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Theology of Christmas Gifts

Joe Harby on

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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 course of our lives, and not just at Christmas. But it has to be said that the mechinery of our consumer racket does throw the question into high relief for us at this time of year.

The Text

“And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh” (Mt. 2:11).

Summary of the Text

The first Chritmas gifts were given by the magi to the young child Jesus. This happened sometime within the Lord’s first two years of life. Because three kinds of treasures are mentioned—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—it is often inferred that there were three wise men. There may have been, but we don’t know. What we do know is that the gifts were very costly.

Some Background

Gentile wise men from the East sought out Jesus and they worshiped Him. The established rulers in Israel did not —in fact, Herod played the role here of a treacherous Pharaoh, going on to kill the young boys in the region of Bethlehem. We know what gold is, but what are frankincense and myrrh? They are both aromatic resins, harvested from different kinds of trees. Frankincense was often burned for its smell, and hence the smoke could signify prayer, ascending to God. Myrrh was used in burials (John 19:39), and Jesus was offered some mixed with wine on the cross, which He refused (Mark 15:23). It was associated with death. From the context of the magi’s visit, and the association with gold, we may infer that these were high end gifts. All three of these gifts were very expensive —in these verses, Matthew calls the gifts treasures.

No Either/Or

The relationship between God and your neighbor is not an either/or relationship. When it becomes that, it is the result of a sinful kind of dualism.

In any context where grace is necessary and called for, you can of course sin . . . · Through being a grump and begrudging the giving of gifts at all (John 12:5). · You can also sin by giving to your neighbor instead of to God (Rev. 11:10);
· By giving to God instead of to your neighbor (Mark 7:11).

The way through, the real alternative, is to give to God by means of giving to your neighbor (Esther 9:22). Your neighbor bears the image of God. How can you give to God, who dwells in the highest heaven? You reach up by reaching down, or by reaching across. No gift given here in the right way goes missing in the final tally (Matt. 10:42). With every form of unrighteous mammon, you have the opportunity to extend grace to your fellow creatures, in the hope that they will receive you into glory (Luke 16:9). But every gift given here in the wrong spirit is just thrown into the bottomless pit, that ultimate rat hole (Luke 12:34; Jas. 5:3).

We see our relationship to God mirrored in our relationship to our neighbor. The state of the one reveals the state of the other. “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). When the two great commandments are discussed, we are told that the second great commandment is “like unto” the first (Mark 12:31). The Scriptures are explicit on this point. “No man hath seen God at any time. IF we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). “If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20).

What This Does Not Mean

This does not mean that we are to charge about aimlessly, buying and giving gifts willy-nilly. The grace of God is not stupid, so don’t give pointless gifts just to have done something. The grace of God was freely given, so don’t let a racket run by unscrupulous merchants extort money from you that you don’t have. At the same time, merchants are a form of grace to you. How does God get that daily bread to you (Matt. 6:11)? So don’t identify crowds with a racket. Crowds do provide an opportunity for pickpockets, but Jesus loved crows and He fed them. He gave them gifts (Matt. 14:21).

Cold Water & the Unspeakable Gift

The best gift we can give on another at Christmas time is the best gift we can be giving to one another all the time —and that is the gift of gospel-saturated grace. Gospel means good news, and as I mentioned earlier how God keeps a track of cold water gifts, we should always connect this with gospel. What has God given? Let us give the same way, and in the same spirit. “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country” (Prov. 25:25).

The Son of God from Heaven is the gospel from a far country. He is the gospel Himself; He is the good news. And we know that His contagious form of life has taken hold of us when we start gracing each other the same way that He graced us. Notice how the great vertical gift and horizontal gifts must be understood together.

“For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God; Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men; And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.”

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A Brief History of Christmas

Joe Harby on

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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 in history gives us access to a greater blessing because we have not seen Christ with our eyes. But it goes the other way also. Those at the time of Christ had not yet seen what His rule would do in history (as we have). And so they are more greatly blessed looking toward the future—the same way that we will be blessed by looking forward to what Christ has yet to do (1 Cor. 2:9).

The Text

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this” (Is. 9:6-7).

