I want to begin by giving you a peek at where we’re headed this morning. At the end, I hope to talk practically and concretely about what kind of habits we might cultivate in our lives to know and enjoy God, and feed our souls on his word. I have in mind a matrix of four categories: direct and indirect, and alone and together, as you’ll see.

I often summarize God’s appointed means of grace for our Christian lives as (1) hear his voice (in his word), (2) have his hear (in prayer), and (3) belong to his body (in the covenant fellowship of the local church). Our focus in this message is the first — hearing God’s voice in his word, which is God’s primary, or first and foremost, means of grace (his “chief” means, as Jonathan Edwards called it, or the “soul” of the means).

Both prayer and fellowship (which we’ll focus on in later sessions) are secondary, in a sense, to God’s word. First comes his word. First he speaks. Then our prayers come in response to his word. And his word creates the body of fellow believers called the church. The church does not create itself, and the church does not create Scripture, but the church is a “creature of the word.”

To focus in this message on God’s word as his chief means of grace, we turn to the book of Hebrews, where I’d like to linger over two central truths about God’s word, and then finish with some ideas on the kinds of habits we might cultivate in our lives to position ourselves to go on receiving, and enjoying, God’s word, and through his word to know and enjoy Jesus. So then, let’s turn to the first truth about God’s word from the book of Hebrews, from its first two verses.

1. God has spoken.

Do you realize how massive, how significant, this seemingly simple, basic truth is for the very nature of reality and our world and our lives? God did not have to speak to humanity. He could have just created the world — embedded his truth and justice, as it were, in the world through the principles and laws of nature. He might have chosen to reveal himself only through creation, rather than human words.

But wonder upon wonder, God has spoken. Our Father, in all his majesty, has stooped to speak to us in human words. The God who made everything, including you, has spoken — and that changes everything.

Look at the first four verses of Hebrews, and we’ll focus for now on just the first two:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

So, in the past, God spoke (verse 1). And in these last days, God has spoken (verse 2). This is the kind of God he is. He is a speaking God, a communicative God. We might say God is talkative. In verses 1–2, God’s speaking is cast into two eras: “long ago” and “in these last days” — a past era, an old era, and then a later era, a new era.

Related to these two eras, then, two sets of recipients are mentioned. In the past there were “our fathers” — for Jews, their biological ancestors, and for Christians, our spiritual ancestors. Then, in the new era, there’s “us.” That’s an amazing phrase in verse 2: “to us.” Hebrews doesn’t say God spoke “to them,” meaning the apostles, or the first generation of Christians, but he says “to us,” to his readers in the first century, which includes us in this same church age, in these same last days, some twenty centuries later.

Hebrews also mentions two agents of God’s speaking: In the past they had the prophets. In these last days we have his Son. (And with the mention of the Son, then follows a cascade of sevenfold glory, which we’ll come back to.)

In Many Ways

Focus with me on the past era, when God spoke “at many times and in many ways” (literally, “in many parts and many manners”). The speaking God not only spoke once, or a few times, but many times, in many parts, in many ways, and through multiple (plural) prophets. The God who is is a talker.

First, he spoke to create the world. Again and again in Genesis 1, some twelve times, we hear, “And God said . . . and God called” (verses 3, 5–6, 8–11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28; interestingly, God speaks to create on all six days, but he calls or names only on days 1–3 and leaves the naming of the plants, stars, and animals to man).

And our speaking God not only spoke to create, but he continues to speak in creation. Psalm 19:1–4 tells us,

The heavens declare the glory of God,     and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.Day to day pours out speech,     and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words,     whose voice is not heard.Their voice goes out through all the earth,     and their words to the end of the world.

So, God spoke to create, and he keeps speaking through creation. Then, as we’ve seen, God spoke in human words through his prophets. Psalm 19:7–8 (and all of Psalm 119!) says,

The law of the Lord is perfect,     reviving the soul;the testimony of the Lord is sure,     making wise the simple;the precepts of the Lord are right,     rejoicing the heart;the commandment of the Lord is pure,     enlightening the eyes.

So, not only has he spoken, say, on an occasion or two, but he is a speaking God; he’s prone to speak; he likes to speak. He’s a talker, in the highest and most holy of senses, as he speaks many times, in many parts and manners, through many prophets.

In the Word

Coming back to Hebrews 1, what’s the implied pairing with “many” for the new era? In the old era, to the fathers, through the prophets, he spoke in many parts and ways. Now, in the new era, to us, in his Son — how does he speak? One part, one way, one manner. God has spoken so fully and so richly and so decisively in one particular person — not just through him but in him — that we call him “the Word,” with a capital W.

And so, the Gospel of John begins,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1–3)

And then John 1:14–18 says,

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . . For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

God has most fully made himself known in his Word.

Manifold Speech

Consider then the nature of God’s word, from the idea of God speaking to its various expressions:

First is God’s word as concept. God speaks. He reveals himself. He’s communicative and talkative, speaking to create, through creation, and particularly through his prophets.
Second, then, his word, spoken through prophets, is written down to preserve it, called Scripture.
Third is his Word incarnate, his Word personal, in the person of his Son. Jesus is the Word of God. If God had one word, one message, so to speak, to reveal, to say to us, it’s Jesus. It’s “my Son” — hear him, see him, consider him, and believe in him.
Finally, we might also talk about the word preached, or spoken — the gospel word about Jesus. This is the most common referent of the word word in the New Testament — the message about Jesus through which Jesus himself comes to us, through faith and by his Spirit.

So, God has spoken. He’s spoken through his prophets. He’s spoken climactically in his Son, the Word. He’s spoken through the gospel, the word about his Son. And God has seen to it that his words have been written down — that is, Scripture.

God Gave Us a Book

How often do you pause to ponder how stunning it is that we have this Book? A record of God’s words through the prophets before the coming of his Son. And the inspired record of the life and sacrifice and triumph of his Son in the four Gospels. And the inspired story of the early church and God-breathed letters from his apostles to the church.

Brothers and sisters, we actually have the words of God. This is almost too good to be true. And yet how often are we so accustomed to this reality — one of the greatest wonders in all the universe — that it barely moves us to handle the Bible with care (and awe), or at least to access his words with the frequency and wonder they deserve?

One of the greatest facts in all of history is that God gave us a Book. He gave us his words! He has spoken. Think of the lengths God went to, and with what patience, to make himself known to us here in the twenty-first century.

For centuries, God’s word was copied by hand and preserved with the utmost diligence and care. Then, for the last five hundred years of the printing press, God’s word has gone far and wide like never before. Some men gave their lives, upsetting the apple carts of man-made religion, to translate the words of God into the heart-language of their people. And now, in the digital age, access to God’s own words has exploded exponentially again, and yet — and yet — in such abundance, do we marvel at what we have? And do we, as individuals and as churches, make the most of what infinite riches we have in such access to the Scriptures?

It’s wonder enough that God has spoken. But as we continue reading Hebrews, it gets even better. Not only did our speaking God speak in the past through the prophets, and not only did he speak to us in the Son, but he continues to speak.

2. God is speaking.

God’s speech is a central emphasis in the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews, God speaks, says, testifies, proclaims, calls, promises, vows, warns, reproves, and declares. Again and again, Hebrews refers to God’s word, his promise, his oath, his spoken word, and his voice.

Something that’s amazing to track in Hebrews is who speaks to whom. First, Father speaks to Son in chapter 1, and Son speaks to Father in chapter 2 (and 10). But then, the Son also speaks to us. And the Spirit speaks to us. And the Father speaks to us.

