What's the Big Deal with Christmas?

What’s the big deal with Christmas? I mean, you all probably know that Jesus was likely not born on December 25th, right? We don’t really know for sure when He was born. It’s likely close to that date, but no one knows for sure. But what about all of the other stuff going on? There are Christmas specials on TV. There are people in town with Christmas lights up. And there are decorations on display at the local stores. But what’s the big deal? Why is there something instead of nothing? Why don’t we celebrate “Merry Snow Day”? Or “Happy Leaves Falling Off the Trees Season”? Why Christmas, and what’s the big deal?

My suspicion is that if you asked most people on the street what Christmas is all about, they would respond with “family time” or “presents”, or “days off of school.” What is the big deal with Christmas? What about your own answer? If I were to ask you about Christmas, what could you tell me about it? Some might say, “It’s when we celebrate Jesus’ birth”, and that would be true. But is there more than that to it?

What’s the big deal with a baby being born? Babies are born all the time aren’t they? What was different about this baby? What was so special about him? Do you have any idea? What about being born of a virgin? That would be a big deal, but that isn’t it. He was born in a manger, and wasn’t that significant? He was born where all the cows and sheep slept. He was born in a barn. Is that the big deal? Okay, what about the shepherds that saw a number of angels, and then the angels told them certain things about the baby. That’s a pretty big deal right? It’s not everyday your minding your own business as a shepherd and a bunch of angels appear and tell you about a special baby being born. But, is that it? Could it be that Christmas is a big deal because of the Magi? Those were the guys that were the wise men. They were the ones that brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the newborn baby. That’s a big deal, right? He must have been a pretty special baby for men of learning and wisdom to bring him gifts. Is that it?

I’m going to give you a big word to confound your friends and amaze your parents. When they ask you what you learned in school today, you can tell them this new word. Here’s how it’s spelled, i-n-c-a-r-n-a-t-i-o-n. Christmas is a big deal because of The Incarnation. Do you know what it means? Incarnation means the "act of being made flesh" or “enfleshment”. Hold your left hand up and shake it. Now pinch it. Did it hurt? It hurt because you are made out of flesh. You aren’t a ghost or a disembodied spirit. You are made out of flesh and blood and bones. But you’ve always been made out of flesh and blood and bones. You were never a disembodied spirit. Christmas is a big deal because a long time ago in a faraway place God took on flesh and blood and bones. God became a man. Christmas is a big deal because it’s about the Incarnation. God, who had never known what it was like to actually be made of flesh and blood and bones, became like us in Jesus Christ. He could have shaken his hand and pinched it and it would have hurt him. He became like you and me. Christmas is a big deal because God came in the flesh as a helpless child. In the mystery of the Trinity the eternal Son took on flesh and became a tiny infant.

Now, if you are smart kids, and I am assuming you are, you should be asking yourselves, why? Not, why you are smart kids, but why the Incarnation? Why did Jesus have a body like ours and what difference would it make? Some religions say that Jesus was just a spirit. They say he was just a spirit and not a body, because it would be bad if God had a body. But that isn’t what the Bible says. The Bible says in John 1:14, “...the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...” In Jesus Christ God lived here on earth in a real body made of flesh and blood and bones and nerves and emotions. You could touch him, he could speak to you in an audible voice, and he slept and ate and did everything like you and me. But why? Why did he do this? Why did he become a man?

In Jesus Christ God became a man, but there’s something he did not do. He did not sin. The fact of the matter is that all of us have a terrible problem. It’s not just me, it’s all of us. We do the one thing that Jesus did not do. We sin. In fact we sin every day, and not just once a day, but a number of times in a day. We think bad thoughts, we say bad things, we do bad things every day, and day after day. Christmas is a big deal because of the Incarnation. God became a man and not just any man; he became a man without sin. He never had a bad thought, he never said a bad thing, and he never did anything bad. He was always doing everything at all times in perfection to his Father’s will. Have you ever watched the movie Narnia or read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Do you remember the part where Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus and Mr. Tumnus is plotting how to kidnap Lucy? He finally comes to his senses and begins to confess the plot to Lucy and he begins to tell her about the White Witch that has cast a spell on Narnia. Mr. Tumnus says of the White Witch,

“Why, it is she that has got all of Narnia under her thumb. It’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter, and never Christmas; think of that!”

Without the Incarnation, without God coming in the flesh, it would always be winter and never be Christmas. Something had to be done with our sin. A price had to be paid to satisfy the wrath of God for our sin. Seven hundred years before Jesus was born the prophet Isaiah told about the coming of Jesus. In Isaiah 7:14-15 he said,

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (And)… he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.”

