Covenantide

Tag: Christmas

  • On the Feast of the Nativity, III

    On the Feast of the Nativity, III

    A Sermon by Leo the Great (Pope, 440-461)

    For much of the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire was consumed in combating the Arian controversy, which asserted that Christ Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, was a created being and neither fully God nor fully man. Were that the case, then Christ could not be a genuine Savior of His people. The Council of Nicaea in 325 encapsulated Christian orthodoxy in the Nicene Creed, stating that Christ was indeed fully God and fully man, but supporters of the heretic Arius sought for decades to use imperial political power to overturn the creed, touching off a bitter conflict across the Empire. The end of the conflict came in 380 AD with the triumph of the pro-Nicene Emperor, Theodosius I, over his rivals to become the sole Emperor of the Empire. The defeat of the Arians was sealed in 381 AD when the Council of Constantinople reaffirmed the Nicene Creed as reflecting the Trinitarian truth that God was one in substance (ousios) and three in Persons (hypostases).

    The first clear observance of the Feast of the Nativity–what we would now call Christmas–was held in Constantinople in 380 AD, presided over by Gregory of Nazianzus. Observance of the Feast of the Nativity, however, did not become regular within the Christian Church for some decades. During his pontificate, Leo the Great delivered a series of sermons on the Feast of the Nativity which did much to solidify observance of the feast in the Western tradition. 

    The settlement of the Trinitarian controversy led naturally to the next question, namely, how it was that Christ was both human and divine. This was worked out in a series of councils, culminating with the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. Leo the Great was active in promoting what would come to be accepted by the Church as orthodoxy and used the occasion of the Feast over several years to expound and teach that truth about Christ. While Leo’s sermons were deep in theology, they also were beautiful in describing that truth devotionally. Below is the third of Leo’s Christmas sermons, the text of which is taken from the Phillip Schaff’s Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, found in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

    On the Feast of the Nativity, III.

    I.  The truths of the Incarnation never suffer from being repeated.

    The things which are connected with the mystery of to-day’s solemn feast are well known to you, dearly-beloved, and have frequently been heard:  but as yonder visible light affords pleasure to eyes that are unimpaired, so to sound hearts does the Saviour’s nativity give eternal joy; and we must not keep silent about it, though we cannot treat of it as we ought.  For we believe that what Isaiah says, “who shall declare his generation?” applies not only to that mystery, whereby the Son of God is co-eternal with the Father, but also to this birth whereby “the Word became flesh.”  And so God, the Son of God, equal and of the same nature from the Father and with the Father, Creator and Lord of the Universe, Who is completely present everywhere, and completely exceeds all things, in the due course of time, which runs by His own disposal, chose for Himself this day on which to be born of the blessed virgin Mary for the salvation of the world, without loss of the mother’s honour.  For her virginity was violated neither at the conception nor at the birth:  “that it might be fulfilled,” as the Evangelist says, “which was spoken by the Lord through Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold the virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us.”  For this wondrous child-bearing of the holy Virgin produced in her offspring one person which was truly human and truly Divine, because neither substance so retained their properties that there could be any division of persons in them; nor was the creature taken into partnership with its Creator in such a way that the One was the in-dweller, and the other the dwelling; but so that the one nature was blended with the other.  And although the nature which is taken is one, and that which takes is another, yet these two diverse natures come together into such close union that it is one and the same Son who says both that, as true Man, “He is less than the Father,” and that, as true God, “He is equal with the Father.”

