When Christ was born into the human race, He had come to rescue a race that was entirely lost. We were not entirely forsaken—because of His gracious intention for us—but we were entirely lost. This means that everything we had with us was lost too. When a hiker is lost in the woods, not only …
A Theology of Christmas Gifts
INTRODUCTION:One of the most obvious features of our Christmas celebrations is the gift-giving. How are we to understand this as Christians? What are the pitfalls? Are all the pitfalls obvious? Because our lives are to be lives of grace, and because charis means grace or gift, this is something we have to understand throughout the …
Caroling in Friendship Square
A Brief History of Christmas
INTRODUCTION:We celebrate the birth of Christ, and we are able to do this because we have seen what His rule has accomplished in the world. Jesus told Thomas once that there was a blessing for those who would believe without having seen the risen Christ, as Thomas had (John 20:29). On this principle, our place …
Celebrating Christmas Like a Puritan
INTRODUCTION:Socrates once famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living. In a similar vein, the unexamined holiday is not worth celebrating. Whenever we do anything on autopilot, it is not surprising that at some point we forget where we are going, or what we were supposed to be doing. And when we are …
Thanksgiving 2011
Thanksgiving in the midst of war is not an incongruity; it is one of our chief weapons. The Lord prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies (Ps. 23:5). We are not yet privileged to sit down in Isaiah’s hall, where the trumpet and spear are mounted in places of honor, where …
Come Up, Come Up
When the Lord Jesus was raised up from the grave, it was not long before He was raised up from world itself. Jesus first came up out of the earth, and He then came away from the earth. That departure from our world was His ascension into Heaven, a glorious transit between the moment of …
A Rest Remains
INTRODUCTION:We are celebrating Easter, the day on which we commemorate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead. But not only did He rise, but all things were restored in Him, which is something we model, not only annually, but also on a weekly basis. We worship on the first day because we are …
When the Divine Hammer Fell
It is very easy for modern readers of the gospel of John to assume that he sometimes falls into the role of a chatty tour guide, telling us the meaning of certain words in two languages, and that he does so for purposes of amusing us along the way. “And on your left, you may …
A Plot Twist Triumph
INTRODUCTION:The triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem is the prelude to His crucifixion, and so it is odd that it has come to be called the triumphal entry. But it actually reveals a good understanding of what was actually happening there. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly (Ps. 118:16), but it turns out …