The Spirit speaks to us through Psalm 95 in chapters 3–4.
God speaks Proverbs 3:11–12 to us, as his children, in chapter 12.
God speaks to us, corporately and individually, in the words of Joshua 1:5 in chapter 13.

Hebrews’s burden is to show that Scripture is not just a collection of ancient texts from the past, but Scripture is the voice of the living God, speaking right now. It’s implicit throughout, but Hebrews makes it explicit, as we’ve seen already in chapter 1, and now will see elsewhere, across its chapters.

Living Words

First, consider Hebrews 3:7–8:

As the Holy Spirit says [quoting Psalm 95], “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

Psalm 95 is not only what the Spirit said in the past, but what the Spirit continues to speak when we read or hear the words of Psalm 95. Then added to this is the emphasis on “today” in the quote from Psalm 95. That “today” was first for hearers in David’s day. Now, that “today” is for hearers in Hebrews’s day, because the Spirit not only said Scripture, but says Scripture. This is what it means for Scripture to be “living and active.” That’s the famous passage in Hebrews 4:12–13:

The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Psalm 95, as the Spirit’s ongoing speech to believers, in the past as well as the present, is the immediate referent of Hebrews 4:12. When Hebrews says “the word of God is living and active,” he’s talking first about Psalm 95, but it’s not as though Psalm 95 is unique in this respect. This is applicable to all of Scripture as God’s speaking. When God speaks in Scripture, he does not speak only in the moment and move on, but he continues to speak to his people through his word by his Spirit.

Which might then lead us to reflect on the closeness of God and his word. Think about this with me: there is no separation between God himself and the word he breathes out. Humans may err in their speech; they may misspeak and later try to “distance themselves” from what they said. God never misspeaks, and he never miscalculates the reception of his words. And God never changes. He never says, “Well, I said that a long time ago, but I don’t say it anymore.” There is no disconnect between God and his words. To encounter the words of the living God is to encounter God himself — his sight and his eyes, as Hebrews 4:13 says.

Active Warnings

Let’s go to Hebrews 12:25, the final warning of Hebrews:

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

So, through his letter, Hebrews has spoken the written words of Scripture to the church as living words from God by the Spirit. And now, in this final warning, he speaks of God as “him who warns from heaven” and as “him who is speaking.” Our God not only has warned, but he warns. He not only has spoken, but he is speaking. And how does he do that? By the Spirit and the word. Word and Spirit. The Holy Spirit works by and with the word to speak in the present to the people of God.

And lest we think this is unique to Hebrews — that all of Scripture should be applied to, spoken to, new-covenant Christians as the very present-moment speaking of God — the apostle Paul speaks similarly at least three times:

“Whatever was written in former days [in the past, to the fathers] was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Not “was breathed out,” but “is.” Not “was . . . profitable,” but “is.” Is, not was.
“Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. . . . Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:6, 11).

Not only has God spoken in this Book we call “the Bible,” but he is speaking.

And so, to conclude, we ask one question.

3. Will you listen — and how?

Unavoidably, a very personal and practical question confronts us in this moment, having rehearsed how much God has spoken, and that he still speaks, and that we have no excuse not to hear him. Do you listen to him? How? In what ways? And how often?

Let me end with some encouragements about “habits of grace” as they relate to saturating our lives in the word of God.

First, note I say habits plural, not habit. We need multiple habits in our lives for accessing God’s ongoing speaking in the Bible. Think of this like an hourglass, going back to Hebrews 1 and then forward into our habits of life: in Jesus, the many (prophets) become one (Son); in our lives, the one (Son) becomes many (habits).

Then, in thinking of habits plural, we might think in the matrix of four categories I mentioned at the beginning: direct and indirect, and alone and together. Direct engagement alone would be our own reading, listening, studying, and meditating on Scripture. God’s word, as the chief and soul of the means of grace, is worth your direct engagement. Here are some recommendations for your consideration.

For direct engagement, alone:

Read daily, in some form or manner.
Read first thing in the morning if possible.
Slow down; perhaps even read a paper Bible.
Don’t try to do too much, but instead “gather a day’s portion.”
Consider various gears or modes: read, study, and meditate.
“Begin with Bible, move to meditation, and polish with prayer,” as I like to say.

One way we might sum it up would be this: Treat God’s word differently from all others — when you access it, the priority you give it, the way you hear it. Make his word the standard by which you judge all other words. And don’t only read; consider hearing his word. Use a smartphone app to sit attentively under the reading of the Bible.

For indirect engagement, alone:

Read Christian books, devotionals, and substantive articles.
Listen to audiobooks, sermons and other monologues, and faithful podcasts.

For direct engagement, together:

Gather under preaching in corporate worship, which is the re-revealing of God’s word in the gathering of God’s people.
Engage in family devotions.
Participate in Bible studies.

For indirect engagement, together:

Seek Christian conversation and interaction; heed Christian counsel.
Speak truth into each other’s lives.

Consider Christ

Finally, contemplate and enjoy the person of Jesus through Scripture. He is God’s Word embodied, the Word personalized, the Word made flesh — and divine words lead to an encounter with God himself in Christ.

So, let’s close with Christ’s sevenfold greatness in Hebrews 1:1–4. Jesus is the end of the means — of prayer, of fellowship, of Scripture. He is Grace incarnate (Titus 2:11), his person, his work, his exaltation:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

The God of all grace has spoken, and he is speaking. And what one word, if it were only one word, is he saying? Jesus.

Oh, find your many times, your life-giving habits, for knowing and enjoying and getting this one Word into your soul.

As day dawned over England on December 25, 1647, the nation woke to the strangest Christmas of all: no Christmas. For the first time, Christmas had been canceled.

Christmas canceled? Indeed, Christmas canceled. Noël nixed. Advent outlawed.

Twelve years later, the Massachusetts Bay Colony followed suit. In place of decorations, they posted the following public notice:

The observation of Christmas having been deemed a Sacrilege, the exchanging of Gifts and Greetings, dressing in Fine Clothing, Feasting and similar Satanical Practices are hereby FORBIDDEN, with the Offender liable to a Fine of Five Shillings.

Had the spirit of Scrooge settled over England? Had Mount Crumpit moved to Massachusetts? Had the White Witch swept through the West on her way to conquer Narnia?

Well, no, not quite. In fact, as we travel through some of the history of Christmas past, we who love the coming of Christ may feel a strange sympathy rising in our hearts for the Puritans who did this. We may not want to cancel Christmas ourselves, but we may feel newly aware of the season’s many follies. More importantly, we may feel freshly eager to consecrate Christmas to that one great end so easily hidden under wrapping paper, buried beneath holiday bustle, and lost in shopping malls: the worship of Christ himself.

Birth of Christmas

We might imagine that the birth of Christmas coincided, more or less, with the birth of Christ — but the story is a bit more complicated. For the first three centuries of church history, few seem to have celebrated Christmas (and those who did may have known nothing of December 25).

The first Christmas celebration on record dates to the mid-fourth century, with Julius I (bishop of Rome from 337–352) being the first to declare December 25 as the date for the holiday. December 25 was the darkest day of the year in the then-used Julian calendar — a fitting day to celebrate the birth of the “great light” (Isaiah 9:2).

Yes, fitting — but accurate? Perhaps not. Joseph Kelly, with reference to Luke 2:8, notes that “shepherds in Judea were outdoors from March until November,” making a spring, summer, or fall date more likely than a winter one (The Origins of Christmas, 55). So why December 25? Did the symbolism of the winter solstice prove decisive, especially in the absence of another clear date? Were Roman Christians attempting (as many claim) to baptize or counter winter pagan festivities, such as the weeklong celebration of Saturnalia or the Feast of the Unconquered Sun?