    II.  The Arians could not comprehend the union of God and man.

    This union, dearly beloved, whereby the Creator is joined to the creature, Arian blindness could not see with the eyes of intelligence, but, not believing that the Only-begotten of God was of the same glory and substance with the Father, spoke of the Son’s Godhead as inferior, drawing its arguments from those words which are to be referred to the “form of a slave,” in respect of which, in order to show that it belongs to no other or different person in Himself, the same Son of God with the same form, says, “The Father is greater than I,” just as He says with the same form, “I and my Father are one.”  For in “the form of a slave,” which He took at the end of the ages for our restoration, He is inferior to the Father:  but in the form of God, in which He was before the ages, He is equal to the Father.  In His human humiliation He was “made of a woman, made under the Law:”  in His Divine majesty He abides the Word of God, “through whom all things were made.”  Accordingly, He Who in the form of God made man, in the form of a slave was made man.  For both natures retain their own proper character without loss:  and as the form of God did not do away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave did not impair the form of God.  And so the mystery of power united to weakness, in respect of the same human nature, allows the Son to be called inferior to the Father:  but the Godhead, which is One in the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, excludes all notion of inequality.  For the eternity of the Trinity has nothing temporal, nothing dissimilar in nature:  Its will is one, Its substance identical, Its power equal, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God; because it is a true and inseparable unity, where there can be no diversity.  Thus in the whole and perfect nature of true man was true God born, complete in what was His own, complete in what was ours.  And by “ours” we mean what the Creator formed in us from the beginning, and what He undertook to repair.  For what the deceiver brought in, and man deceived committed, had no trace in the Saviour; nor because He partook of man’s weaknesses, did He therefore share our faults.  He took the form of a slave without stain of sin, increasing the human and not diminishing the divine:  for that “emptying of Himself,” whereby the Invisible made Himself visible, was the bending down of pity, not the failing of power.

    III.  The Incarnation was necessary to the taking away of sin.

    In order therefore that we might be called to eternal bliss from our original bond and from earthly errors, He came down Himself to us to Whom we could not ascend, because, although there was in many the love of truth, yet the variety of our shifting opinions was deceived by the craft of misleading demons, and man’s ignorance was dragged into diverse and conflicting notions by a falsely-called science.  But to remove this mockery, whereby men’s minds were taken captive to serve the arrogant devil, the teaching of the Law was not sufficient, nor could our nature be restored merely by the Prophets’ exhortations; but the reality of redemption had to be added to moral injunctions, and our fundamentally corrupt origin had to be re-born afresh.  A Victim had to be offered for our atonement Who should be both a partner of our race and free from our contamination, so that this design of God whereby it pleased Him to take away the sin of the world in the Nativity and Passion of Jesus Christ, might reach to all generations:  and that we should not be disturbed but rather strengthened by these mysteries, which vary with the character of the times, since the Faith, whereby we live, has at no time suffered variation.

    IV.  The blessings of the Incarnation stretch backwards as well as reach forward.

    Accordingly let those men cease their complaints who with disloyal murmurs speak against the dispensations of God, and babble about the lateness of the Lord’s Nativity as if that, which was fulfilled in the last age of the world, had no bearing upon the times that are past.  For the Incarnation of the Word did but contribute to the doing of that which was done:  and the mystery of man’s salvation was never in the remotest age at a standstill.  What the apostles foretold, that the prophets announced:  nor was that fulfilled too late which has always been believed.  But the Wisdom and Goodness of God made us more receptive of His call by thus delaying the work which brought salvation:  so that what through so many ages had been foretold by many signs, many utterances, and many mysteries, might not be doubtful in these days of the Gospel:  and that the Saviour’s nativity, which was to exceed all wonders and all the measure of human knowledge, might engender in us a Faith so much the firmer, as the foretelling of it had been ancient and oft-repeated.  And so it was no new counsel, no tardy pity whereby God took thought for men:  but from the constitution of the world He ordained one and the same Cause of Salvation for all.  For the grace of God, by which the whole body of the saints is ever justified, was augmented, not begun, when Christ was born:  and this mystery of God’s great love, wherewith the whole world is now filled, was so effectively pre-signified that those who believed that promise obtained no less than they, who were the actual recipients.

