• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Few of us would associate God’s love displayed at Christmas with war. But the Christmas story entwines these themes. The incarnate God, Jesus Christ, was and is the fulfillment of the ancient military promise of God recorded in Genesis 3:15. Just after the fall of Adam and Eve, the Lord God declared the serpent’s future defeat:

           I will put enmity between you and the woman,
                       and between your offspring and her offspring;
           he shall bruise your head,
                        and you shall bruise his heel.

These words frame our understanding of Christmas. Jesus Christ did not come to hand out delicious sugar cookies and sing carols. While we are right to revel in holiday warmth and cheer, we cannot forget this: Jesus Christ came to deal out death to the devil. Christ’s wrath-absorbing death frees us from Satan’s accusing power and ensures our cleansing from all sin.

Jesus did all this because of his great love for you, as Ephesians 5:2 makes clear: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” The incarnation was an act of war, yes. But it was above all an act of love. It was a “fragrant offering” to the Father, and it is the anthem of our redeemed life.

Because Jesus died, the serpent’s head is crushed.

—Owen Strachan, author, The Warrior Savior

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

From the beginning God made us humans to live in families. He commanded Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth, with one generation following another—fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, all in God’s own image, and shining his glory throughout the globe.

But, right away, families became broken. Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and so from them came generations of parents and children filled with sin and cut off from their heavenly Father. 

Yet God’s Father-love did not abandon his creation. He planned before the foundation of the world to send his own Son to save generations of people for himself—to take our sin and die in our place so that we could be reconciled to God. Through faith in Jesus Christ God’s Son, we are called God’s children.

Our human families are surely intended to let us taste and reflect the amazing love of God the Father who gave his only Son. Flawed and sinful as our families are, we know what it means for parents to love their children and for children to love and honor the ones who gave them life. These earthly gifts can help light up heaven. What wonder, that in human families we glimpse the love of the triune God (see John 5:20). What wonder it will be, when we see him face to face and live fully  in that love.

We followers of Jesus have found our forever family. Christmas celebrates God’s family created through God’s Son. Especially at Christmas, then, we stop to marvel with the apostle John: See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are  (1 John 3:1).

—Kathleen Nielson, author, Making Good Return

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Hope can feel hard to come by during the holidays, especially when you’re wracked with pain or weighed down with grief. Yes, it might be “the most wonderful time of the year” for some. But for others, it’s a season when wonderful times seem both far behind and far beyond them.

Perhaps you fall into this latter category. If so, the incarnation may not seem like a relevant consolation. But consider this comforting truth as you weep and lament: Jesus was born not to fail but to prove himself faithful.

As you reflect on what Christ’s birth means for you and your suffering today, remember that he has succeeded at everything he was born to do—from canceling our debt to affording us his glorious riches. Remember that Jesus was born so that pain and grief would die (Rev. 21:4). He was born to bear you up in your affliction (Ps. 68:19)—born to be with you always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). Christ was born to be your hope in mourning and your strength in weakness—your resurrection life in the darkness of death. In your sorrow, behold your faithful Savior. The world cannot overtake you because he was born to overcome the world (John 16:33).

No, this Christmas may not be merry for you. But it can serve to make you more resolute in Christ’s hope. The Son wasn’t born to fail the Father. He wasn’t born to fail you either.

—Christine Chappell, author, Midnight Mercies

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Advent is a time to ponder the humility of Christ and God’s plan to remake us in his likeness. To obey this call from the heart, we must first adopt the mindset of Christ.  

When Jesus left heaven to come to earth, he refused to consider his personal glory “a thing to be grasped” (Phil. 2:6). The word grasp means to hold to something so tightly that you could never let it go. The Son of God humbled himself by being born into our broken world, because he considered our need of salvation greater than his right to display his glory. Jesus clothed his magnificent glory within the humility of an infant. Thirty-three years later, he subjected himself to the humiliation of public torture by “becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (v. 8). 

Humility delayed his future glory, but it will be recognized one day, when he comes a second time and “every knee [shall] bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (vv. 10–11). But you need not wait to humble yourself and become more like Jesus. You can begin by worshipping your humble Savior even now. 

Consider the Spirit’s work of remaking you in the image of the humble Christ. What is one specific way you can follow his example by putting someone else’s needs above your own this advent season?

—Paul Tautges, author, Remade

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Is church hard for you? Do changes in your church or in your personal life make it difficult to show up, especially at this time of year? Have hurt or conflict discouraged you from worshipping on Sunday mornings?

Thankfully, the Bible speaks honestly about these kinds of difficulties. The Christmas narrative itself contains a story of a woman for whom church was probably hard. We know a few things about her: Anna was old, she came from a forgotten family line, she had no immediate family, and she kept showing up to worship (Luke 2:36–38). 

Why would someone like this commit to going to worship “night and day” (v. 37)? The answer is that Anna had hope. She was “waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (v. 38). Year after year, she trusted God would fulfill his promise to send a Messiah to save his people, and so, year after year, she went to the temple expecting him to do it.

And then, one day, he did. As Anna watched Joseph and Mary carry the infant Christ into the temple, all her hopes were realized (v. 38).

When gathering with God’s people for worship is hard, we too can have hope. God has promised to meet with us there (Matt. 18:20). By his Spirit, Jesus comes among his people as they worship together. On Sunday mornings, he receives their praises, hears their prayers, speaks to them in his word, and reveals himself in the sacraments. Like Anna, we can keep showing up because we know that Christ will too. 

—Megan Hill, author, Sighing on Sunday