Possibly. The history is somewhat tangled, and the influences are not always clear. A century before Julius I, for example, a Christian named Sextus Julius Africanus suggested March 25 as the date of Christ’s conception — another fitting day, given that some Christians dated the creation of the world to March 25. So, the December celebration of Jesus’s birth may have flowed, in part, from that supposed date (Origins, 60).

For the purposes of this article, however, we can say this confidently: Whether or not early Christians wanted Christmas to counter pagan holidays, the celebration of Jesus’s birth did indeed find itself nestled among pagan traditions from the start — and, as a result, popular celebrations of Christmas sometimes could look decidedly unchristian.

The story of Christmas, then, is not the story of a once-sacred holiday becoming increasingly corrupted by secularism and commercialism. The sacred and the sacrilegious, the holy and the profane, the profound and the banal have always met at Christmas. They have been entwined, from the beginning, like holly and ivy.

Day of Debauchery

From the early years of Christmas, and on through a full millennium, perhaps the most formidable threat to Christmas worship was one we might not expect. Our seasonal associations are so cozy and snug, so cheerful and family friendly, that we read with surprise some accounts of Christmases long ago. In many times and many places, December 25 was a day of debauchery.

In his book The Battle for Christmas, Stephen Nissenbaum offers a window into some celebrations of old:

It involved behavior that most of us would find offensive and even shocking today — rowdy public displays of eating and drinking, the mockery of established authority, aggressive begging (often involving the threat of doing harm), and even the invasion of wealthy homes. . . . Christmas was a season of “misrule,” a time when ordinary behavioral restraints could be violated with impunity. (5–6)

Drunkenness, lust, revelry, sacrilege, theft — we do not imagine these elements when we sing “the glories of Christmases long, long ago,” but there they were, parading in the streets for all to see. Judith Flanders notes how the first English Christmas carol was a drinking song (Christmas: A Biography, 31).

“Goodwill without a good God means little. A large heart without a large Christ remains too small to save.”

We find the same dark thread no matter how far back we travel. In the fourth century, soon after the first Christmas celebrations, the pastor John Chrysostom “warned his congregation about feasting to excess and about wild dancing, and he urged them to approach Christmas after a heavenly and not an earthly manner” (Origins, 126).

Perhaps, then, we can understand why English lawmakers in 1644, three years before the famous ban, lamented how a day “pretending the memory of Christ” in fact displayed “extreame forgetfulnesse of him.”

Season of Snug

Then, about two hundred years ago, something changed. Slowly, gradually, through the complex and surprising trail of history, Christmas grew less raucous and more tame, less lewd and more child-friendly, less like a naughty elf and more like a jolly Santa.

By the early nineteenth century, new traditions were taking Christmas from the street and the bottle to the home and the hearth. The indoor Christmas tree, first seen in 1605, became common. Gifts for children, at first a muted part of the holiday, became extravagant. And, of course, parents started telling tales of a certain St. Nicholas and his eight reindeer.

An 1852 book, noted by Flanders, illustrates the difference in two drawings (124–25). “Old Christmas Festivities” pictures a scene filled mostly with rowdy men eating, drinking, and dancing. A woman in the center looks coy as a man leans in for a kiss. A child in the corner works. Meanwhile, “The Christmas Tree,” depicting a more modern scene, shows us a room of mostly women and children, demure and adorable, surrounding an ornamented tree.

Superficially, the season of snug seems more amenable to Christian worship — at least, much more amenable than a drinking party. At the same time, its superficial resemblance to Christian values may present a different kind of danger. When the Christmas stage is filled with shepherds and cherubs, family and fun, stars and trees, we can forget to notice that the manger is still empty. Debauchery displays an “extreame forgetfulnesse” of Christ; so does vague cheer and general merriment.

As I recently reread Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella A Christmas Carol — a book that many claim “invented” our modern Christmas — I found myself needing to be on guard lest I reduce Christmas to mild church attendance, an inclination to charity, and a loving family around the fire. I do not mourn Scrooge’s transformation, of course, any more than I wish the Grinch’s heart had stayed two sizes too small. But I need reminding that goodwill without a good God means little, that a large heart without a large Christ remains too small to save.

No matter how jolly, a Christmas shorn of Christ offers gifts without a Giver, a feast without God’s favor, and cheer without the costly love of our incarnate Lord.

Packages, Boxes, and Bags

We have one more stop on our journey through Christmas history. We have seen the wild dancing; we have felt the glow of bright fires. And now, mingled with jingling bells and roasting chestnuts, we hear the ching of the cash register. The Christmas of the last century and a half, and the Christmas of today, is big business. Really big.

As we watch the Grinch undergo his own Scrooge-like conversion, he does not bring a mere Christmas goose to the Cratchits; he instead returns all the toys he had so despised — those tartookas and whohoopers, those gardookas and trumtookas. But we have come a long way even from the original Grinch, which appeared half a century ago. Then, the song of Whoville still rose above the toys as the real reason for the season. Today, the Grinch would hear much less singing and much more noise; he would see far less hand-clasping and far more controller-holding. Had he come to our towns, might his heart have remained the little prune it always was?

If Christians of old had to guard against Christmas debauchery, we have to guard against Christmas commercialism. Our holidays are not so much in danger of drunkenness as of December sales and the bustle of buying — “the commercial racket,” as C.S. Lewis called it (God in the Dock, 338).

Donald Heinz notes the subtle yet deeply deforming effect such a racket, coming at such a time, can have on God’s people. Engaging in mindless, Christmas commercialism “re-trains believers to act like consumers precisely when they are behaving religiously” (Christmas: Festival of Incarnation, 225). Here indeed is our threat: not that we would imagine toys and trinkets as the meaning of Christmas, but that the liturgies of the shopping mall would become enmeshed with the liturgies of worship, shaping us in ways we hardly recognize.

In reality, Christ and the commercial racket ever have been, and ever will be, at irreconcilable odds. The Lord we hail on Christmas morning was born and raised in poverty. He, more than anyone, warned against the dangers of wealth and the deceptive glitter of stuff. He told us that we cannot serve God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24); might we also remember on Christmas that we cannot celebrate both Christ and Amazon?

I have no broad cultural or political burden to “put Christ back in Christmas.” But as a worshiper of Jesus (and now especially as a father with a young family), I do have a burden to make Christ the blatant, unashamed, all-consuming center of our Christmas. The world will do what the world will do, but can we not witness to a different way?

Could We Cancel Christmas?

Witnessing well in the Christmas season will require some careful thought and planning. We may need to interrogate our received traditions (perhaps especially the commercial ones), asking if they actually say anything at all of Jesus. Upon investigation, we may find that many elements of our cultural Christmas can be grafted into a sincerely Christian approach to the holiday. Other elements, however, may need to be shoved back up the chimney.

As we consider what might stay and what might go, we would do well to remember the dominant note in the Bible’s version of the story: joyful, awestruck worship. “Glory to God in the highest!” the angels shouted from heaven (Luke 2:14). The shepherds, after witnessing the wonder with their own eyes, then “returned, glorifying and praising God” (Luke 2:20). Shortly after, Simeon and Anna lifted their voices heavenward at the sight of the infant Christ (Luke 2:28–32, 38). And whenever those wise men saw his star, “they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (Matthew 2:10).

Can we not, then, raise children who know that Christmas is more than a toy store under a tree? Can we not wrest the season back from the powers of a commercialized culture and find our deepest joy in that most precious gift, received without price? Can we not labor to make our homes and our hearts living Nativity scenes, where the presence of Jesus slows our hurried pace and satisfies our cravings for more?

