind seers have no idea what to say about it. The horror happened, and it was immediately followed by the horror of countless individuals saying wildly inappropriate things about it.

Read the rest.

Religiosity and Christmas

Jared Wilson:

There is a great danger this Christmas season of missing the point. And I’m not referring simply to idolatrous consumption and materialism. I’m talking about Christmas religiosity. It is very easy around this time to set up our Nativity scenes, host our Christmas pageants and cantatas, read the Christmas story with our families, attend church every time the door is open, and insist to ourselves and others that Jesus is the reason for the season, and yet not see Jesus. With the eyes of our heart, I mean.

I suppose there is something about indulging in the religious Christmas routine that lulls us into thinking we are dwelling in Christ when we are really just set to seasonal autopilot, going through the festive and sentimental motions. Meanwhile the real person Jesus the Christ goes neglected in favor of his plastic, paper, and video representations. Don’t get distracted from Jesus by “Jesus.” This year, plead with the Spirit to interrupt your nice Christmas with the power of Jesus’ gospel.

You mean this isn't the point?


Books by Jared Wilson:

• Gospel Wakefulness
• Gospel Deeps
• Your Jesus is Too Safe

Seven Gift Suggestions for Your Wife

Fellas, this is a good list.  Get after it.

Do We Give at Christmas Like God Gives?

Miroslav Volf:

Consider the true gift we celebrate at Christmas, God’s advent into the world. Here is how the apostle Paul told the story of Christmas: “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). The Son of God did not dwell among humans just to open our vista onto the circle of blissful exchanges within the Godhead. He divested himself of heavenly wealth and became an impoverished child so the fragile flesh of humanity could be taken up into God’s embrace. The circle of the Eternal Intimates opened up, and gifts traversed its boundaries to reach those in need.

Our gifts [at Christmas] shouldn’t just travel on a two-way street so givers and receivers can delight in one another; they should travel on a one-way street so that the needy may be helped, being imparted to those who may not be able to give in return.

At Christmas we should celebrate two kinds of gift giving, not just one. Christmas should be a feast of reciprocal giving in a circle of intimates, a provisional enactment of the advent of God’s future world. But it should also be a feast of giving to those outside the circle, a small contribution helping to align the world of sin and need with the coming world of love. The advent of the light into the darkness of the world is not the goal; it is part of the movement toward the goal. At Christmas we celebrate this movement. Gifts should therefore chiefly flow out to the needy; they shouldn’t largely circulate among friends.  (Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, 75).

(HT:  Dan Cruver)

You Don't Need to Correct People Who Say "Happy Holidays"

A Refreshing Advent Reflection

Ben Roberts:

I grew up in evangelical megachurch smack dab on the golden buckle of the Bible Belt. As a kid, I was a little foggy on the meaning of Advent. Like, I knew it meant my friends at evangelical mega-private school would start rehearsing their caroling chops for the Singing Christmas Tree, a perplexing spectacle oddly similar to watching the Star Wars Holiday Special only with extra manger.

Then my parents got divorced, and Christmas became a fairly miserable balancing act, which involved dressing up like Norman Rockwell and driving to one house or the other listening to Twisted Sister’s A Twisted Christmas at maximum volume, dead to all the presents and noise and decorations. When I was old enough, I moved out to the mountains, and Christmas just kinda dropped off the radar. It was a good day for snowboarding. The lifts were empty until after lunch.

I’ve gone full circle on a lot of things in my life, but it’s only been by the grace of God that Christmas has been redeemed from out of the morass of consumerism, politics, and nihilism into which it has fallen. Why is Advent important? What changed Christmas for me? I’ll be the first to say my change was a gradual process that began with authentic gospel-centered fellowship, scriptural preaching, and a whole lot of prayer. Which isn’t to say I’m some kinda Grinch. Well, maybe a little. But in more recent years, as I’ve discipled folks in the gospel during the holidays, I’ve come to see a different side of Christmas, one that they don’t make into Hallmark movies, and at the heart of it all is the importance of Advent.

He continues:

So, here’s the thing, forget everything you thought you knew about Advent candles and the local live nativity play and reading Luke 2 at your kids… Wait. Rewind. Don’t forget that stuff, it’s actually important, too. But it’s equally important that we engage with what scripture is saying about the meaning of Christ’s expectation and appearance to us. If we simply focus on the history of Christmas, we are inviting the same host of problems that attended the Pharisees—myopically pouring over dusty scrolls, refusing to see the living God right there in front of them.