Summary of the Text

There are many lessons that can be drawn from a rich text like this, but our task this morning will be to consider just two of them. The first is the Christmas element—the fact that a child is born unto us, and that a son is given unto us (v. 6).The second has to do with this child’s relationship to what is here called “government.”We are told that this child was born in order to rule, for the government will be upon his shoulder. And the second thing we are told about His government is that it will continually increase (v. 7). He will bear the government upon His shoulder, and it will be a continually increasing government. This increase—unlike the growth of secular governments—will be a blessing, and not a pestilence.

Territory and Time

The fact that Jesus was born into this world (unto us, it says) tells us that He is Lord of all things. He is the Lord of the earth. Further than this, after He rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, He was given rule and authority over all things in Heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18-20). And the fact that we are told that His government will steadily increase, without ever stopping, tells us that He is the Lord of time, the Lord of all history. He is Lord of the entire process. This includes those earlier times in the process when “the increase of His government” was not yet as obvious as it is now. This means that celebrations of His rule will contain corruptions that need to be weeded out. The kingdom grows gradually, and problems are addressed gradually. But patience is a virtue. Jesus is the Lord of it all.

A Brief History of Christmas

The early church celebrated what we call Easter (and others, Pascha) right away. This included the weekly “Easter” of the Lord’s Day (Heb. 4:10; Rev. 1:10). One of the biggest controversies of the second century concerned how the date of this annual Easter was to be calculated. So the early church celebrated the Lord’s resurrection (His being firstborn from the dead) from the very beginning. They were a bit slower with celebrating His birth. But given the amount of space the gospel writers gave to accounts of His birth, it is not surprising that this celebration came eventually.

· The birth of the Lord began to be commemorated (on an annual basis) somewhere in the third or fourth centuries, A.D.
· It is commonly argued that this was a “takeover” of a pagan holiday, celebrating the winter solstice. But it just as likely, in my view, that this was actually the other way around. Sol Invictus was established as a holiday by Aurelian in 274 A.D., when the Christians were already a major force. So who was copying whom? And Saturnalia, another popular candidate for being an “ancestor” of Christmas, actually occurred on December 17.
· St. Nicolas, who was later morphed into Santa Claus, was a godly man, known for his generosity to children. He attended the Council of Nicea (325 A.D.), and at least one urban legend has him punching out Arius the heretic. Let us hope so.
· In the medieval period, the holiday became known by its current name (Christmas) in the 11th century. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives us the first use, recording something that happened in 1038. A.D. An archbishop died, “and a little after, Ethelric, bishop in Sussex, and then before Christmas, Briteagus. Bishop in Worcestshire.” Some may object to the fact that the suffix -mass is still in the name. But the objectionable doctrine of transubstantiation was not codified by the Roman church until the 13th century (1215) at the Fourth Lateran Council. The word mass originally came from the fact that in the ancient church catechumens were dismissed from the service before the Lord’s Supper was observed. “Ite, missa est,” which roughly translated means that “you may go now.” We see it still in our word dismissed. The vestigial reference to the Mass in this name should not be a trouble; Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to celebrate Christmas at all, and they deny the deity of Christ.
· By the time of the Reformation, the ship of the church was absolutely covered with barnacles—saints’ days and whatnot. The Reformers scraped virtually all of them off, keeping only what they called the “five evangelical feast days”—Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. All five are related to things that Jesus did, and we are not distracted by the Feast of St. Bartholomew’s Finger Bone.
· Much of what we identify as “Christmas-y” is no more than a century or two old—our idea of a “traditional” Christmas is basically Victorian. This is not bad, although it can be bad if you are not paying attention to your heart, and wind up judging your neighbor. I refer to Christmas cards, snow, silver bells, electric lights for your house, and a Saturday Evening Post Santa with a Coke.

Looking Forward

We expect the government of the Lord Jesus to grow, and this means that what we do will look quite different from what was done 500 or 1,000 years ago. We may hope that 500 years from now, it will be even more mature. In the meantime, we walk by faith in the one who is carrying all of human history on His shoulders—taking us home like an errant lamb.

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Celebrating Christmas like a Puritan

Joe Harby on

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 wmhen we are just cruising in a mindless tradition, it is a short time before sin takes over.

The Text

“And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it” (Is. 25:6-8).