If we give gifts, can we do so as an explicit expression of God’s generosity, and perhaps with a modesty that keeps the main Gift clear? If we decorate, can we not adorn our trees and homes as the Israelites of old wrote truth on their doorposts? And if we make merry, can we not also make plain, in both silent and spoken ways, that Jesus is Lord of the feast?

Perhaps more than all, can we not believe that the coming of Christ holds treasures of wonder we have barely begun to explore? Augustine leads us in Christmas worship: “Man’s Maker was made man, that he, ruler of the stars, might nurse at his mother’s breasts; the Bread might be hungry, the Fountain be thirsty, the Light sleep, the Way be tired from the journey” (Origins, 122) — and all so that sinners might be saved, the dead made alive.

We could not cancel Christmas if we tried, nor would most of us want to. But as secular carols fill the mall, and as the craze of commercialism tramples the season like a runaway sleigh, we do have the opportunity — indeed, the commission — to point the season’s lights in another direction: to God enfleshed, the Infinite as infant, I Am as Immanuel.

ABSTRACT: The Reformation disrupted the religious status quo of early sixteenth-century Europe when multitudes embraced the teachings of Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–1564). Their followers were respectively called Lutherans and the Reformed, the latter known also as Calvinists and Huguenots. The time seemed opportune for religious change. The kings of France had sought to weaken the control of the Roman Church; the nobility was disgruntled over the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and nourished a hidden hostility that needed only a spark to explode. Among the clergy were eminent prelates who desired reform and priests wearied by the hierarchy’s heavy yoke. Commoners still bearing the marks of feudalism saw little faith or virtue in the lives of the clergy. Yet no one foresaw the terrible combats and persecution that would soon rage with the arrival of reformation in France.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Stephen M. Davis (PhD, Columbia International University), elder at Grace Church in Philadelphia and author of two books on the French Reformation, to offer a brief history of the Huguenots.

Most Christians know of the Protestant Reformation that shook the European continent in the sixteenth century. Indeed, the aftershocks reverberate into the present whenever Protestant churches gather for worship around the world. Fewer people understand that what is cast as the Reformation is better understood as reformations, a series of interrelated movements that occurred throughout Europe.

Those reformations that led to established Protestant churches (such as in Germany, Switzerland, and England) generally receive greater attention. But other reforming movements are also part of this story. Concurrent with the reforming efforts of Martin Luther in the German states, a challenge to the status quo of the Catholic Church began in France, eventually becoming one of the most protracted and bloody struggles between Protestants and Catholics in the era of the reformations.

Igniting the Fire

There were attempts in the early 1500s to reform the Catholic Church from within. One of the most notable efforts took place under Marguerite, a French princess and later queen of Navarre (1492–1549), through her marriage to Henry d’Albret of Navarre. Influenced by the Christian humanism of Erasmus, Marguerite supported reform efforts in her beloved Catholic Church. She was the sister of King Francis I (1494–1547), the mother of Huguenot leader Jeanne d’Albret (1528–1572), and the grandmother of Huguenot warrior Henry of Navarre (1553–1610), who converted to Catholicism in 1593 to become King Henry IV, the first Bourbon king of France.

Marguerite belonged to a group of Catholics influenced by the Renaissance who adopted Reformation teachings yet remained loyal to the Catholic Church. A group called the Circle of Meaux, for example, was committed to preaching the gospel of justification by faith alone and opposed the veneration of the saints and the sale of indulgences. In 1521, the humanist scholar Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, one of the Circle’s members, translated the Gospels into French and distributed them throughout the countryside.

Marguerite established herself at Nérac, which became a refuge for those persecuted by the Catholic Church. Nicolas Cop, rector of the Sorbonne, was forced to flee Paris for Nérac in 1533 after his evangelical sermon on All Saints’ Day. John Calvin, who may have helped to prepare Cop’s sermon, fled with him and found refuge at Nérac with Lefèvre and others. Under their influence, the surrounding cities of Sainte-Foy-la Grande, Bergerac, Agen, Clairac, and finally La Rochelle were soon won over to the Reformed faith.1

Francis I continued his protection of Marguerite and the Circle of Meaux until the event known as the Affair of the Placards in October 1534. Posters denouncing the Catholic Mass were displayed publicly in several cities, and even on the door of Francis’s bedchamber. After this event, Francis consented to brutal measures to suppress the “heretics.”2 Around the mid-sixteenth century, those who followed the teachings of Calvin became known as Huguenots.

Who Were the Huguenots?

The origin and etymology of the designation Huguenot remains obscure and disputed by historians. According to Brachet, who provides seven suggestions, “It is not known whether [Huguenot] originated in central France or was imported from the Genevan frontier. No word has had more said and written about it.”3 The present consensus sees its origin in the Swiss-German word Eidgenossen, meaning the confederates, with a possible reference to a Genevan rebellion against the Duke of Savoy. The term was initially applied to Reformed believers in derision, and over time it entered into the vernacular. Those called Huguenots preferred the term Reformed (Réformés), and by the time of the French Revolution, they were commonly called French Protestants or Calvinists.

More important than the origin of the term, the Huguenots were confronted by the dilemma of reconciling two duties of obedience: their duty to the king of France as subjects and their duty to God as Christians. For direction on how to reconcile these duties, French Reformed believers routinely turned to Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, first published in Latin in 1536 with a dedication to King Francis I, and then published in French in 1541.4 In his chapter on civil government, Calvin treats at some length the duty of submission and obedience to governing authorities. He nuances his exhortations in reference to Acts 5:29, stating that obedience to governing authorities requires an exception so that “such obedience does not deter us from obedience to [God].”5

Between 1552 and 1554, Calvin went further in his Commentary on Acts of the Apostles, declaring that a king, prince, or magistrate who acts in a way that diminishes the glory of God becomes nothing more than an ordinary man and that “we do not violate the authority of the king when our religion obligates us to resist tyrannical edicts that forbid us to render to Christ and God the honor and worship of which they are worthy.”6 The 1559 definitive edition of the Institutes in Latin integrated the idea that an impious prince abolishes his power. Calvin’s disciple and successor, Theodore Beza, took a similar approach when he invoked the duties of lesser magistrates to resist princes acting against the purity of religion.

Before the early 1560s, the periodic repression Protestants experienced was moderate compared to the ferocious persecution of Reformed believers in England and the persecution of Lutherans in Germany. When the Wars of Religion broke out in 1562, French Protestants were able to ground their conception of obedience in a body of teaching that nevertheless contained some ambiguity. What was clear was the obligation to obey those in authority as long as they did not command disobedience to God.7

Failed Conspiracy

In 1559, the Huguenots established a confession of faith at their first national synod in Paris. In his Histoire Ecclésiastique, Beza reported the existence of 2,150 Reformed churches in the early 1560s, a number both disputed and repeated by many historians. Even if the number of churches was inflated to impress the Crown and gain official recognition, the number of Reformed believers reached its peak around this time, only to decline in the following decades through war, reconversion to Catholicism, and emigration.8

The Huguenots’ hope for an edict to obtain legal existence in the kingdom was dashed at the accidental death of King Henry II (1519–1559) during a jousting tournament. His son Francis II (1544–1560) succeeded him at the age of fifteen for a brief reign and came under the influence of members of the House of Guise, archenemies of Reformed believers. The Guise faction took control of the government and pushed Francis to refuse any compromise with his Reformed subjects. In effect, these initiatives provided the Huguenots with a political cause to exploit. Although the repression came from the king or his entourage, the Huguenots held his evil counselors responsible for the actions, and they considered the king a prisoner.