The name Immanuel means “God with us”. And then before Jesus’ birth an angel appeared to Joseph and told him not to be afraid. And then the angel then began telling him what would happen to Mary and said,

“ “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).” (Matthew 1:21-23)

What’s the big deal with Christmas? The big deal with Christmas is that God became a man in the Incarnation, and he lived a perfect life of obedience, and died on a Cross to satisfy the Father’s wrath for our sins, and then he rose again from the dead. The big deal about Christmas is the Incarnation, and the big deal about the Incarnation is the Cross and the Resurrection. You see, without Christmas there is no Easter, and without Easter there is no hope for sinners. It’s all part of the same story, the story of redemption, where God shows mercy to those that are His enemies...those like you and me. What’s the big deal with Christmas? The big deal is that hope for us has come in the Incarnate Son of God. As Christians we ought to celebrate the Incarnation like nobody else. Let the celebration begin….

-DJM 

(This was a message given at Firm Foundation Christian School in December of 2007)

Thankfulness Becomes Us

“Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!”
-Psalm 106:1

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
- Colossians 3:16

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen."
- Revelation 7:9-12

“Praising God is one of the highest and purest acts of religion. In prayer we act like men; in praise we act like angels.”
-Thomas Watson, A Puritan Golden Treasury

"The Lord knows how apt even the best of men are to forget the spring of their mercies."

-John Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 8, p. 431

What is it that sets us apart from other sentient beings? Apart from the obvious, some have said that only man has the capability to think God’s thoughts after Him. I’m also of the opinion that intentional thankfulness separates us from brute beasts. We are those who declare gratitude to God for His manifold kindness. We contemplate God’s mercies and then verbalize thankfulness. The character of the Christian is one of pervasive and effusive gratitude. We simply cannot help it. In the great work of the gospel thankfulness is a work of the Spirit of God in the heart of the Christian. In fact, an unthankful Christian is a contradiction in terms. Our thankfulness is to be shared with others and is to be infectious, as Christ’s word dwells within us. Paul’s exhortation to the Colossians is this, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6-7) Receiving Christ and walking in him, rooted and established in the faith, is to provoke us to great thanksgiving. In a world where thankfulness is often a rarity, for the Christian, thankfulness becomes us.

-DJM

What's the Big Deal with the Protestant Reformation?

Man’s work faileth, Christ’s availeth,
He is all our righteousness;
He, our Savior, has forever
Set us free from dark distress.
Through His merit we inherit
Light and peace and happiness.
- Venantius Fortunatus, c. 530-609

“Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters.”

- Thesis #37, nailed by Martin Luther on the Castle Church door at Wittenberg, October 10th, 1517

"The righteous shall live by faith."

- Romans 1:17b

“I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the justice of God,” because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by his faith.’ Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas the ‘justice of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressively sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate of heaven….”

- Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Volume 34, p. 337


501 years ago today, on October 31, 1517, the sound of a hammer could be heard in Wittenberg Germany as an Augustinian monk nailed a piece of parchment to the door at Castle Church. On that parchment, written in Latin, were Luther’s complaints. They were meant to spark an intramural debate, but instead sparked a wildfire that would spread throughout the world. The topics essentially covered three areas – 1) Whether the church ought to spend money on extravagance. 2) Whether the Pope could exercise powers over purgatory. 3) And the effect of indulgences pertaining to the standing of a sinner before God. The first two topics would have escaped without too much notice. It was the last topic that got Luther into great trouble. His own mind was the battleground and the stakes were high. The question was excruciating, “How can sinful man be reconciled to a holy God?” The answer, found in the book of Romans, was Luther’s gate of heaven. When Luther understood that his right-standing before God was solely based upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith alone, he felt himself reborn. The gospel broke in on his heart with the force of the dawn of a new day. The gospel, rightly apprehended (through Christ alone, by faith alone, and through grace alone) and rightly understood (through Scripture alone), changed everything.

A lot has happened in 501 years. Today, the Reformational (and I believe biblical) understanding of the doctrine of justification by faith is under assault. The inference is that we have misunderstood Paul and the Scriptures. The inference is that we have misunderstood the gospel. But, what difference does this make? Is all of this an academic debate better handled by ivory-tower theologians? R. Scott Clark makes the connection between the attack on the biblical view of justification and the church in his book, Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry. Clark’s point should be heeded. An attack upon justification and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness will wreak terrible havoc in the life of the church. Clark writes,

“Each (church member) needs to see the true magnitude of his or her offense toward God, the abundance of God’s mercy in erasing that debt through the cross of Christ, and the invincible assurance of God’s approval, grounded on the imputed righteousness of Jesus. As these truths grip their hearts (which often results not from an instantaneous change but from a prolonged struggle) defenses can fall, sins can be confessed (genuinely, not merely as a step in a required formula), forgiveness can flow, and hope can rekindle.”