    V.  The coming of Christ in our flesh corresponds with our becoming members of His body.

    Wherefore since the loving-kindness is manifest, dearly beloved, wherewith all the riches of Divine goodness are showered on us, whose call to eternal life has been assisted not only by the profitable examples of those who went before, but also by the visible and bodily appearing of the Truth Itself, we are bound to keep the day of the Lord’s Nativity with no slothful nor carnal joy.  And we shall each keep it worthily and thoroughly, if we remember of what Body we are members, and to what a Head we are joined, lest any one as an ill-fitting joint cohere not with the rest of the sacred building.  Consider, dearly beloved and by the illumination of the Holy Spirit thoughtfully bear in mind Who it was that received us into Himself, and that we have received in us:  since, as the Lord Jesus became our flesh by being born, so we also became His body by being re-born.  Therefore are we both members of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Ghost:  and for this reason the blessed Apostle says, “Glorify and carry God in your body:”  for while suggesting to us the standard of His own gentleness and humility, He fills us with that power whereby He redeemed us, as the Lord Himself promises:  “come unto Me all ye who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will refresh you.  Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.”  Let us then take the yoke, that is not heavy nor irksome, of the Truth that rules us, and let us imitate His humility, to Whose glory we wish to be conformed:  He Himself helping us and leading us to His promises, Who, according to His great mercy, is powerful to blot out our sins, and to perfect His gifts in us, Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

  • On the Feast of the Nativity

    On the Feast of the Nativity

    Leo the Great, the bishop of Rome (i.e., the Pope) from AD 440-461, gave a series of sermons during his administration on the Feast of the Nativity (i.e., Christmas). The Christian church at the time was wrestling through the issue of understanding how Christ could be both fully man and fully God, producing what came to be known as the Definition of Chalcedon in AD 451. Leo’s Christmas sermons were not simple pietistic homilies on the Baby Jesus in the manager. Instead, they combined deep theological reflection with rich devotion to teach people the mystery of Christ’s human and divine natures. The sermon below is the third of his Christmas sermons.

    On the Feast of the Nativity, III.

    I. The truths of the Incarnation never suffer from being repeated

    The things which are connected with the mystery of to-day’s solemn feast are well known to you, dearly-beloved, and have frequently been heard: but as yonder visible light affords pleasure to eyes that are unimpaired, so to sound hearts does the Saviour’s nativity give eternal joy; and we must not keep silent about it, though we cannot treat of it as we ought.  For we believe that what Isaiah says, “who shall declare his generation?” applies not only to that mystery, whereby the Son of God is co-eternal with the Father, but also to this birth whereby “the Word became flesh.” And so, God, the Son of God, equal and of the same nature from the Father and with the Father, Creator and Lord of the Universe, Who is completely present everywhere, and completely exceeds all things, in the due course of time, which runs by His own disposal, chose for Himself this day on which to be born of the blessed virgin Mary for the salvation of the world, without loss of the mother’s honour. For her virginity was violated neither at the conception nor at the birth: “that it might be fulfilled,” as the Evangelist says, “which was spoken by the Lord through Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold the virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us.” For this wondrous child-bearing of the holy Virgin produced in her offspring one person which was truly human and truly Divine, because neither substance so retained their properties that there could be any division of persons in them; nor was the creature taken into partnership with its Creator in such a way that the One was the in-dweller, and the other the dwelling; but so that the one nature was blended with the other. And although the nature which is taken is one, and that which takes is another, yet these two diverse natures come together into such close union that it is one and the same Son who says both that, as true Man, “He is less than the Father,” and that, as true God, “He is equal with the Father.”

    II. The Arians could not comprehend the union of God and man

    This union, dearly beloved, whereby the Creator is joined to the creature, Arian blindness could not see with the eyes of intelligence, but, not believing that the Only-begotten of God was of the same glory and substance with the Father, spoke of the Son’s Godhead as inferior, drawing its arguments from those words which are to be referred to the “form of a slave,” in respect of which, in order to show that it belongs to no other or different person in Himself, the same Son of God with the same form, says, “The Father is greater than I,” just as He says with the same form, “I and my Father are one.” For in “the form of a slave,” which He took at the end of the ages for our restoration, He is inferior to the Father: but in the form of God, in which He was before the ages, He is equal to the Father. In His human humiliation He was “made of a woman, made under the Law:” in His Divine majesty He abides the Word of God, “through whom all things were made.”  Accordingly, He Who in the form of God made man, in the form of a slave was made man. For both natures retain their own proper character without loss:  and as the form of God did not do away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave did not impair the form of God. And so, the mystery of power united to weakness, in respect of the same human nature, allows the Son to be called inferior to the Father: but the Godhead, which is One in the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, excludes all notion of inequality. For the eternity of the Trinity has nothing temporal, nothing dissimilar in nature: Its will is one, Its substance identical, Its power equal, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God; because it is a true and inseparable unity, where there can be no diversity. Thus, in the whole and perfect nature of true man was true God born, complete in what was His own, complete in what was ours. And by “ours” we mean what the Creator formed in us from the beginning, and what He undertook to repair. For what the deceiver brought in, and man deceived committed, had no trace in the Saviour; nor because He partook of man’s weaknesses, did He therefore share our faults. He took the form of a slave without stain of sin, increasing the human and not diminishing the divine: for that “emptying of Himself,” whereby the Invisible made Himself visible, was the bending down of pity, not the failing of power.