Summary of the Text

As the prophet Isaiah prophesies the coming of the new covenant, he does so with the image of a glorious feast. The feast is prepared by the Lord of hosts Himself (v. 6). What kind of feast is it? He prepares a feast of fat things, he prepares a feast with aged wines, of meat full of marrow fat, and then some more aged wines. This is the picture we are given of the gospel—not a glass of room temperature water and a cracker. Right alongside this feast, in conjunction with it, He will remove the covering that kept us all in darkness for all those centuries. He will take away the veil over the nations (v. 7). The resurrection will come—and we have the down payment of that in the resurrection of Jesus—and death will be swallowed up in victory. The Lord will wipe away every tear, and all things will be put right (v. 8). As those who have accepted this gospel, we have accepted that all of this has now been established in principle, and as we live it out in true evangelical faith, we proclaim this good news. But there must be continuity between what we are saying and how we are living. And by this, I mean much more than that our words should be true and our behavior good. I mean that our words should sound like good news and our lives should smell like good news.

Like a Puritan?

Some of you have heard that the Puritans hated Christmas, that they were the original scrooges and grinches. But this, as is often the case, is grossly unfair to them. One of the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, George Gillespie, a staunch opponent of the church year being used to bind the conscience, said this: “The keeping of some festival days is set up instead of the thankful commemoration of God’s inestimable benefits, howbeit the festivity of Christmas has hitherto served more to Bachanalian lasciviousness than to the remembrance of the birth of Christ.” In other words, a person might object to pepper spraying fellow shoppers without rejecting the blessing of Thanksgiving. He can object to a Mardi Gras orgy without objecting to the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. He can turn away from a drunken office party without denying the Incarnation. And there was, for the Puritans, the matter of compulsion also.

Remember the words of C.S. Lewis here: “There is no understanding the period of the Reformation in England until we have grasped the fact that the quarrel between the Puritans and the Papists was not primarily a quarrel between rigorism and indulgence, and that, in so far as it was, the rigorism was on the Roman side. On many questions, and specially in their view of the marriage bed, the Puritans were the indulgent party; if we may without disrespect so use the name of a great Roman Catholic, a great writer, and a great man, they were much more Chestertonian than their adversaries” (Selected Literary Essays, p. 116).

Preparing Hearts

This period of Advent is one of preparation for Christmas. If we want to celebrate Christmas like Puritans (for that is actually what we are), this means that we should prepare for it in the same way. Look at the whole thing sideways, like Chesterton would. Here are some key principles.

· Do not treat this as a time of introspective penitence. To the extent you must clean up, do it with the attitude of someone showering and changing clothes, getting ready for the best banquet you have ever been to. This does not include three weeks of meditating on how you are not worthy to go to banquets. Of course you are not. Haven’t you heard of grace?

· Celebrate the stuff. Use fudge and eggnog and wine and roast beef. Use presents and wrapping paper. Embedded in many of the common complaints you hear about the holidays (consumerism, shopping, gluttony, etc.) are false assumptions about the point of the celebration. You do not prepare for a real celebration of the Incarnation through 30 days of Advent Gnosticism.

· At the same time, remembering your Puritan fathers, you must hate the sin while loving the stuff. Sin is not resident in the stuff. Sin is found in the human heart—in the hearts of both true gluttons and true scrooges— both those who drink much wine and those who drink much prune juice. If you are called up to the front of the class, and you get the problem all wrong, it would be bad form to blame the blackboard. That is just where you registered your error. In the same way, we register our sin on the stuff. But—because Jesus was born in this material world, that is where we register our piety as well. If your godliness won’t imprint on fudge, then it is not true godliness.

· Remember that the architecture of our celebrations matter. In the medieval church they used to have a long, narrow nave for the people, then you came to a rood screen (as they called it) that would hide the “action” of the actual worship. When the Reformation happened, and Protestants inherited these churches, some oddities resulted —like a turtle trying to live in a conch shell. The wrong kind of penitential seasons are like a long nave that we have to look down in order to see the “happy stuff ” at the other end. At some point we must have a Puritan remodel.

Going Overboard

Some may be disturbed by this. It seems a little out of control, as though I am urging you to “go overboard.” But of course I am urging you to go overboard. Think about it—when this world was “in sin and error pining,” did God give us a teaspoon of grace to make our dungeon a tad pleasanter? No. He went overboard.