Said another way, during Advent we are not simply remembering some fateful event in the past, we’re celebrating a Messiah who was and is and is to come. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). There is a special significance in this mystery as we approach the celebration of God’s incarnation. Advent is the time to shout hallelujah for his coming return, to pray to hasten the day that we might see our Redeemer with our own eyes, to fast for revival in our cities, churches, and families.

So, I ask you: how does Advent change if you are the one who’s going to see the Son of God? Can you imagine the wonder such a sight will inspire?—the Christ born of the Spirit, one with God, the hope of the nations? Emmanuel. God is with us. Who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

On that coming day my eyes will see something sweeter than honey, more precious than gold! Until then, I keep my eyes fixed on that goal—it’s a struggle, sure—but all the mall Santa pomp and circumstance goes mute before it.

Read the rest.

The More Staggering it Gets

“The supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us . . . lies not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter message of resurrection, but in the Christmas message of incarnation. The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man – that the second person of the Godhead became the ‘second man’ (1 Cor. 15:47), determining human destiny, the second representative head of the race, and that He took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as He was human.

Here are two mysteries for the price of one ­- the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus. It is here, the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. ’The Word was made flesh’ (John 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets.”

J. I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 45-46.

(HT:  Ray Ortlund)

The Incarnation

(HT:  Joe Thorn)

"I Know Santa Ain't Black!"

Classic.

Being Distracted by "Jesus" This Christmas

Jared Wilson:

There is a great danger this Christmas season of missing the point. And I'm not referring simply to idolatrous consumption and materialism. I'm talking about Christmas religiosity. It is very easy around this time to set up our Nativity scenes, host our Christmas pageants and cantatas, read the Christmas story with our families, attend church every time the door is open, and insist to ourselves and others that Jesus is the reason for the season, and yet not see Jesus. With the eyes of our heart, I mean.

I suppose there is something about indulging in the religious Christmas routine that lulls us into thinking we are dwelling in Christ when we are really just set to seasonal autopilot, going through the festive and sentimental motions. Meanwhile the real person Jesus the Christ goes neglected in favor of his plastic, paper, and video representations. Don't get distracted from Jesus by "Jesus." This year, plead with the Spirit to interrupt your nice Christmas with the power of Jesus' gospel.

Can't Think of What to Buy For Someone This Year For Christmas?

I know I always have a hard time thinking of things.  This list might help.  It's the most popular gifts this year.

Obama's Comments at White House Tree Lighting

A CNN headline says, "Obama delivers very Christian message at Christmas tree lighting". Here is the report on the essence of what he said:

In his remarks at Thursday's tree lighting, Obama said that Jesus "grew up to become a leader with a servant’s heart who taught us a message as simple as it is powerful: that we should love God, and love our neighbor as ourselves." 

"So long as the gifts and the parties are happening, it’s important for us to keep in mind the central message of this season," he said, "and keep Christ’s words not only in our thoughts, but also in our deeds."

Unfortunately this (the CNN headline and Obama's words) continues to propagate what almost everyone seems to think about the essence of Christianity. And that is this: It all boils down to just following the rules.

Look at Obama's comments. What is the "central message of this season"?  It all boils down to obedience to God's commands.

But the essence of Christianity is precisely the opposite. We need a Savior because we CAN'T obey his commands as we should.  You'll only love the real Jesus of Christmas if you acknowledge that you have a real need to be saved from something.  Namely his righteous wrath of God that has to be poured out on sin.

Mark 1:15 says that the essence of Jesus' message is to "repent and believe".  Repent of your failure and believe in the one who was sent to be the substitute for you.  Belief in this "good news" is the power to change.  This realization takes your feet off the performance treadmill of trying to achieve your right standing through obedience to "Christmas good deeds" and places them securely on ground that doesn't move.  You don't have to run on the treadmill anymore.  Jesus ran it for you.  His victory is now your victory.  Just come to him.  Admit your need, receive his pardon from your sin, trust him to satisfy the deepest longings of your soul, and feel the motivation to love and obey him because of what he did for you.

That is the "Christian" message.  The CNN headline got it wrong.  Everyone around us (church people and those outside the church) probably believes the CNN headline.  Are you telling them the difference?

Family Tension and the Holidays

Wisdom here from Russell Moore.