“To Nazareth came Gabriel, a herald of God’s love”

[I probably do not need to inform regular readers of this blog that Christmas is not my favourite season. Nevertheless, I try to take the opportunity to use the occasion. Recently, preaching from Luke 1, I was disappointed with the range of hymns available that focused on the miraculous conception. What follows is a first attempt at addressing that lack. For those who enjoy such things at this time of year, I trust it is a blessing.]

Haydn D.C.M.

To Nazareth came Gabriel, a herald of God’s love,
A message of rich grace to tell of mercy from above;
“Rejoice, you favoured of the Lord, for you indeed are blessed!”
But when the virgin heard his word, she felt a deep unrest.

“Fear not, for this is grace from God, and you shall bear a child!
The Son of God, and Jesse’s Rod, a Saviour undefiled;
And he shall reign on David’s throne, and all before him bend;
He reigns o’er Jacob’s house alone, his kingdom without end.”

“How can this be?” the virgin said, “I do not know a man.”
The angel bowed his lofty head, and told the heavenly plan:
“The Holy Spirit will descend, God’s mighty power apply –
The Holy One he thus will send, the Son of God Most High.”

And Mary bowed her humble head, raised no untrusting cry,
But, full of faith, she sweetly said, “God’s maidservant am I!”
And we, O Lord, would likewise bow, and trust the heavenly word,
Each heart embrace the Saviour now, and own him as our Lord.

©JRW

See all hymns and psalms.

 

A Bethlehem in your heart

Tim Challies provides another dose of  Charles Spurgeon on the whole matter of Christmas. Tim says that Spurgeon “did not mark Christmas day. And yet he celebrated the incarnation and all it means to the believer,” and provides the opening salvo and the parting shot of a sermon preached on 23 December 1855 to demonstrate how Spurgeon held the two simultaneously:

This is the season of the year when, whether we wish it or not, we are compelled to think of the birth of Christ. I hold it to be one of the greatest absurdities under heaven to think that there is any religion in keeping Christmas-day. There are no probabilities whatever that our Saviour Jesus Christ was born on that day, and the observance of it is purely of Popish origin; doubtless those who are Catholics have a right to hallow it, but I do not see how consistent Protestants can account it in the least sacred. However, I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year; for there is work enough in the world, and a little more rest would not hurt labouring people. Christmas-day is really a boon to us; particularly as it enables us to assemble round the family hearth and meet our friends once more. Still, although we do not fall exactly in the track of other people, I see no harm in thinking of the incarnation and birth of the Lord Jesus. We do not wish to be classed with those

“Who with more care keep holiday
The wrong, than others the right way.”

The old Puritans made a parade of work on Christmas-day, just to show that they protested against the observance of it. But we believe they entered that protest so completely, that we are willing, as their descendants, to take the good accidentally conferred by the day, and leave its superstitions to the superstitious.

…

Sweet Lord Jesus! thou whose goings forth were of old, even from everlasting, thou hast not left thy goings forth yet. Oh! that thou wouldst go forth this day, to cheer the faint, to help the weary, to bind up our wounds, to comfort our distresses! Go forth, we beseech thee, to conquer sinners, to subdue hard hearts-to break the iron gates of sinners’ lusts, and cut the iron bars of their sirs in pieces! O Jesus! go forth; and when thou goest forth, come thou to me! Am I a hardened sinner? Come thou to me; I want thee:

“Oh! let thy grace my heart subdue;
I would be led in triumph too;
A willing captive to my Lord,
To sing the honours of thy word.”

Poor sinner! Christ has not left going forth yet. And when he goes forth, recollect, he goes to Bethlehem. Have you a Bethlehem in your heart? Are you little? will go forth to you yet. Go home and seek him by earnest prayer. If you have been made to weep on account of sin, and think yourself too little to be noticed, go home, little one! Jesus comes to little ones; his goings forth were of old, and he is going forth now. He will come to your poor old house; he will come to your poor wretched heart; he will come, though you are in poverty, and clothed in rags, though you are destitute, tormented, and afflicted; he will come, for his goings forth have been of old from everlasting. Trust him, trust him, trust him; and he will go forth to abide in your heart for ever.

