Spirit of Christmas

The Christmas Distraction

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Christmas Distraction

Jared Wilson counsels:

There is a great danger this Christmas season of missing the point. And I’m not referring simply to idolatrous consumption and materialism. I’m talking about Christmas religiosity. It is very easy around this time to set up our Nativity scenes, host our Christmas pageants and cantatas, read the Christmas story with our families, attend church every time the door is open, and insist to ourselves and others that Jesus is the reason for the season, and yet not see Jesus. With the eyes of our heart, I mean.

I suppose there is something about indulging in the religious Christmas routine that lulls us into thinking we are dwelling in Christ when we are really just set to seasonal autopilot, going through the festive and sentimental motions. Meanwhile the real person Jesus the Christ goes neglected in favor of his plastic, paper, and video representations. Don’t get distracted from Jesus by “Jesus.” This year, plead with the Spirit to interrupt your nice Christmas with the power of Jesus’ gospel.

A Christmas Reflection

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Consider Mary’s response to the angel.

The angel has come to Mary and says: “Mary, you are going to give birth to the long-promised  Messiah.” This was a unique promise, and unrepeatable. There is something totally unique here: the birth of the eternal second Person of the Trinity into this world.

What was her response?

  • She could have rejected the idea and said, ‘I do not want it: I want to withdraw; I want to run’…
  • She could have said, ‘I now have the promises, so I will exert my force, my character, and my energy, to bring forth the promised thing’.

But what she did say is beautiful, it is wonderful. She says:

‘Behold, the bondmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy Word.’   – Luke 1.38

There is an active passivity here. She took her own body, by choice, and put it into the hands of God to do the thing that he said he would do, and Jesus was born.  She gave herself to God…

This is a beautiful, exciting, personal expression of a relationship between a finite person and the God she loves.

~ Francis Schaeffer, from True Spirituality