    III. The Incarnation was necessary to the taking away of sin

    In order therefore that we might be called to eternal bliss from our original bond and from earthly errors, He came down Himself to us to Whom we could not ascend, because, although there was in many the love of truth, yet the variety of our shifting opinions was deceived by the craft of misleading demons, and man’s ignorance was dragged into diverse and conflicting notions by a falsely-called science. But to remove this mockery, whereby men’s minds were taken captive to serve the arrogant devil, the teaching of the Law was not sufficient, nor could our nature be restored merely by the Prophets’ exhortations; but the reality of redemption had to be added to moral injunctions, and our fundamentally corrupt origin had to be re-born afresh. A Victim had to be offered for our atonement Who should be both a partner of our race and free from our contamination, so that this design of God whereby it pleased Him to take away the sin of the world in the Nativity and Passion of Jesus Christ, might reach to all generations: and that we should not be disturbed but rather strengthened by these mysteries, which vary with the character of the times, since the Faith, whereby we live, has at no time suffered variation.

    IV. The blessings of the Incarnation stretch backwards as well as reach forward

    Accordingly, let those men cease their complaints who with disloyal murmurs speak against the dispensations of God, and babble about the lateness of the Lord’s Nativity as if that, which was fulfilled in the last age of the world, had no bearing upon the times that are past. For the Incarnation of the Word did but contribute to the doing of that which was done: and the mystery of man’s salvation was never in the remotest age at a standstill. What the apostles foretold, that the prophets announced: nor was that fulfilled too late which has always been believed. But the Wisdom and Goodness of God made us more receptive of His call by thus delaying the work which brought salvation: so that what through so many ages had been foretold by many signs, many utterances, and many mysteries, might not be doubtful in these days of the Gospel: and that the Saviour’s nativity, which was to exceed all wonders and all the measure of human knowledge, might engender in us a Faith so much the firmer, as the foretelling of it had been ancient and oft-repeated. And so, it was no new counsel, no tardy pity whereby God took thought for men: but from the constitution of the world He ordained one and the same Cause of Salvation for all. For the grace of God, by which the whole body of the saints is ever justified, was augmented, not begun, when Christ was born: and this mystery of God’s great love, wherewith the whole world is now filled, was so effectively presignified that those who believed that promise obtained no less than they, who were the actual recipients.

    V. The coming of Christ in our flesh corresponds with our becoming members of His body

    Wherefore, since the loving-kindness is manifest, dearly beloved, wherewith all the riches of Divine goodness are showered on us, whose call to eternal life has been assisted not only by the profitable examples of those who went before, but also by the visible and bodily appearing of the Truth Itself, we are bound to keep the day of the Lord’s Nativity with no slothful nor carnal joy. And we shall each keep it worthily and thoroughly, if we remember of what Body we are members, and to what a Head we are joined, lest anyone as an ill-fitting joint cohere not with the rest of the sacred building. Consider, dearly beloved, and by the illumination of the Holy Spirit thoughtfully bear in mind Who it was that received us into Himself, and that we have received in us: since, as the Lord Jesus became our flesh by being born, so we also became His body by being reborn. Therefore, are we both members of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Ghost: and for this reason the blessed Apostle says, “Glorify and carry God in your body:” for while suggesting to us the standard of His own gentleness and humility, He fills us with that power whereby He redeemed us, as the Lord Himself promises: “come unto Me all ye who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.” Let us then take the yoke, that is not heavy nor irksome, of the Truth that rules us, and let us imitate His humility, to Whose glory we wish to be conformed: He Himself helping us and leading us to His promises, Who, according to His great mercy, is powerful to blot out our sins, and to perfect His gifts in us, Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

  • A Puritan Sort of Christmas

    A Puritan Sort of Christmas

    If we want to keep Jesus as the reason for the season, then maybe it would be best if we dropped the gift-giving associated with Christmas.