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Joy to the World

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

In this world, joy is a bedrock sort of thing—and not the froth at the top of a wave. Joy is deep satisfaction in the will of God, and this must be coupled with a recognition of the reality that God’s will is everywhere and in everything. There is no place where we may go and be allowed to murmur or despair in that place because God’s will is somehow “not there.” In the carol we sing about joy to the world, we are dealing with the reality of sins and sorrows that grow, of thorns that infest the ground, and nations that need to have the glories of His righteousness proved. That proof will be found in our faith.

The Text

“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet. 1:6-9).

Summary of the Text

The apostle Peter is exhorting believers who are facing significant trials. We still live in a world filled with trouble, and so what he says to them will apply to us also. When confronted with the weight of manifold temptations, our response should be that of “greatly” rejoicing (v. 6). When we are tried, our faith is tried (v. 7). Our faith is tried because God is a goldsmith. When the goldsmith plunges gold into the fire, it is not because he hates the gold, but because he loves the gold enough to want to purify it of its dross (v. 7). When the goldsmith beats the gold, it is not because he has contempt for the gold. He has a crown in mind. This analogy applies more to your faith than to gold (which ultimately perishes), and the goal is to have a faith that praises, honors, and glories at the coming of Jesus Christ (v. 7). You have not seen Him, Peter says, but you love Him (v. 8). You have not seen Him, but you nonetheless believe, and you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory (v. 8). You are striving to obtain the end of your faith (which is constantly being purified by troubles), and that final purpose is the salvation of your souls (v. 9).

The Problem

Christmas should not be treated by us as the “denial season.” One of the reasons why so many families have so many tangles and scenes during the “holidays” is that everybody expects sentimentalism to fix everything magically. But Christmas is not a “trouble-free” season. We want the scrooges and grinches in our lives to be transformed by gentle snowfall, silver bells, beautifully arranged evergreens, hot cider, and carols being sung in the middle distance. But what happens when you gather together with a bunch of other sinners, and all of them have artificially inflated expectations? What could go wrong? When confronted with the message of sentimentalism, we really do need somebody who will say, “Bah, humbug.”

Joy Unspeakable

Peter is not referring to someone living in the back of a cave, having mystic fits. That is not what is meant by “joy unspeakable.” It is not “cloud of unknowing,” or an orgy of pseudo-enlightenment in the back of your eyeballs. These words are written to believers in the midst of persecution and trial. Pain concentrates the mind. Pain tethers you to this world, and the rope is a stout one. But at the same time, the grace of God enables you to look along the pain, to look down the entire length of the trial, and to see the purpose and point of it all. For the unbelieving observer off to the side, watching you, there is no explanation that can make sense of it.

This is how God works. It is His way. “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). The peace of God is an invisible shield, one which others cannot see. This is why it passes their understanding. They see that your hearts and minds are protected, but they cannot see how.

Note that your hearts and minds are not the shield, and they are not set up to protect the peace of God. The peace of God is no frail thing, needing your help to keep it from being smashed. The peace of God is an impenetrable helmet, and your contentment is your head. It protects you, not the other way around.

Faith like Refined Gold

Faith can do this, even though it may do it imperfectly. Gold is gold, even with dross in it. The first round purifies the faith, so that you can see and understand the process. That faith thus purified is prepared for the next round— even if the fire is more intense, or the difficulties more severe. The point is not to avoid the process.

Joy to the World

So the message of Christmas is not a delusional message. We are not pretending that we live in a world that is not struggling under a curse. The doctor who applies medicine to a wound is not pretending the wound is non-existent. The craftsman who repairs a smashed piece of expensive furniture is not denying the damage. His presence presupposes the damage. The refiner’s fire does not exclude the reality of dross—it is excluding the dross in another way. The Incarnation is God’s opening salvo in His war on our sins. The presence of sin should no more be astonishing than the presence of Nazis fighting back at Normandy.

View the world with the eye of a Christian realism. The turning of seasons makes no one better. The gentle fall of snow removes no sin. The hanging of decorations only makes a living room full of sin sadder. As Jesus once put it, “Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? (Matt. 23:17). Which is more important, the hat or the cattle? The foam or the beer? The gift or the altar? The gold paper stamp on the Christmas card or the gold coin of your faith?

If our hearts are decorated with the refined gold of a true faith, we may therefore decorate everything else. If they are not, then what’s the point? Joy is fundamentally realistic—which is why unbelief thinks of it as insane.