Again, hurrah for Spurgeon! And, forever, praise God for the gospel!

Spurgeon on Christmas

The opening paragraph of a sermon of Spurgeon’s posted today at Pyromaniacs gives a sense of why I love this man of God:

We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas: first, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be said or sung in Latin or in English; and, secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Saviour; and, consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority. Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our Saviour’s birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred. Fabricius gives a catalogue of 136 different learned opinions upon the matter; and various divines invent weighty arguments for advocating a date in every month in the year. It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of the church celebrated the nativity of our Lord; and it was not till very long after the Western church had set the example, that the Eastern adopted it. Because the day is not known, therefore superstition has fixed it; while, since the day of the death of our Saviour might be determined with much certainty, therefore superstition shifts the date of its observance every year. Where is the method in the madness of the superstitious? Probably the fact is that the holy days were arranged to fit in with heathen festivals. We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Saviour was born, it is the twenty-fifth of December. Nevertheless since, the current of men’s thoughts is led this way just now, and I see no evil in the current itself, I shall launch the bark of our discourse upon that stream, and make use of the fact, which I shall neither justify nor condemn, by endeavoring to lead your thoughts in the same direction. Since it is lawful, and even laudable, to meditate upon the incarnation of the Lord upon any day in the year, it cannot be in the power of other men’s superstitions to render such a meditation improper for to-day. Regarding not the day, let us, nevertheless, give God thanks for the gift of his dear son.

Delightful! “Here is an empty thing, but men are gazing at the emptiness, so let us take the opportunity to fill up that empty space with something good and worth gazing at.” Read it all and gaze on something good and worth gazing at!

Preaching the incarnation

Paul Levy channels Thomas Watson:

He was poor, that he might make us rich.
He was born of a virgin that we might be born of God.
He took our flesh, that he might give us His Spirit.
He lay in the manger, that we may lie in paradise.
He came down from heaven, that he might bring us to heaven . . .

That the ancient of Days should be born.
that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle . . .
that he who rules the stars should suck the breast;
that a virgin should conceive;
that Christ should be made of a woman, and of that woman which himself made,
that the branch should bear the vine,
that the mother should be younger than the child she bare,
and the child in the womb bigger than the mother;
that the human nature should not be God, yet one with God.

Christ taking flesh is a mystery we shall never fully understand till we come to heaven.

If our hearts be not rocks, this love of Christ should affect us . Behold love that passeth knowledge! (Eph 3:19)

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity, 196, 198

Christ or Christmas?

Christmas is coming. The waterfowl belonging to the tribe Anserini of the family Anatidae are becoming appetisingly tubby; you might wish to provide some kind of charitable donation to the elderly gentleman holding out his headgear in the hope of a handout (work with me on the folk song/nursery rhyme, please). However, this particular Christmas comes on Sunday 25^th December. And with Christmas come all the demands that generally get loaded on the Christmas season, and Christmas day in particular. The gifts. The cards. The decorations. The food. The fun and games. The festive films. The family gatherings. Oh, and for some of us, if we have time, maybe a bit of church.

Except that this particular Christmas comes on Sunday 25^th December. And because it falls on a Sunday, it raises a question of priority. My point here is not to question – either for assault or defence – the validity of the Christmas celebration. In a Western society we recognise that – love it, like it, or loathe it – this particular season and this particular day come loaded with all manner of cultural baggage, and a fair weight of at least nominally Christian freight as well.

There is nothing inherently wrong with gift-giving, card-sending, thankful feasting, and family gatherings, and much that is inherently good and pleasant. Furthermore, the incarnation is one of the most glorious mysteries of the Christian religion: “our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man,” as Wesley phrased it. Which child of God would not pause to delight in the wonder and excellence of the Godhead veiled in flesh, the incarnate Son – our Immanuel? In some senses this is the foundation of the atonement. There are depths of delight to be plumbed and high songs of praise to be sung. In addition, even in our degraded Western culture there may still be a few whose wish to go through the motions of worship, and that might bring them within earshot – we pray, within heartshot – of the truth of the Son of Man who came to seek and to save that which was lost (Lk 19.10). It may even prove a particularly profitable day in performing acts of mercy for those for whom Christmas is an appropriate (if merely moralistic to some) occasion for such.