Seeing the king as a prisoner led to the failed Conspiracy of Amboise, led by Huguenot nobles, to kidnap King Francis II in March 1560. The ringleader of the conspiracy, Jean du Barry, was killed in the Château-Renault forest four days after the abortive attempt to remove the king from under the influence of the House of Guise. Barry’s body was taken to Amboise, hung on the gallows, cut into five pieces, and exhibited at the gates of the city. His co-conspirators were hunted down and massacred without due process, their bodies hung from the windows of the château.

Catherine de Médicis (1519–1589), widow of the defunct Henry II and now Queen Regent, was shocked by the savagery of the reprisals against the conspirators and realized that the unity of the kingdom was threatened.

Church and State at War

Beginning in 1560 with the reign of Charles IX (1550–1574), and under the influence of Catherine de Médicis, the monarchy led attempts toward confessional conciliation. Catherine wanted a moderate in government as an advocate for reconciliation and suggested that the king appoint Michel de L’Hospital, a former member of the Parlement of Paris. He became chancellor of France on May 6, 1560, and remained in this position until September 27, 1568, during the first (1562–1563) and second (1567–1568) wars of religion.9 Although L’Hospital never converted to the Reformed religion, he worked tirelessly for peace between competing confessions, preferring persuasion to constraint, and he advanced the concept of the separation of the state and religion to free the nation from unending religious conflicts.10

At the Estates-General11 in 1560, the chancellor affirmed his desire to relegate the terms Huguenots, papists, and Lutherans to the past and conserve only the name Christian. The Colloquy of Poissy in 1561, organized by Catherine de Médicis, presented the last opportunity for Catholics and Reformed believers to achieve mutual religious tolerance and national unity. Beza was present as Calvin’s representative, along with Reformed lay leaders. The outcome of the colloquy, however, demonstrated the incompatibility of the two faiths, particularly on the issue of the Eucharist.12

In 1562, L’Hospital prepared the Edict of January, which authorized Reformed worship for the first time under certain conditions.13 The edict offered a ray of hope to the brewing religious tension in France but was rejected by the Catholic Church because it contradicted the Council of Trent, which had anathematized so-called Protestant heresies.

Then, after the massacre of Huguenots gathered for worship in Vassy on March 1, 1562, war became inevitable. Louis de Bourbon raised an army and captured the cities of Orleans and Rouen, marking the beginning of the Wars of Religion. The massacre of Huguenots at Toulouse in May and the destruction of churches in Vendôme and Meaux further aggravated religious tensions. Once the Edict of Amboise on March 18, 1563, ended the first war of religion, the nation experienced a brief period of calm, and religious detainees were released. The edict tolerated freedom of conscience but did not grant freedom of religious worship.14

After the first war of religion, Catherine organized a vast expedition throughout France to save the kingdom from civil war. Catherine’s designs did not materialize. In 1567, after several years of simmering tensions, Bourbon again provided leadership for the military operations of Huguenot forces. In November, the Battle of Saint-Denis ended with a Huguenot defeat as well as the death of the commander of the royal army. The Peace of Longjumeau in March 1568 confirmed the Edict of Amboise, with some additional concessions made to Huguenot nobles to freely worship in their private dwellings.15 It too failed to secure a lasting peace, however, as another war broke out just a few months later in September.

Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

The third war of religion (1568–1570) ended with the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The treaty was negotiated by Catherine de Médicis and Jeanne d’Albret, who arranged a marriage between Catherine’s daughter Marguerite de Valois and Jeanne’s Protestant son Henry of Navarre. The marriage took place with great pomp on August 18, 1572.

Just four days later, however, on August 22, an attempt was made on the life of the Huguenot leader and military commander Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. Two days after that, while Coligny was convalescing, assassins murdered him and threw his lifeless body out a window. Thus began the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre, which radically modified the relations between the Huguenots and the king. With the suspected complicity of Charles IX and his mother Catherine, thousands of his Reformed subjects were murdered in Paris and the provinces during the three days of the massacre. The Catholic populations of many cities joined in the butchery “to extirpate the entire Protestant movement, root and branch.”16 Henry of Navarre was spared upon his promise to convert to Catholicism.

With the king’s determination to persecute the Huguenots, the former argument of manipulation by counselors was no longer valid. From now on, the king was seen as a tyrant who persecuted his subjects for their religion. The Huguenots therefore took up arms in active resistance against the sovereign himself. The Edict of Beaulieu in May 1576 under King Henry III ended the fifth war of religion and granted Huguenots the right to public worship. This resulted in the formation of the Catholic League in defense of the Catholic cause, led by Henry, Duke of Guise. When Francis, Duke of Anjou, died in 1584 during the reign of his brother Henry III, Henry of Navarre became the legitimate heir to the throne. The interests of the Huguenots turned to defending his right to the crown.17

Henry of Navarre had been raised in the Reformed faith after his mother’s public confession of faith on Christmas Day in 1560. Under his father’s influence, he converted to Catholicism in 1562, but then he returned to the Reformed confession after his father’s death that same year. Henry III outlawed the Reformed religion in July 1585, which invalidated Navarre’s succession to the crown.

During the years 1588 and 1589, Navarre multiplied military activity in Normandy and around Paris. He and Henry III drew closer after Henry’s rupture with the Catholic League and the assassination by the king’s bodyguard in 1588 of Henry of Guise, the leader of the Catholic League and lieutenant general of the king’s army. In turn, Henry III was assassinated at Saint-Cloud in August 1589 at the hands of a radical Dominican monk. Before his death, Henry III implored Navarre to convert to Catholicism and recognized him as his successor.18

Henry’s Compromise

Eventually, Henry of Navarre converted to Catholicism to end decades of bloodshed and exercise his claim to the throne. He was crowned Henry IV in 1594, and the Wars of Religion ended with the Edict of Nantes in 1598. The edict imposed religious coexistence, although Protestants did not obtain full religious freedom. The edict was more favorable to the Catholic Church, with Protestant worship authorized only in places where it existed in 1597. Royal texts until this time had referred to Protestantism as the new religion (nouvelle religion). In the preamble to the Edict of Nantes, they now belonged to the So-Called Reformed Religion (la religion prétendue réformée), with the king’s wish that these subjects would return to the true religion, now his own.19

Modern historians have generally lauded Henry IV for sacrificing his religious scruples and adopting the religion of the majority to end the interminable civil wars. One historian describes him as “cynical” who nonetheless “saved France from religious discord.”20

Henry IV survived multiple plots against his life before falling at the hand of a Catholic zealot on May 14, 1610. With his death, the Protestant cause lost its greatest protector, and his murder strengthened an absolute monarchy. The crime of lèse-majesté reinforced the will to elevate kings to a sacred and inviolable place, supporting the doctrine of divine right. The throne was placed so high that to disobey the king was tantamount to disobeying God. As a result, the slightest threat to kings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries led to ruthless repression.21

Desert Years

After Henry’s death in 1610, his son Louis XIII (1601–1643) undermined the Edict of Nantes. Throughout the seventeenth century, by bribes, forced conversions, and exile, the Huguenots were reduced in number and influence, and therefore also in their capacity to resist oppression. Louis XIV (1638–1715), Henry’s grandson, was led to believe that these efforts had reduced the number of Huguenots to the point where the Edict of Nantes was no longer needed. In reality, there were still around eight hundred thousand Protestants at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.22

When the edict was revoked, the Protestant religion was outlawed, pastors were ordered to either abjure their faith or leave the kingdom within fifteen days, and emigration for laypeople was forbidden under the pain of death, life sentence on the king’s galleys, or imprisonment. Despite the prohibition against emigrating, tens of thousands fled and found refuge in Protestant nations.23 According to some estimates, “nearly 150,000 refugees were to flee France by land and sea over the course of a decade, finding shelter in neighboring Protestant states from Germany to England.”24 Those who remained were subject to strict observance of the Catholic religion, though there was resistance to the king’s edict in regions of the kingdom where Huguenots were concentrated.