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Hope that Purifies

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Introduction

Everything God does in our world is aimed at glorifying His name through the salvation of sinners like us. He declared his saving intentions right after the Fall, in the first pages of Scripture. He unfolded more and more details as the era of the patriarchs and prophets went on, and then, when it was time for the curtain to rise on the gospel itself, Zechariah and Elizabeth heard the overture, and then Gabriel himself appeared to Mary. But why? What was the point? The point was to deal with sin.

The Text

“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21)

“And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3)

“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14)

Summary of the Texts

When Joseph found out Mary was pregnant, and he knew that he was not the father, he was mulling over what to do (Matt. 1:19). While he was considering these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him and reassured him. That which is conceived in her is by the Holy Spirit, the angel said. The name of her son will be called Jesus, and the reason for this is that He will save His people from their sins. The Greek name Jesus is the equivalent to the Hebrew Joshua, which means God is salvation. And so the angel said to Joseph, you shall call His name God is salvation for He will save His people from their sins.

The apostle John notes that God has shown us great love in that He has called us sons of God. Because the world doesn’t know Him, it doesn’t know us (1 John 3:1). We have just begun our transformation to be like Him, and when He comes again, that will happen (v. 2). Everyone who hopes this way is hoping for that final purification. And you cannot hope for purification this way without it having a purifying effect (v. 3).

God has decided not to purify us all in one instantaneous moment. He has determined to do it over time, subjecting us to His loving discipline. He disciplines us so that we might be partakers of His holiness (Heb. 12:10). So pursue peace, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (v. 14). The direction is real holiness.

The Problem

We are told in Scripture, in no uncertain terms, that God’s whole point in sending His Son into this world was to accomplish our salvation from sin. He liberates us from sin, which is the condition of not being like God at all, to holiness, which is the condition of partaking in what He is like. This is a momentous liberation, and for it to occur it was necessary for Jesus to take on a human body that could die, live a perfect, sinless life in that incarnate state, die on the cross, and to come back from the dead. The reason He did this was to bring you from somewhere to somewhere. He did not do all this aimlessly.

But holiness has somehow gotten a bad reputation. Who wants to be a holy Joe? It has gotten this reputation because we have not looked at the scriptural descriptions of it, and have allowed certain posers to step in. We pretend that we don’t like those posers, but they are really very convenient for us.

If someone, a preacher, say, declares that “without holiness no one will see the Lord,” we say, “yes, but . . .”

  • Yes, but I don’t want to be like those dour people in that legalistic church I grew up in. Well, who asked you to?
  • Yes, but I don’t want to be like that smarmy goody two-shoes who is photogenic enough to garner every faculty award known to man. Well, who asked you to?
  • Yes, but I don’t want to slip into a works-righteousness mentality. Well, who asked you to?

Holiness is not what we sometimes want to pretend it is. Holiness is being like God. Does He have issues? Does He have problems?

Understanding the Options

Think of it this way; let’s look at teenagers growing up in biblical homes in order to make the point stick. There is actual holiness and there is looking like you are pursuing it. Given these two variables, we have four options.

  • Someone can want to not be holy, but want to look like he is pursuing it. This is the hypocrite, Pharisaism junior grade.
  • Someone can want to not be holy, and want to look like he doesn’t want to be holy. This is the open heathen.
  • Someone can actually want to be holy, just so long as it doesn’t look like he wants to pursue it. This is the poor white kid who tries to stay out of actual big-time sinning, and who gets a nose stud five years after the trend-setters among 7-11 clerks quit wearing them.
  • Someone can want to be holy, and he doesn’t mind who knows it. This is the open Christian. He doesn’t want to sidle into holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. He doesn’t want to sneak into holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. He wants to be with the Lord, and to be like the Lord. There is nothing to be ashamed of here.

What Holiness Is

We were told earlier that the Lord disciplines us so that we might become partakers of His holiness (Heb. 12:10). His holiness is the pinnacle of all His attributes. The seraphim do not cry out, Patience, patience, patience, or Righteousness, righteousness, righteousness. Rather, they cover their faces and feet and cry out Holy, holy, holy. As white light is the sum total of all the colors in the spectrum, so holiness is the sum total of all that God is like.

Among other things, personal holiness is the point. Jesus did not come into this world in order to create a bunch of boring little Christlings, ashamed to be with Him. No, we are after Christians. How does Paul labor? “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily” (Col. 1: 26-29).

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