But those good and pleasant things ought not to displace the things of first importance. The incarnation ought not to be a doctrine reserved for any particular time of year, and neither is it the particular focus of the Scriptural commands for the worship of Christ Jesus and the commemoration of his work. And while we embrace our opportunities for gospel witness, there are other realities that govern and condition our embrace of those opportunities. And even if you argue for a degree of Christian latitude in the fact or manner of your celebration (or not) of Christmas, there is nothing that requires a Christian – or anyone else – to make the 25^th of December a day of particular focus.

But there is something that requires a Christian to make this 25^th December a day of particular focus. It is the Lord’s day. It is that one day in seven, that first day of the week, that resurrection day, the day on which the church can and should gather in order to worship their living Lord. And that act of privileged obedience takes precedence over every act of liberty.

That imposes certain demands and pressures on us, on some more than others. For some, we face the desire to ‘do Christmas properly,’ a desire that might need to be toned down or put aside, at least for the day itself. However, for others it is the pressure of making it a real ‘family day,’ as if the family of God should take second place (Mark 3.32-35, anyone?). Such pressure will be painful, especially if many or all of the family are unconverted. But is this an opportunity to show where your priorities lie? It may be the sense of a lazy day, when you get up late and just mooch around, the temptation to minimise or even do away with the public and private exercises of worship. It may be the pressure, especially with young children, to flood the day with gifts and treats, and – even if you do seek to be in church – the forms take precedence while the substance is washed away on a tide of weariness, carelessness and greed. It may be that Christmas trumps Christ altogether, as services of worship and private devotions give way to the fact that, “It’s Christmas, after all.” Indeed, ironically, where in most years saccharine nativity scenes and pappy Christmas sermons rule, this may be the very year when some decide to give church a miss altogether.

However, if we are believers in God and followers of Christ and indwelt by the Spirit, worshippers of the Most High in all his majesty, might, and mercy, then Christmas must give way to Christ. Our attachment to the Lord Jesus must take precedence over all cultural and other pressures. Let the day be, before it is anything else, the Lord’s day. Plan and prepare around that priority, and let that which does not fit within such a framework give place. Indeed, a fairly simple solution might be to postpone or promote the occasion by one day.

So by all means enjoy a feast of good things. By all means take advantage of the trend of thought and feeling to do good to others, body and soul. By all means preach the glories of the incarnation of the eternal Son to those who may, under God, be primed to hear the truth of the Saviour, born of a virgin, born in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord.

But by no means forget the feast of soul that is laid up for the saints of God on the day and at the times when God, in a distinctive way, draws near to bless his gathered people. By no means forget that the best good you can do to a man is to speak the truth as it is in Jesus. By no means fail to declare that this infant born in Bethlehem, weak and helpless, was the mighty God, and that this God-man came into the world for the purpose of salvation through his death and resurrection. Be where you ought to be, doing what you ought to do, seeking what you ought to seek, and in so being, doing and seeking, may God truly bless us, every one.

The champion

Have you ever needed a champion? Perhaps you have faced an enemy against whom you have had no defences, or been oppressed and cruelly treated and have had no protection. You have been in danger but had no strength to fight; or trapped, with no way of escape. You have needed someone to stand on your behalf, someone to defend you and deliver you, strong to save you and protect you. You have needed a champion.

In truth, every one of us needs a champion in the truest and deepest sense. Mankind has an enemy, Satan. He is cruel, oppressing us in sin and misery, and we have no strength to defeat our pride, our anger, our lust, our loneliness, our shame, our grief, and our bitterness: we are enslaved, enchained. We are in danger, and he is dragging us down to the Pit. We are trapped in the dominion of darkness. We are fearfully exposed to punishment for our sins as those who have followed him.