Thus began a period known as the “Church of the Desert,” as believers met clandestinely in remote areas. Lacking pastoral leadership, some self-appointed prophets arose and called for armed resistance. During the War of the Camisards (1702–1705) in the Cévennes region of southern France, peasant warriors held out against overwhelming odds and fought valiantly until they could no longer resist. Hundreds of villages were burned to the ground. After the rebellion was crushed, Reformed believers experienced persecution in varying degrees throughout the eighteenth century. Many faced forced conversions, confiscation of their lands, kidnapping of their children, life sentences on the king’s galleys for men, and life imprisonment for women who would not renounce their religion.

Repression of Protestantism continued until the Edict of Toleration in 1787 under Louis XVI (1754–1793), which granted civil rights to Protestants and ended state-sponsored persecution. The French Revolution in 1789 then overthrew the monarchy and the Catholic Church, with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette guillotined during the Reign of Terror in 1793. The Revolution ended when Napoleon Bonaparte seized power through a coup d’état in 1799. He imposed the Concordat with Rome in 1801 and the Organic Articles in 1802 to provide legal recognition for Protestantism and freedom of worship. Three confessions — Lutheran, Reformed, and later Jewish — were legally recognized and subsidized alongside the Catholic Church. The Huguenots were integrated into French society, and as religious liberty gained ground, their distinct identity as a persecuted minority faded.

Protestantism diversified in France during the nineteenth century as many Reformed churches divided over theological issues under the influence of Enlightenment rationalism. Then, in 1905, the Concordat was abrogated with the Law of Separation of Church and State. The law ended the conflict between monarchist and anticlerical political factions, the state declared neutrality in religious matters, and churches under the Concordat lost state subsidies.

Rich Heritage

Reformed Protestants in France no longer describe themselves as Huguenots. The term looks back to a specific period from the mid-sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. Those who use the word Huguenot today generally trace a genealogical connection to Huguenot ancestors who lived during the persecutions of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, when waves of Huguenots emigrated to places of refuge.

Some countries of refuge have societies composed of “descendants of the Huguenots (French Protestants) who escaped religious persecution in France.”25 There are also periodic gatherings in France to mark important dates in Huguenot history. The Museum of the Desert in France organizes an annual Protestant assembly to remember the intense period of persecution after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when Protestantism was outlawed and Protestants gathered illegally in secret.

Many Reformed churches in France would consider themselves spiritual descendants of the Huguenots and lay claim to a Calvinistic heritage, although with varying degrees of fidelity to sixteenth-century Reformed teachings. As an example of faithfulness to Reformation teachings, the Faculté Jean Calvin in Aix-en-Provence today serves French churches as an evangelical Calvinist establishment, with an emphasis on the grace of God and salvation in Jesus Christ.

The Huguenots have been mythologized and demonized; their exploits have been exaggerated and underestimated; they have been vilified and venerated. Some became Huguenots by religious conviction; others by political ambition. What is incontestable is that Huguenots embraced the Reformation teachings of Calvin, which made them enemies of the established church. We honor their memory when we remember their tragic and heroic history. We follow their example when we remain committed to the truth of God’s word in the face of religious or state opposition.

Audio Transcript

We’re into December already — crazy. As we approach the holiday season, Christmas, and the New Year, we’re focusing on Bible-study habits. Last week, we looked at how to study the Bible on one topic. That was episode 1998, a very practical episode where you, Pastor John, just walked us through how you do a word study on a single term or topic. It was simple, hands-on.

Coming up later this month, we’re going to look at the grammar of the Bible and the importance of that little word therefore. There are about five hundred of them, five hundred therefores in the New Testament. What does that term mean for us? What should we see? It’s another granular and super helpful Bible-study principle we need, and that’s coming on December 14. Then we look at why a daily Bible-reading habit is essential for us in 2024, for some motivation. That’s coming up on December 18.

And then we return after Christmas to look at a very common hindrance to the discipline. Inevitably, throughout the year, when my Bible reading seems flat — when I read, but my heart is dull — what should I do? What can I do? That’s on December 28. So, a big month ahead on Bible reading, all to hopefully equip and motivate us for a successful 2024.

Today we talk about learning — specifically, how to learn from the material world around us. Learning from “general revelation,” as it’s sometimes called. Pastor John, you have a new book out titled Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. By my count, this new book contains only the second time you’ve ever mentioned Proverbs 6:6 in a book project. The verse says, “Go to the ant.” Study the ants. Learn from the ants.

This text, Proverbs 6:6, was also in your earlier book Think. But in this new book, it shows up three times: in the intro and in chapters 1 and 5. From one angle, the new book reads as a wonderful celebration of what God is teaching us through nature. How does this new book relate to Think, your previous book? How is it different? And as you wrote this recent book, what did you learn as you put all the pieces together about how the Bible pushes us outside the Bible to learn? What struck you in a fresh way?

The book Think (which was published in 2010, the year after Bethlehem College & Seminary was founded, and acted as a kind of launching vision for the school) is a plea. The book is a plea, especially to Christians, to embrace serious thinking as a means of loving God and loving people.

It’s a plea to reject either-or thinking when it comes to head and heart, thinking and feeling, reason and faith, theology and doxology, mental labor and the ministry of loving hands. I don’t want anyone to choose between the two halves of each of those pairs. So, the book is a plea to see thinking as a God-ordained means of knowing and loving God.

I think when Jesus said in Matthew 22:37, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your . . . mind,” he did not mean that loving is the same as thinking, that simply by thinking right thoughts about God, we’re loving God. I don’t think that’s what he meant.

“Truth about God is like dry firewood that we throw into the furnace of our hearts.”

What I think he meant is that thinking, the right use of our minds, is a means to loving. Loving is the fire of admiration and affection and desire in the furnace of the heart, and thinking is how the fuel of knowledge is thrown like good dry firewood into that furnace. We use our minds to grasp the truth of God in Scripture, and that truth about God is like dry firewood that we throw into the furnace of our hearts, to set our hearts to burning with love for God. That’s Think.

Two Different Books

This new book, Foundations for Lifelong Learning, grows out of my experience as a pastor who spent a huge amount of my 33 years trying to use my mind to grasp the God-intended meaning of biblical texts. That’s what I did mainly. What I have found in teaching and preaching, and in all the mental labor that goes into both, is that the very habits of mind that I use when I come to the Scriptures are the same habits of mind that I use when I deal with any reality in the world.

Foundations for Lifelong Learning is an effort to shed light on those habits of mind as we use them in reading both of God’s books, so to speak. The word, the Bible — that’s one book. And the world — that’s the other book.

This way of talking about “two books” goes back at least to the Belgic Confession of 1561, which says, “We know [God] by two means: first, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book. . . . Secondly, He makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word.” That’s the Belgic Confession of 1561.

Same Six Habits

I have spent, I suppose, most of my life focusing my mind on the Bible and then trying to help others to see the greatness of the reality that I see through preaching and teaching and writing. I’ve tried to let the Bible itself inform how I approach the Bible. What has emerged over the last fifty years is that there are these six habits of mind (or mind and heart) that make up my approach to the Bible:

Observe carefully and thoroughly what’s there in the text.
Understand accurately what is observed. What does this text mean?
Evaluate fairly, truly, what has been understood. Is it a sweet and precious reality like God’s grace, or is it a horrible and fearful reality like hell?
Feel appropriate emotions in response to the kind of reality observed and understood and evaluated — emotions like love, fear, hope, joy, admiration, revulsion, peace, or desire.
Apply all of this in wisdom to situations and people for their good and for the glory of God. I have not handled the Scriptures rightly until I am moved to make them a means of love and worship. “Be doers of the word,” James said, “and not hearers only” (James 1:22).
Express in speech and writing all that has been observed and understood and evaluated and felt and applied, so that more and more people can share in what is seen.

