Recovering Christ at Christmastime

A week today, it’ll be Christmas Day. And I know for many of you, especially those of you who are moms in our podcast community on Things Unseen, this is just one of the busiest weeks of the year. And some of us revel in the holiday season and all the events; we just love planning; we enjoy doing. But there are others of us who rather dread it, and what we feel is not Christmas anticipation and joy, but pressure, and then exhaustion. And no matter what others say in telling us that we can do without all the fuss and keep things simple, we still hear an accusing voice telling us that we’ve not done enough; we need to do more, and we need to do it better. And both kinds of people, indeed, both kinds of Christians, will this Christmas be listening to their minister’s sermons.

And, you know, when it comes to Christmas, there are also two kinds of preachers: those who love it and those who dread it. For the truth is, the more familiar the story, the greater the pressure most ministers and pastors and preachers actually feel preaching about it. The weight of the occasion can crush them rather than carry them. But if you think about it, underneath these different feelings we have, we actually all need one and the same thing, don’t we? We all need the real message of Christmas.

Ministers sometimes, probably often—and maybe even every Advent season—tell their congregations that Christmas is perhaps the most secularized time of the year and warn them not to fall into that trap. But you know, maybe it’s just me, but I rather suspect that’s really a council of despair, because law never works grace, does it? What we need is more than a warning. We need what Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection.”

I think it’s impossible to overemphasize how important this principle is, not just at this frenetic time of the year, and not just in connection with Christmas. It’s true of the whole of the Christian life. And although the sermon Thomas Chalmers preached, called “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection,” was actually on 1 John 2:15, “Love not the world or the things that are in the world,” it’s perhaps especially Paul who emphasizes how important this principle of Thomas Chalmers is that only a new affection will actually help us to love not the world. And how does that happen? Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it, not least because it’s surprisingly easy for us to turn this principle into another rod to beat our backs and say to ourselves: “I need to get a new affection. I need to try harder to get it. Thomas Chalmers tells me I need it.”

Years ago, when I was a minister in Scotland, I developed a little personal tradition on Christmas Eve. I’d park a little distance from the church and walk across the brightly lit and decorated city square, en route to the late-night Christmas Eve service. It was really a way of preparing my spirit for what I would preach, preaching to people who scarcely ever, perhaps, went to church. And one year I noticed two police officers standing beside the life-sized nativity scene in the square.

“Guarding the manger?” I said to them, thinking that perhaps a friendly conversation might begin. And to my surprise, one of them said: “Yes. Last year, someone stole Jesus.” “Prophetic words,” I thought. He was saying more than he knew. He put his finger on the heart of the problem. That is the problem: we’ve allowed Jesus to be stolen at Christmastime and often during the course of the year, as well, because He really is the power of a new affection.

But before we think about how to recover Him at Christmastime and experience the power of a new affection for Him, there’s something else important I need to say. Perhaps the reason He’s not central to us at Christmastime is that He’s been stolen from our lives long before Christmas. So, the first issue to settle is really this: Is Jesus central in my life, day by day? If not, why would I imagine that He will suddenly become central to me on Christmas Day?

So perhaps today, we need to pray Richard of Chichester’s famous prayer: “Lord, for these three things I pray; to see Thee more clearly, to love Thee more dearly, and to follow Thee more nearly, day by day.” I hope you’ll join us again tomorrow on Things Unseen.