This was true from the beginning, when Adam our father sold himself to Satan and cut himself off from God. But even then, God was full of mercy, and there at the dawn of time he stepped in and promised a champion to defeat our Adversary, a great victory at grave cost to himself:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Gen 3.15)

And then the world waited, looking for God’s champion. And, over time, more was revealed.

To Abraham, God promised a seed through whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed (Gen 12.3). Jacob identified Judah as the royal tribe from whom the sceptre should not depart, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes (Gen 49.10). Balaam, impelled by the Spirit of God, looked into the distant future:

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; a Star shall come out of Jacob; a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and batter the brow of Moab, and destroy all the sons of tumult. (Num 24.17)

The Lord promised David that – after his death – he would establish the throne of the kingdom of David’s son forever (2Sam 7.12-16). Isaiah spoke of a God-given sign: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Is 7.14). He spoke of the response of the nations to this Servant of God:

Arise, shine; for your light has come!
And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.
For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,
And deep darkness the people;
But the Lord will arise over you,
And His glory will be seen upon you.
The Gentiles shall come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.
Lift up your eyes all around, and see:
They all gather together, they come to you;
Your sons shall come from afar,
And your daughters shall be nursed at your side.
Then you shall see and become radiant,
And your heart shall swell with joy;
Because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,
The wealth of the Gentiles shall come to you.
The multitude of camels shall cover your land,
The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah;
All those from Sheba shall come;
They shall bring gold and incense,
And they shall proclaim the praises of the Lord.
All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together to you,
The rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you;
They shall ascend with acceptance on my altar,
And I will glorify the house of my glory. (Is 60.1-7)

Jeremiah spoke of a coming day and a coming King and Priest from the house of David:

‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah: In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David a Branch of righteousness; he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.’ For thus says the Lord: ‘David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel; nor shall the priests, the Levites, lack a man to offer burnt offerings before me, to kindle grain offerings, and to sacrifice continually.’ (Jer 33.14-18)

Then there is Micah, who speaks of one who is himself eternal and yet comes forth out of Bethlehem to rule, shepherding the people of God (Mic 5.2).

Over time, the pens of prophecy sketch a portrait of increasing depth and detail, and a picture of the champion slowly emerges.

And still the earth was waiting.

And then, one night in Bethlehem, all the lines of promise converged in a child who was born of a virgin, the eternal Son of the Most High, and a true man; he was of Abraham’s seed, Judah’s line, and David’s house; he was the King of the Jews and the Gentiles bowed before him. In this Jesus, declared by angels to be Christ the Lord, all the threads of promise twisted into a single cord. Truly, Bethlehem, “the hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight.” God’s champion has arrived on the stage of the world. It is worth noting that before he has drawn breath for many days, the malevolence of his enemy is unleashed against him in the slaughter of the infants: battle is joined!

But this is only a beginning; it is not an ending. We have looked only at a few brief promises concerning only his birth. There are countless others that speak of his living, dying, rising, reigning and returning. He has come to stand for his people, to oppose their enemy and defeat him utterly, to set us free from his cruel reign and to restore us to God.

This is not mere coincidence; it is far too complex for that. It is not fantasy; it is far too well-attested for that. This is promise and fulfilment.

Come to Bethlehem. What do you see? An excuse for a temporary bout of niceness? A chance for a get-together, perhaps a family gathering or a party of some kind? A bit of token spirituality for the festive season? A reason to try a little harder this year?

Or do you see a weak infant who is the infinitely mighty God? The eternal Lord a few days born? A ruler, though despised? A king born into a carpenter’s home? A poor baby who is a crowned warrior?

Behold your champion, the Saviour sent from God to deliver and defend from sin, death and hell. Any other Jesus is both false and useless, a lie and a vanity. But this Jesus is a Saviour for you, and if you will take him and trust him as God makes him known, then you will be saved, delivered from Satan’s clutches and miseries as you bow, and worship, and adore, and believe with Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, and with all those who have been redeemed by his holy life and sacrificial death, keeping company with angels in the praises of the Redeemer.