- R. Scott Clark, Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry, p. 426

We have much to be grateful for and much to be vigilant about this Reformation Day. After 501 years I thank God for Martin Luther. I thank God for the vexation of soul that brought about an understanding of justification by faith in the imputed righteousness of Christ. This was an understanding that broke through the darkness of performance-based acceptability and shone the sovereign grace gospel in all of its glorious radiance. When you and I trust solely in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ for our acceptance before God we embrace biblical Christianity and become true heirs of the Reformation.

Soli Deo Gloria!

(Updated from the original 10/29/14 post)

The Importance of Origins

'Man in his ignorance thinks himself a great work worthy of the interposition of a deity. More humble and I think truer to consider him created from animals.'
- Charles Darwin in 1838, cited in Created from Animals, James Rachels, p. 1

'...then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.' 
- Genesis 2:7 


The ascertaining of where we've come from will determine where we are going. In other words, if man has his origins in primordial soup then his end won't really matter. If man is no different than animals then all sorts of mischief will be expected. With this sort of sentient reductionism the intrinsic value of an infant will be no different than that of a kitten. In the words of animal rights apologist Ingrid Newkirk, 'A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all animals.' Only when origins are removed will it make sense to conclude that the Jewish Holocaust is the moral equivalent to the slaughter of broiler chickens.* When you have no certainty in the beginning, you have no certainty at the end. As Christians our defense of human life comes from an understanding of beginnings. With the clarity of God's Word the beginnings of life have never been in doubt. This has been God's revealed creative fiat and His prerogative from the outset. Life is His to both give and take, and particularly human life bears intrinsic worth because God is its author and He has deemed it so. Man alone is the crown of creation and life is important because the redemption of it came at an inestimable cost. In the beginning the first Adam died, and in the end the second Adam rose from the dead. Human life matters because God declared it so from the beginning, and because of the Cross and resurrection it will be so at the end.

*Ingrid Newkirk, cited in, The Washington Post, November 13, 1983

Evangelism, Ordinary Folks, and the Intelligentsia of the Proletariat -

‘You get up every morning 'fore the sun comes up. Toss a lunchbox into a pickup truck.’

-       Aaron Tippen, Workin’ Man’s PhD

‘I'm not big on social graces

Think I'll slip on down to the oasis

Oh, I've got friends in low places’

-       Garth Brooks, Friends in Low Places

‘For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.’

-       1 Cor. 1:26

This past week I was reading through C.S. Lewis’ lecture ‘God in the Dock’ and something caught my eye.  Perhaps unintentional, but I usually read Lewis with an attention to detail.  Here Lewis mentioned something important in passing. The lecture is about the inclination of our putting God on trial, but at the outset he prefaces the lecture by talking about his audience.  He is talking about addressing members of the Royal Air Force and the particular challenges of making an apologetic appeal to ordinary folks.  Lewis calls them the ‘Intelligentsia of the Proletariat,’ in other words, ’…mechanics, electricians, and wireless operators’…those we encounter every day that have their worldviews framed by an admixture of psychology, pop-culture, and religious half-truths.    Lewis gives a fair amount of consideration as to how to make a gospel appeal to those involved in the everyday work world.  He painstakingly analyzes their influences with an eye on to how to make a gospel appeal.

Most of us are ordinary folks with ordinary callings.  And yet what we have as Christians is an extraordinary message…if we could only articulate it.  It would do us well to consider those we come in contact with in everyday life.  There is no doubt that those who consider themselves Christ’s disciples must live with an eye toward gospel proclamation.  What this means for evangelism is that we must also be students of our audience.  In the amazing providence of God, He has placed us in relationships with others, and these with a plethora of opportunities for gospel proclamation.  The question is…what will we say?  How will we answer the questions raised by the Bill Mahers and Penn Gillettes of the world?  These are the modern prophets of this generation.  Can our apologetic withstand the assault of the neo-atheist?  Do we know enough to be able to offer a thoughtful defense of Christianity?  We’re in a war of worldviews and I’m afraid most of us are unprepared for the battlefield. 

This is an appeal to enter the fray.  As believers God has called us to engage and not to retreat.  Christianity is a legitimate voice in the arena of ideas.  How can we engage the intelligentsia of the proletariat if we don’t even know the questions they are asking?  It makes sense to take a lesson from Lewis and to consider how the Christian faith can be a reasonable answer to the myriad of alternative voices.  In fact...we have a responsibility to do so.  By default we’re already acting according to our worldview.  The question is, will we love our neighbors, family members, and co-workers enough to study them, understand their worldview, answer their questions, and give them an opportunity to hear our extraordinary message? 

-DJM

June 2014