    Years ago, I joined a very conservative Presbyterian church that in many ways was a blessing to me and helped to shape a lot of my understanding of what the church is to be.  Nevertheless, they did one thing that I thought was totally weird at the time: they did not celebrate Christmas.  Or Easter.  Or for that matter, any holy day except for the weekly Sabbath.  In this, they were following the rationale of the 17th century Puritans and later, American Old School Presbyterians like Samuel Miller, that saw no biblical command for observing the purported day of Christ’s birth.  I had never heard of anyone not celebrating Christmas and my experience in this church moved me to research the issue.

    Few things have done more to solidify the reputation of the Puritans as dour killjoys than their non-observance of—nay, even legally banning—Christmas.  The Westminster Assembly, which met from 1643 until 1647 and which produced the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Shorter and Larger Catechisms, confronted this issue in December 1643 when they had to decide whether or not to suspend deliberations on Christmas to allow for worship and preaching.  They decided to go ahead with Christmas observances at that time, given popular sentiment, but when they produced the Directory of Public Worship in 1644 they indicated in an appendix that holy days other than the Sabbath were not to be observed.  Since the Westminster Assembly was technically only an ecclesiastical advisory body to Parliament, the abolishment of Christmas observances officially came in 1647, when Parliament passed laws requiring businesses to stay open and penalizing those that closed for Christmas.  Those laws remained on the books in England until 1660, when the Restoration Parliament rescinded all the laws Parliament passed going back to the beginning of the English Civil War in 1640.  In New England, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law in 1659 banning the observance of Christmas and that stayed in effect until the crown’s governor repealed it in 1681.

    This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is puritan-ban-of-christmas.jpg
    Public Notice on the Ban of Christmas

    The Puritans’ reasons for such bans are more complicated contextually than the critics’ caricatures make them out to be and it is beyond the focus of this blog post to go into much explanation now.  I’ll save that for another time.  For the moment, I will note two things in favor of the Puritans.

    First, there were reacting to the fact that Christmas, by that point in time, had become largely an excuse for big-time partying, with little connection to Christ or Christianity.  Consider a modern-day equivalent in Mardi Gras.  Technically, Mardi Gras is a commemoration of Shrove Tuesday, that is, the last day before Ash Wednesday, which begins the Lenten fast.  Observant Roman Catholics would clean their house of foods that were prohibited during Lent and make a little celebration of it before the weeks of austerity imposed by Lent.  How much of that religiosity do you typically see in modern Mardi Gras celebrations?  I mean, seriously?  It is pretty clear that Mardi Gras is, for all intents and purposes, a pagan holiday.  The Puritans in their day faced a similar situation with Christmas.

    Second, England at the time of the Puritans still had an established church, unlike the situation in modern-day America.  What that meant is that the observance or non-observance of Christmas, Easter, or even the Sabbath was not a matter of personal conscience; it was mandated and enforced by the state.  Thus, shopkeepers were forced to close their stores, turn away business, go to church services, and, facing cultural pressures, expend a fair amount of money in Christmas “celebrations”—and failure to do so would result in social ostracization and possibly even in civil fines.  Thus, for the Puritans to say that there was no biblical warrant for such holidays and so observance is not required, one can see how that position might actually be popular with some people.  In our own day, we see pretty clearly the backlash against forced store closures (in this case, because of mask restrictions and social distancing requirements), so it should not be a totally alien matter even for us.

    Although the Puritan restrictions were repealed by 1690 in both England and America, observance of Christmas did not return to the status quo that existed prior to the English Civil War, and in practice it was fairly muted, if observed at all, for the better part of a century.  This low regard for Christmas among some Americans is one reason, for example, that during the American War for Independence, George Washington was able to secure the victory that he did in the Battle of Trenton.  For the New England militias that made up Washington’s fledgling army, December 25th was just another day; for the Hessian mercenaries encamped at Trenton, it was Christmas and they were largely resting (or recovering) from Christmas Eve celebrations the night before.  Thus, it was a complete surprise for them to be attacked by the Americans on Christmas Day.