Commit your eternal soul to the care of God’s champion: his Son, born in the city of David, a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.

Gospel truth

Carl Trueman finds an atheist who gets the truth and demands of the gospel better than many professing Christians:

We unbelievers are entitled to regard the Bible as magnificent literature. More is demanded from the faithful. Yet these days, even some soi-disant Christians would claim that the miraculous elements of the New Testament are only metaphors. To me, that is agnostic slop. Faith is more than literature. Faith is an epiphany of abasement, ardour and rigour, in the hope of grace, redemption and joy. But there is an entrance fee. If you do not believe in the literal truth of the Incarnation and the Resurrection, you are not a Christian.

Whenever we consider the glories of the incarnation – whether at the end of December or at any other time – we do well to consider that this is not a matter of taste and inclination, but of truth and conviction. Jesus is Immanuel – God with us – and that is simply not negotiable.

“He stepped from his high throne”

Rhosymedre  6 6. 6 6. 8 8

He stepped from his high throne,
And laid aside his crown,
And to this sinful world
The Son of God stooped down:
He came as our Immanuel
That God as man with men should dwell.

The virgin brought him forth
As promised from of old;
The Word in flesh appeared,
The Saviour long foretold:
He came as our Immanuel
That God as man with men should dwell.

The angels praised the Lord,
And shepherds came to see;
In royal Bethlehem,
The wise men bowed their knee:
They worshipped our Immanuel,
For God as man with men did dwell.

He came in servant form,
A King of David’s line;
And those who looked for hope
Beheld redemption shine:
They looked on our Immanuel,
For God as man with men did dwell.

Messiah mediates,
The breach with God to mend;
He served because he loved;
He loved us to the end:
He came as our Immanuel
That ransomed men with God might dwell.

And Jesus was his name –
He died and rose to save,
And we shall know in full
His triumph o’er the grave:
For he is our Immanuel
And man at last with God shall dwell.

©JRW

See all hymns and psalms.

Keeping silent

Paul Helm spurs careful thought in a post on casual and careless attitudes to the incarnation.  It is all too easy, he suggests, to play fast and loose with Immanuel in order to make sense of what may lie beyond us.

He says:

Maybe there are occasions when our talking ought to stop. This strong language of Hilary of Poitiers (c.315-368) was on one occasion quoted by Calvin with approval.

The guilt of the heretics and blasphemers compels us to undertake what is unlawful, to scale arduous heights, to speak of the ineffable, and to trespass upon forbidden places. And since by faith alone we should fulfill what is commanded, namely, to adore the Father, to venerate the Son with Him, and to abound in the Holy Spirit, we are forced to raise our lowly words to subjects that cannot be described. By the guilt of another we are forced into guilt, so that what should have been restricted to the pious contemplation of our minds is now exposed to the dangers of human speech.

Such an attitude is uncomfortable to modern people. In the day of freedom of information laws and a news-hungry media and scientific advance, we want to know; we are entitled to know. There is a never-satisfied appetite for news and views, and not only among the ‘intellectuals’ or the literati. And, of course, the church picks this up. We have a right to know. We think that those without answers must be hiding something, that the absence of an answer is a refusal to come clean. But there’s a place for silence, for reserve, for active meditation, for ‘the pious contemplation of our minds’. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak, as the Preacher said. What better time for keeping silence than when we are confronted by the Incarnation?

“Where reason fails, with all her powers,
There faith prevails, and love adores.”

Santa Christ?

Scott Clark points us to Sinclair Ferguson at Ligonier on a Santa Claus Christology.  This brief essay is excerpted from Professor Ferguson’s outstanding book, In Christ  Alone (see review).

Ferguson writes:

The Scriptures systematically strip away the veneer that covers the real truth of the Christmas story. Jesus did not come to add to our comforts. He did not come to help those who were already helping themselves or to fill life with more pleasant experiences. He came on a deliverance mission, to save sinners, and to do so He had to destroy the works of the Devil (Matt. 1:21; 1 John 3:8b).

Read the whole article for an antidote to saccharine sentiment and skewed supernaturalism this Christmas.