A Prayer for Christmas Morning

Father in Heaven,

We thank you for Christmas, and we thank you for gifts, good food, and family fun. But while these things are nice things, they cannot do any ultimate good to us because they cannot take away our sins. What is ultimate is that your Word, the eternal Christ, took on flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. He was found in human form in a manger, such a lowly birthplace for a King. Yet he did not remain a baby. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And though he died, he did not stay dead. Father, you highly exalted him by raising him from the dead, giving him the name that is above every other name. So we thank you for the gift of a suffering servant who took our iniquity so that we might be clean.

Father, at Christmas we hear many stories about kindness, peace, and being “good for goodness’ sake.” But if we are honest, our goodness is nothing to showcase, nor has it ever been. We praise you that you do not look upon us and give us favor because of our goodness. You could never do this because before we knew you, we were slaves to sin: we were held captive by the law, which we could not keep. Thank you Father that when the fullness of time had come, you sent your Son to be born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law. You redeemed us through your Son and made us sons and daughters. He redeemed us by fulfilling the law in our place and giving us a righteousness we could never earn. So we thank you for the gift of a righteous man whose record is credited to our account.

O Father, would your Holy Spirit impress these gospel truths on our minds and hearts today, and everyday. As we open up gifts, let us remember that Jesus is the greatest gift that has ever been given. As we eat food, let us remember that the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. As we spend time with family, let us remember that we now belong to a new family which is bound together more tightly than our earthly families ever could be.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

The Offense of Christmas

How often do you hear about people toasting to “world peace” or “peace and goodwill to men” during this time of year? Maybe not often in real life, but certainly in movies! This desire isn’t wrong, after all, for in Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth, it is clear that Jesus came to bring peace to the world (2:14). What kind of peace? Our most basic need is peace with God, not peace between nations or families. Because of our rebellion against God, we are at odds with him. We are his enemies. We need to be reconciled to him. The good news of Christmas is that Jesus brings that reconciliation. When reconciliation between God and men happens, other relationships will fall into place.

But we don’t just get peace by gawking over baby Jesus at Christmas. You can’t go to Bethlehem’s manger without going to Jerusalem’s cross. Jesus did not stay in Bethlehem and neither should we. The truth is, no one is offended by baby Jesus. Everyone loves baby Jesus. Who would be offended at a cute new born who coos and yelps and yawns?

What is offensive is that this baby grew up to be a man to live the life I should have lived. What is offensive is that this man absorbed the holy wrath of God as he died the death I should have died. What is offensive is that only by trusting in Christ’s substitutionary work—not my own works—can I have peace with God.  That is why God gets “glory in the highest,” as the angels sang, and precisely why I cannot boast before God. O how much Jerusalem’s cross offends! This stomps all over my ego. I need someone to save me? Yes. And God alone has provided the salvation!

At great risk to our small view of God, think about it this way: the Father went to war with Jesus so that we might no longer be at war with him. Jesus, however, did not remain as the Father’s enemy. He was rewarded because of his perfectly obedient life: the Father raised him from the dead. Now all those who are connected to Christ by faith belong to him and the Father, and all of them will live together in perfect peace and harmony forever.

That’s why Jesus was born. That’s what Christmas is all about. Now, that’s something worth toasting to.

Celebrating Advent

Historically, the Christian church has devoted the month of December to celebrating Advent (from the Latin adventus, which means “coming, arrival”). The first Advent was Jesus’ birth: when God himself took on flesh as a humble baby, born in a dirty stable. For centuries upon centuries, the Old Testament saints had anticipated the Messiah’s arrival. We, too, are saints who anticipate the Messiah’s second arrival. Jesus’ next Advent will come when he returns at the end of the age, not as a poor, humble carpenter, but as a warrior King who rescues his friends and slaughters his foes.

As we celebrate Jesus’ first arrival, and anticipate his second, join me, and millions of other Christians around the globe, in purposeful and intentional daily reflection on the wonders and glories of the gospel. Below are a few options for daily Scripture/devotional readings.