That’s how I approach the Bible or texts in Scripture. And what you can see is that — at least, it became plain to me over the years — these very six habits of mind are the way God wills for us to deal with the world as well as the word.

Whether it’s politics or grass seed, coronavirus or computers, cars or clothing — whether you’re looking up at clouds or down at ants — these are the realities that we deal with every waking hour, sometimes even in our dreams. And these realities in the world, the Bible itself tells us to pay attention to them. Like at the end of Job, where God essentially says, “Look, Job. Look, and humble yourself.” Or in Psalm 1, or Romans 1. These realities in the world are to be handled with the same habits of mind and heart that I have used in dealing with Scripture all these years.

This has become increasingly clear to me, especially as I tried to articulate what we are trying to do at Bethlehem College & Seminary, which is the origin of this book. That’s what this new book draws attention to: observe the world thoroughly, understand the world accurately, evaluate the world truly, feel the world appropriately — and then apply all of this and express all of this with wisdom and power, for the good of others and for the glory of God.

Learning as Living

And you asked, Tony, what struck me in a fresh way as I was putting these pieces together. Here’s one answer to that question: I realized that the foundations for lifelong learning are also the foundations for lifelong living.

“Thinking, the right use of our minds, is a means to loving.”

In fact, I got to the end of the book and that’s what I wrote the conclusion about, because it was fresh to me. I didn’t start the book thinking that way. I started the book thinking, “I’m just going to talk about lifelong learning.” But these six habits of mind are a way of describing the Christian life. It’s just what we do as Christians because of who God is and what he made us to be.

We observe because that’s why God gave us physical senses and spiritual senses. We understand because that’s why God gave us minds. We evaluate because God revealed himself as the measure of all worth. We feel because that’s why God gave us emotions. We apply and express because God calls us to love. I’m not sure I had ever seen so clearly as I do now that the path of lifelong learning is the path of lifelong living.

According to recent surveys, over 90 percent of your neighbors plan to celebrate Christmas this year (at least if you live in America). They’re not likely to observe the Muslim Ramadan, the Hindu Diwali festival, or Buddhism’s holiest day of Vesak. But every year, 300 million Americans still choose to celebrate Christmas, despite 75% of them not being able to accurately explain what Christmas even means.

They will gather with friends and family. They will enjoy large meals and fancy parties. They will decorate trees, string lights, give generous gifts, and maybe join in for a carol or two. They might even be among the 50 percent of Americans who say they plan to attend a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day service (Pew). But for three out of every four Americans, it will be a hollow holiday, a Christless Christmas. Unless, of course, the other one of those four chooses to introduce them to the One who can make them whole and fill them with hope, peace, and joy.

At Christmas, Jesus “came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Will you join him and use one of the most useable times of the year to be part of Christ’s mission? The harvest is still plentiful, but are fewer and fewer Christians willing to work the Christmas fields and enjoy the Christmas harvest? Christ said, “Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest” (John 4:35).

Consider twelve ways we might sow and reap this Christmas.

1. Host

The holidays offer a myriad of opportunities to have people over to your home. You can invite others over for family meals, dinner parties, work parties, dessert gatherings, neighborhood functions, or school holiday celebrations. Christmas affords you the opportunity to gather for anything, whether secret Santa, ugly Christmas sweaters, or a good Christmas movie.

A Christian’s presence is powerful; our aroma is noticeable (2 Corinthians 2:14–16). God can spread the knowledge of himself to others through your marriage, your family culture, your decorations, your bookshelf, your artwork, your language, your countenance, your kindness, and most explicitly, your words.

2. Say Grace

As you host, consider how you might carry out some normal rhythms of your household, such as prayer before meals. Whether before a crowd or at your table, you could say something like, “Well, thank you for joining us and being our guests. Before the evening gets away from us (or before we start to eat), let me give thanks to God for you, this food, and this Christmas season.”

I cannot imagine a person balking at a prayer that asks for hope in life, requests help in sickness, and thanks God for the joy and love that come through Christ. Take opportunities to share the good news of the gospel through a Christmas prayer. And as you pray specifically for them, expect God to answer!

3. Personally Invite

Many of us have asked a friend or neighbor, “Would you like to come to our Christmas Eve service?” The emphasis of this question is on the event itself and their desire to attend. Consider asking instead, “Would you come with me to our Christmas Eve service?” The accent of this latter question is on the relationship, not the event, and their availability, not their desire.

Personally invite them — not text them — face-to-face with a card in hand to a Christmas Eve service with you, or to a Christmas dinner with you and other Christians, or to attend your child’s Christmas play with you. Connect the invite to you, not the event. Jesus invites us into relationship. When we say, “Would you come with me?” we use much of the same tone that Jesus did when he said, “Come and you will see” (John 1:39) and “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19).

4. Ask with Interest

One of the ways we display the mind of Christ is by taking notice of others (Philippians 2:3–8). Our questions, our genuine care, and our offer to pray with others in moments of fear, uncertainty, hurt, or joy destroy distant and lifeless views of God and help to communicate a warm, welcoming, safe, and intimately acquainted heavenly Father.

Ask someone if the Christmas season is one of pleasure or pain, or a mix of both. Are the holidays an easy time for them, or more difficult? Ask them what their childhood Christmas was like or if they have any lasting Christmas memories — good or bad. Christmas is a time to show how much God cares for them and about them.

5. Give Meaningfully

Can you think of a gift you might give to a neighbor or coworker or family member that communicates thoughtfulness because you remembered something this person said or did? Explain why you thought of him. Most often, the best gifts are personal. God gives that kind of gift. Consider giving an ornament, framing a picture, buying some artwork, purchasing a book, signing a Bible, or printing out a poem. Include a handwritten note with it. They may never forget it or ever part with it.

6. Respond Thoughtfully

Sometimes, asking thoughtful questions means we will get questions in return. “What are you doing for Christmas?” “What are your Christmas traditions?” “What will Christmas Eve or morning look like?” “How do you celebrate Christmas?” Be prepared to respond in turn or answer their questions too.

How will you talk about reading the Christmas story from the Bible? How will you speak of attending a Christmas service? How can you explain Jesse trees, advent wreaths, or Christmas nativities? Your responses can cut through the shallow cultural conceptions of Christmas and replace the hollowness with real, heavenly hope. Be ready to give the “reason for the hope that is in you” this Christmas (1 Peter 3:15).

7. Pray Faithfully

Consider praying every day between now and Christmas for one neighbor, coworker, family member, child, sibling, or parent. What might God do in you and in others during three weeks of concerted prayer? Prayer keeps friends and loved ones before God, but it also keeps them in your mind and then in your plans, as God establishes them (Proverbs 16:9). May this Christmas not become prayerless.

8. Share the Story

Christmas is often a particularly inviting time to share the gospel story. Tell others that God made us for relationship, our distrust and disobedience broke that relationship, Christ was born and died to restore that relationship for all who trust in him, and one day God’s people will be reunited with him in heaven and the new earth. Share the gospel story of the bad news, good news, and future news. It’s the best news!

