I have a vignette in the novella that I wrote thirty-some-odd years ago that is on a link to your left on this page. Isaac Crocket....a mature Reformed Theology Christian....is walking with his new wife at Christmastime in Philadelphia....she having been raised Catholic. As they are shopping in this city so rich in the days of our independence of 1776....he is pointing out the history all around them....when his wife surprises and embarrasses him in her new transformation....(I likened her to that of Jonathan Edward's wife Sarah)....as she stops his lecture and asks him if this is Christmas coming up or the Fourth of July. That was me thirty-some-odd years ago.
Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday....since my conversion anyway in 1982. I would not even start to put up Christmas decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. I just put up our Christmas tree today....and have been decorating for Christmas for a couple of weeks now. Why the transformation?
It's because America has changed....itself having been transformed....we conservatives and evangelicals being the last group to distort words like freedom and liberty....and to rely more on power and money and pride. We are no longer the pilgrims on that Mayflower....but the ship's crew. We do not have the faith....(deist though it was)....of the founding fathers....or the mortification such as brought on by the carnage of the Civil War. A revival to us today is a rally around the flagpole on a college campus. There are no itinerant preachers anymore....preaching repentence....or even tent revivalists preaching salvation...but plenty of pastors leading their listeners in thanking God for sending us Donald Trump....and somehow considering it a reprieve?
So the holiday....once so intertwined with God's mercy and blessing upon us as a nation....is out of place in a nation that uses God's name like a campaign lapel pin....and in a church where the glory of God has long since departed....replaced by pot luck dinners....voter's guides....magachurches....megachurches.....and a salvation that needs no repentance....comes at no cost....and wants no warnings on anything other than the loss of their rights.
Christmas to me today....is still not a Hallmark holiday....but rather a trip back two-thousand and some-odd years....to a manger....and forty-three and some-odd years....to a dead heart that began to beat....and an ear that began to hear....and an eye that began to see....and feet that began to run to the Savior that was born in that manger....and grew up to fulfill His mission. The following is a preface from last December....to a post from two Decembers ago. I decided to bring this back earlier this year to give more time for contemplation and meditation:
Preface: I have been blessed with a number of wonderful preacher pastors. Of course I just didn't fall into this....I had to research churches and then make the move....and that is not always an easy thing to do. Possibly the finest preacher....and the only reason I say that is because I was glued to my seat after every sermon....was a man who spoke with a slight stutter....and in a monotone....and he had a combover....and he wore a robe in the pulpit. He was a man out of place in his church....oh they were nice elders....and did their best and tried their best....but there was no Puritan in them...and this man was a Puritan. Every year there was a Christmas tree off to the right of the pulpit....and an American flag off to the left. He eventually decided to just move on....and so did we. The concept of Advent goes way back....maybe to the 300s. It originally incorporated both the first coming of the Messiah....and the second coming of the Messiah....but that changed over time....and it was taken over by Christmas. Personally, I look at Advent December almost as a waste of a month in most churches in America....1/12 of the year conceded to the culture. Yes the date is based on Saturnalia....and no our Lord was not born in December....but there is glory indescribable in that birth in that manger...and it is possible to celebrate Christmas without giving the gospel a month off....and even to look to the grand finale! The following post is from December of 2023:
Who Leaves After The Overture
One of the Oxford dictionaries defines an overture as...."An introduction to something more substantial." Occasionally a movie is so epic that it has an overture. Doctor Zhivago comes to mind. I posted the following last year in early December....
"Celebrating the birth of Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem.....with all the wonderful hymns associated with it.....is the overture....but who walks out of a concert or film after the overture? The post concluded with this....""A baby was born....and the angels rejoiced....it was the overture....to be followed by choruses....and arias....and cantatas....and every imaginable orchestral arrangement....leading up to a grand finale that the angels are preparing for right now! So yes....Merry Christmas.....for it was a wonderful overture....but the Composer has left the greatest audiological masterpiece for the grand finale."
Handel originally intended the Hallelujah Chorus to celebrate Easter....thus it appears as an instrumental overture but the chorus appears at the end of Part Two of his Messiah with the Risen Christ. Church tradition has moved Handel's famous piece to Christmastime
We attended a Christmas concert benefit this evening. Last evening I watched....for probably at least the sixth time....the 2016 film....Risen.....that starred Joseph Fiennes as a Roman Tribune who saw Jesus dead on the cross....and then came face to face with the risen Christ! It's a marvelous film that I highly recommend!
So you may very well have a Christmas sermon tomorrow. In 2018 I wrote these words in a post...."I came across an older series of Christmas sermons by Pastor John Piper at his church in Minnesota....and I actually had to laugh....it was so wonderful....for he kept saying Christmas this....and Christmas that....but it was entirely the gospel of Jesus Christ! This pastor refused to separate Christmas from Calvary....or Christmas from the Second Coming!"
Just Google.....Messages On The Birth Of Christ, John Piper