• Good News of Great Joy (from Desiring God)
• 2012 Advent Devotional (from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminar
• Advent with the Jesus Storybook Bible (from Home with the Boys)

The Comfort of Advent

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.” (Matt. 1:23)

For many people, Christmas is the most brutal time of year. Whether it’s the death of a loved one, a recent divorce, loneliness, or something else, Christmas can be a sad reminder that life is not how it should be. Even if Christmas is a happy time for you, the indwelling power of sin and the general brokenness of the world reminds you that, indeed, life is not how it should be.

On that first Christmas night, when Mary bore Jesus in a dirty stable, the world was no different than ours. It was filled with disease, war, oppression, injustice, famine, hunger, and private sin. The problems were less noticeable because Mary and Joseph didn’t have Twitter or CNN, but they were no less prevalent. While “long lay the world in sin and error pining,” the baby boy Jesus, entered with a most precious name: Immanuel, which means “God with us.”

The God of the Bible is transcendent: he is holy, lifted up, and above all things (Isa.57:15). Nevertheless, he is immanent and personal. God “became flesh and dwelt among us” so that we might see “his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14). The God of the Bible is sovereign over the plight we face, yet he is not immune to it, for not only is “God with us,” he is with us in our sufferings.

The baby called Immanuel would grow up not as a rich, famous ruler who had servants fluff his pillow all the day. No, he grew up “a man of sorrows, and [was] acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces” (Isa. 53:3). He became a servant and though he was God, he “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped…and [he] humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6, 8). His suffering on the cross was for you: he took the penalty of sin you deserved (Rom. 3:21-25; 2 Cor. 5:21; Col. 1:22; 1 Pet. 2:24). His suffering on the cross was also with you: he is the one who “comforts us in all our affliction…For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (2 Cor. 1:4).

This Advent season, you may ask God, “Why have I suffered so much? Why is life so hard?” You can take comfort in the fact that Jesus–very God and very man–asked his Father the same question: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). You see, Jesus lost the Father’s hand so that you might grab hold of it. He lost fellowship with the Father so that you might enter the Father’s family. He took the wrath of God so that you might only receive grace. Jesus suffered not to eliminate suffering in your life or in the world (though he will do that on the last day). He suffered so that you might ultimately share in his victory over suffering through his resurrection.

What a comfort! What a Savior! Truly, Jesus is Immanuel.

Why Should I Be Generous?

Often during the Christmas season (we have been using the term “Advent” on this blog) people feel a genuine desire to give more. From a secular standpoint, the point of Christmas is to be kinder, gentler, peaceful, and, of course, more generous. In the same way, some Christians reduce Christmas to set of principles and morals to heed.

It is important to give. As Randy Alcorn has said, “The only antidote to materialism is giving.” If you want to avoid the plague of accumulation and the desire for stuff, give. Jesus even said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Christmas, however, is not about giving gifts (as good as that is). It’s about the ultimate Gift hanging on the cross to bring us to God.

But we still give at Christmas, and Christians are called to be generous people everyday. What is the motivation for giving? Is it to be a good example to your kids? Is it so you can be happy rather than a Scrooge? Is it because it is the “Christian thing” to do? Is it so you can get God in your debt?

When Paul wrote to the young, chaotic, pretentious, and selfish urbanites in Corinth, he did appeal to any pragmatic reasons for giving. He did not tell them to give because it will make them happy. He did not tell them to give because when they die they will be left without anything. Ultimately, Paul knew that these motivations were merely moralistic and have no heart-impact. So what did he say? He told them the example of the Macedonians and how he hopes they excel in generosity. Then appealed to the gospel and Jesus’ generosity to us:

I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich (2 Cor. 8:8-9).

The compelling motivation to give, for Paul, was that Christ, in his great riches, gave to people who did not deserve it. He gave the Corinthians (and us!) salvation and all the benefits that go with it (cf. Eph. 1:3). He gave us blessing in exchange for a devastating death on a cross (cf. 1 Cor. 5:21).

You will never be as generous as you should be. In fact, left to your own, you will probably be a miser if not for the occasional guilt trip from your conscience or loved one or pastor. But when you are changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ–really changed–when you taste and see what he has given to you, what he has accomplished on your behalf, what he has forsaken so that you might partake, you will not be able to keep yourself from worshiping God through generosity.