    After the Revolution, however, American interest in celebrating Christmas picked up as part of the emerging Romantic sensibilities of the age.  One of the earliest popularizers of such celebration was the New York writer, Washington Irving, in his book, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon.  Irving’s book was a travelogue of a trip he took to Britain in about 1822, and he had a lengthy section in it in which he recounts a festive celebration of the holiday, contrasted with a tedious Christmas Day church service.  Irving’s account of a convivial observance of the season seemed to capture at least some imaginations back in his native New York, since a few years later Presbyterian minister and Princeton Seminary professor Samuel Miller felt compelled to write a tract in 1825 defending Presbyterian non-observance of Christmas.  It made little headway.  Embrace of a sentimentalized Christmas grew over the years and was particularly crystalized by Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol in 1848.  While Christmas was ostensibly intended to observe the Nativity of Christ, in practice, thanks to Irving, Dickens, and others, Christ became increasingly less important to Christmas than an ephemeral “Christmas spirit.”  Much of the “traditions” that we now associate with Christmas actually date back to the mid-nineteenth century.  What is less well known but equally as true is that much of the commercialization that we now lament about the Christmas season in our own day dates back to the same period.  Christmas is only tangentially related to Christ and that has been true for a long time.

    The Puritan effort to ban Christmas outright failed, but the Puritans were right to ask the question of whether this is really honoring to the Lord or even good for ourselves.  The background music in the stores may be playing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” but the reality for so many people is that the season is frenetically busy and undeniably stressful.  We try to buy our way to some “magical Christmas moment,” only to find it to be fleeting and unfulfilling.  Indeed, the consumerist liturgy of the season drives an untenable dichotomy between what we have been told we should expect of Christmas and the reality of emptiness and loneliness that we experience in rare moments of quietness.  It is an untenable dichotomy because the more emptiness we feel, the more we seek to fill that gap with more gifts and sentimentality, which cannot really fulfill, thereby only widening the gap further.

    I do not see this idea of a culturally consumerist liturgy surrounding Christmas as merely a rhetorical turn of phrase.  James K. A. Smith, in his book, You Are What You Love, talks about the power of cultural liturgies to shape the cycles and rhythms of our lives, our habits, our expectations, our loves and our hopes.  I believe that in the case of Christmas, we are inculcated into this consumerist liturgy from our earliest years.  Santa Claus is all about gift-giving and every kid knows that the volume and quality of the gifts they get at Christmas far and away exceeds that which they get at any other time of the year, including on their own birthdays.  And it is the gift-giving that drives much of the season, starting with Black Friday sales in November and continuing throughout December.  The smarmy sentimentality of television programming through the season tries to soften the stark edge of rank consumerism, while at the same time feeding the narrative that gifts will make you happy.  And the consumerist liturgy is inclusive: it does not matter what you actually believe about Jesus as long as you are out spending your money.  Jesus, ironically, is incidental to the holiday that bears His name and is purportedly for His honor.

    So, what should be done?  It is not enough to make a nod to Jesus as the “reason for the season” through an occasional reference or prayer.  That only puts a “Christian” gloss on things, without fundamentally changing the consumerist liturgy dominating our thoughts and actions.  Rather, one has to break the liturgy more fundamentally and overwrite it with a different liturgy.  A key way this can be done is to push any gift-giving away from Christmas to New Year’s, so as to sever the connection between Christmas and gifts; New Year’s, after all, has no particularly Christian connotations.  We should make Christmas again a religious holiday, observing it with Christmas Eve services at church and family worship on Christmas day proper.  This could seem like it will make Christmas boring—and that is precisely the point.  It is in the ordinariness of worship that real significance of Christmas can be most clearly seen.  The Incarnation of Christ was part of His humiliation, not His exaltation, an emptying rather than a glorification.  But it is in that divine condescension that we have a more intangible yet far more real and significant gift, communion with Christ, God with us.  Let’s celebrate that, rather than what is under some evergreen tree.

  • On the Feast of the Nativity

    Everyone has Christmas traditions.  Growing up, one that I had was to watch the 1984 version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, with George C. Scott (which is still the best film adaption of the story, IMHO).  The story is emotionally compelling, and each time I watched it I would pray that I would be a better person and not like Ebenezer Scrooge.  Eventually I went to college and began my adult life and that tradition fell by the wayside.  Decades later, however, in researching the origins of our celebration of Christmas, I came to realize that much of what we today associate with the holiday does not have roots in antiquity, as commonly thought, but in a re-imagined reinvention of the holiday during Victorian times, catalyzed by Dickens’ 1848 short story.  Romantic sentimentality, Christmas cards, and gift giving—and with those things, the accompanying commercialization—are not later corruptions from the twentieth century but original features from the nineteenth.  A Christmas Carol is a gospel of moralism, of how one man decided to become a good man by changing his will; the real Gospel is one of how God’s only begotten son attained forgiveness and mercy for a stubborn and resistant people.  These are different stories.

    From Charles Dickens’ Short Story, A Christmas Carol

    For me, such a realization necessitated some rethinking of our observance of Christmas.  If the commercialization of the holiday is a feature and not a flaw, Christmas really is all about the gifts.  We may make a passing reference to Jesus being the reason for the season, but the real focus is on “What did I get?”  As long as gift giving is at the center of the holiday, it will be commercialized.  If we are really going to observe the Lord’s Nativity, however, and not just invoke that as an excuse running up the credit cards, then the two need to be separated.  What my wife and I have started to do in the last few years is push the gift giving aspect off from Christmas day to some point closer to New Year’s, using Christmas proper as a time of family worship and rest.  We are not great at family worship, but we are trying to be more consistent, and on Christmas, I do try to do something a little more formal in terms of selecting appropriate readings for my wife and I to go through.  For those who may find it interesting and useful, I have attached our notional family worship outline for this Christmas.

    Christmas—and really Adventide more broadly—should be a season for remembering the First Coming of the Lord while we await His Second Coming.  Accordingly, in this worship outline, I have included the prayer of adoration is from a great little book on Puritan prayers called The Valley of Vision and regards Christ’s Second Coming.  His First Coming resulted in our reconciliation to the Father and the restoration of our communion with Him; Christ’s Second Coming will fulfill the expectations God’s people have had from antiquity of a Final Judgment, a Final Vindication, and a Final Consummation.  That is what we are still looking forward to.  But as we look forward to this, we must also look back.  The New Testament reading from Hebrews captures the purpose of Christ’s First Coming.  The confessional reading, from the Westminster Confession of Faith, is a beautifully succinct summary of what we as Christians are to believe about the Person of Christ Jesus.

    The centerpiece of this time of worship is a sermon from Leo the Great, the bishop of Rome (i.e., the Pope) from AD 440-461.  Christmas today is shrouded with schmaltzy sentimentality, but it is important for us to remember what it is really about.  The miracle is not about a baby in a manger; it is about God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, becoming incarnate as man.  The first clear observance of the Feast of the Nativity—the proper name for Christmas—is in AD 380, when it was celebrated in Constantinople, then the capital of the Roman Empire.  The celebration came after a long and bitter fight within the Christian Church to uphold the truths about the Trinity summarized in the Nicene Creed.  In the Arian controversy of the fourth century preceding that worship service in Constantinople, orthodox Christians stood steadfast in affirming the truth of the Trinity, that is, that there is one God in three Persons, equal in power, substance, and eternity.  In the decades that followed, the Church had to wrestle with a follow-on controversy in how to understand in particular the Second Person of Godhead, Jesus Christ, and the relationship between His divine and human natures; that controversy spanned most of Leo’s ministry in the fifth century.  Observance of Christmas did not become automatic after 380, and the holiday was celebrated only intermittently in the decades that followed.  Leo, however, used the occasions of the Feast of the Nativity to educate his flock on the Person and work of Christ Jesus through a series of sermons.  If one were to study this closely, one would find a lot of deep theology in it, significantly consistent with what we have received through the Protestant Reformed tradition.  And yet, Leo did not write this as a dry academic treatise, but almost as a short spiritual devotional.  I commend this to your reading and reflection.

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