The Triumph of Advent

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. (Isa. 9:2)

Imagine trying to make your way through a forest or jungle in utter darkness. Suppose there is a new moon, or it has already set, and the stars of little help. You don’t have a flashlight–or iPhone–to light your way. That would be scary. Think now of a different kind of darkness, a darkness of the soul. This darkness leaves you feeling hopeless and despairing. It is a kind of darkness that leaves you wondering, “Why don’t I just end it all?”

Isaiah prophesied during a dark time in Judah’s history when it was so hopeless people wept for days on end and sat in ash piles because that was the only appropriate response. In Isaiah 8, Isaiah foretold of coming national defeat when all hope would seem lost. This was fulfilled when Assyria ransacked the northern kingdom of Israel (c. 720-722). Assyria’s conquering wasn’t a small military demonstration. It was epic devastation. Children were killed in the streets. Women were raped. Men were slain and taken off as prisoners of war. Even before the invasion, all hope was lost, for it was God’s word and it was sure to take place.

In the midst of darkness and anguish and gloom, Isaiah prophesied hope: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Isa. 9:2). In 9:1, Isaiah had just referred to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, where much of the Assyrian destruction took place (see 2 Kings 15:9; 2 Chr. 16:4). This hope would come, Isaiah said, through a special baby born to Israel, who would  reign on David’s throne and establish his kingdom with justice and righteousness (Isa. 9:7). All of Judah and Israel’s hope was set on this baby.

Hope arrived and light dawned at the coming of Jesus. Born in a horse’s trough in a podunk town to a teenage mom and poor adoptive father, this baby would be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to [God's] people Israel” (Luke 2:32). Jesus began his ministry in Galilee (where Naphtali and Zebulun were located) to fulfill what Isaiah wrote in his ninth chapter (Matt. 4:12-17; cf. Mark 1:15). He came not to bring political liberation or social reform. He came not to take vengeance on Assyria (nor on Egypt, Babylon, Persia, or Rome for that matter). He came to bring light to those in spiritual darkness, to make all who believe in him children of God: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:4, 9).

Later in his ministry, Jesus declared, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). World. Jesus did not only come for those in Galilee who were left hopeless after the Assyrian invasion. As Luke 2:32 (mentioned above) foretold, Jesus came for all who have were invaded by sin and left devastated. Like ancient Israel who was once left in gloom and anguish by Assyria, so you and I have been devastated by sin, death, and Satan. We were left for dead and clinging to anything and everything for hope, yet no hope came. Money, sex, relationships, fame, power, security, comfort, food. All leave us in darkness wanting more and more and more.

Despite the dark night, however, we share with Israel in God’s promise of a great morning light. Christ has triumphed over an enemy greater than Assyria. He has conquered our spiritual darkness and hopelessness. Jesus endured the darkness of death and separation from the Father so that we who believe in him might have relationship with God and never taste death. Will you believe in the hope Jesus gives? His triumph is worth celebrating this Christmas.

The Wexford Carol

The Wexford Carol is a 12th century Irish hymn and is one of the oldest surviving European Christmas carols. It tells the simple Nativity story in Bethlehem.

(If you cannot watch it in this window, please click on the “Watch on YouTube” link that will appear.)

Good people all, this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved son
With Mary holy we should pray,
To God with love this Christmas Day
In Bethlehem upon that morn,
There was a blessed Messiah born

The night before that happy tide
The noble Virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town
But mark right well what came to pass
From every door repelled, alas
As was foretold, their refuge all
Was but a humble ox’s stall

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep
To whom God’s angel did appear
Which put the shepherds in great fear
Arise and go, the angels said
To Bethlehem, be not afraid
For there you’ll find, this happy morn
A princely babe, sweet Jesus, born

With thankful heart and joyful mind
The shepherds went the babe to find
And as God’s angel had foretold
They did our Saviour Christ behold
Within a manger he was laid
And by his side a virgin maid
Attending on the Lord of Life
Who came on earth to end all strife

There were three wise men from afar
Directed by a glorious star
And on they wandered night and day
Until they came where Jesus lay
And when they came unto that place
Where our beloved Messiah lay
They humbly cast them at his feet
With gifts of gold and incense sweet.

HT: Justin Taylor