9. Forgive Fully

You will inevitably be wronged or disrespected this Christmas by your spouse, kids, friends, coworkers, neighbors, or even strangers. When you are, you have two options: hold them hostage in your bitterness, or forgive them as you have been forgiven (Matthew 6:12). Every time you pray through the Lord’s Prayer, you ask to be forgiven as you have forgiven others. Don’t be a Christian Scrooge, but release all resentment into the loving hands of Jesus. Don’t just speak of forgiveness, but show it. When you do, others may see that they need it too.

10. Ask for Forgiveness

Apologizing and asking for forgiveness can point ahead to the gospel. The three sentences “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?” are powerful and rare. When uttered to another, we admit sinfulness and a need for grace. At Christmas, when you see your sin, own it, admit it, apologize for it, and ask for forgiveness. Those who ask may have never heard anyone apologize so sincerely. God may use our words as a model for them to pray, “Be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13).

11. Serve Selflessly

The Christmas story reminds us that Jesus “came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). If Jesus has served you so sacrificially, are you not freed from self and free to serve others? Serve by doing dishes, throwing away wrapping paper, baking goods, volunteering at a soup kitchen, or serving a family in need. Jesus came as a suffering servant, and we can reflect him by serving and alleviating suffering of all kinds.

12. Visit the Emergency Room on Christmas Eve

Jesus spent time with the suffering. He healed the bleeding woman, raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, offered assurance to the sinner, and restored ableness to the disabled. He reversed the effects of the curse wherever he traveled. No one wants to be in an emergency room on Christmas Eve. But what if caring believers went to provide a hand, hug, or prayer to see them through it?

Christmas is one of the most celebrated times of the year. May these twelve ways of Christmas give you ample opportunity to invite others into your celebration.

We have over two hundred pastors in this room, and if Barna’s recent report is accurate, then about 85 of you considered quitting in the last twelve months.

This past March, Barna’s survey on pastoral confidence and vocational satisfaction reported that 41 percent of the pastors they queried thought about walking away in the last year. That was down 1 percent from 2022, which was up 13 percent from 2021.

But most of us don’t need survey numbers to know that these last few years have been hard times to be a pastor and to endure in the challenges of pastoral ministry. And in such times, Philippians is a great choice for a pastors’ conference.

In particular, I love the pairing of “the epistle of joy” with this theme of endurance. Paul wrote while enduring incarceration, and he wrote to a church enduring opposition. And yet Philippians is known for radiating with joy. No other epistle, and maybe no other biblical book, shines so brightly with so many explicit mentions of joy and rejoicing and gladness in such short space. So we are set up very wisely and wonderfully for illuminating both this theme and this letter, and for learning to count the joys of ministry, not just the costs.

Unity, Humility, and Joy

Chapter 2 continues the focus on unity begun in Philippians 1:27, with exhortations to unity within the church (verses 1–2, 14–16), and humility in the soul (verses 3–4), and with four personal examples.

Verses 1–2 extend the charge to unity, and verses 3–4 commend humility as the channel to such unity. And the Philippians are not on their own to obey, but God himself is at work in them (verses 12–13) to humble themselves, and so, in the face of external opposition, to strive side by side for the gospel, not against each other.

For the Philippian church, opposition was not new. Acts 16 tells us how quickly persecution followed on the heels of the gospel first coming to Philippi. Paul cast the spirit out of a slave girl, and he and Silas were soon beaten with rods and imprisoned. What’s new, and newly threatening, is that Paul has heard of some emerging divisions inside this local church. So Paul, imprisoned again, now in Rome, writes with the burden that the Philippians freshly seek unity and humility, and follow four tangible examples of humble, joyful endurance.

Chapter 2 is wonderfully concrete with these four personal examples: Timothy and Epaphroditus in verses 19–30, and Christ himself in verses 5–11 — which is the heart of the chapter and the Christian faith. And it’s where we’ll focus in this session, and see not only that Jesus endured but ask how. And there’s a sneaky fourth personal example, Paul himself, in verse 17.

If we try to capture Paul’s essential structure in this chapter of exhortations and examples to a church newly encountering tensions within, perhaps it would go like this: pursue (1) unity in the gospel, (2) through humility in your minds, (3) learning foremost from Jesus’s enduring to the cross. So: unity in the gospel, through humility of mind, like Christ at the cross.

And since this is a pastors’ conference, let’s work through that sequence with our work as pastors in view. I don’t think Paul would begrudge this approach because he addressed this letter “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons” (Philippians 1:1). Overseers, plural. In the New Testament, “overseers” and “pastors” and “elders” are three titles for one office, the lead or teaching office — the office that is our common denominator in this conference.

So, let’s ask of chapter 2, How would the pastors in Philippi have received Paul’s letter to the church? And what might be our calling, as pastors today, related to congregational unity and personal humility and the work and example of Christ in helping our local churches obey Paul’s letter?

From that perspective, then, consider the call to pastoral endurance here in Philippians 2 with its key and its incentives.

1. The Call: Lead our people into unity in the gospel.

The specific unity in view is local-church unity. The focus here is not elder teams, or large denominations, or evangelicalism at large, but the particular congregation in Philippi, and your particular congregation.

And that qualifier — “in the gospel” — is critical. We have stated terms on which to maintain and seek unity. Verses 1–2:

If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

And remember what Paul has just written in Philippians 1:27: “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” This is not simple unity, or general unity, or undefined unity, no matter the cause. This is unity in the gospel — the unity of striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. This unity is not just getting along without conflict, but unity in the gospel, on gospel terms.

So, given the qualification, it’s good for us doctrinal, theological types to pause and appreciate that unity in the local church matters. Paul values it, and means for us to value it. When the whole church maintains and enjoys Christian unity, with the pastors leading the way, it serves both the endurance and health of believers and the evangelism and conversion of unbelievers. Gospel advance is the context in which Paul calls for gospel unity.

The reason to say maintain is that unity in the gospel isn’t first something we produce. First, God gives it. That’s why Paul talks in Ephesians 4 about maintaining unity: he says, “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, [be] eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:2–3). God gives us, as his church, unity in knowing his Son, believing his gospel, and having his Spirit.

Then we, eager to maintain it, beware incursions into it — however big or small; doctrinal or ethical; what we believe about God, his world, and his gospel; how we’re influenced and shaped by unbelieving society (especially through our devices); and how we treat each other in everyday life.

Pastor — and Peacemaker

And we, as pastors, have a requirement for our office that helps us in the work of leading the charge for gospel unity in the local church. Pastor-elder-overseers, says 1 Timothy 3:3, are to be “peaceable” or “not quarrelsome” (ESV), or “not a brawler” (KJV; Greek amachon). In pastoral ministry, unity, not conflict, is our long game. We’re not angling for conflict. We angle for real peace and unity in the gospel. Our calling is not to spoil the peace, but to pursue true peace, even when it requires tension and conflict to get there.

At heart, pastors are peacemakers, not troublemakers. And we sometimes (if not often) discover trouble that regretfully requires more trouble, in order to pursue true unity and, in the end, have less trouble. But we don’t delight in trouble. Nor do we seek to add unnecessary trouble to the sad amount of necessary trouble we already have in this age. Rather, we delight to be unified in the gospel — and unity in the gospel is precious enough that we’re willing to endure intermediate tensions and conflicts along the path to peace and unity.

Which presents us as pastors with countless needs and challenges for wisdom. We need to know when to handle challenges to gospel unity with one-time private conversations, and when to give trouble more extended private attention, and when to address trouble with public attention in some form, as in a sermon or sermon series, or in a letter, or at church meetings.

In other words, how much attention do we give to error and for how long? These are some of the most difficult challenges in pastoral ministry. And this is why plurality in leadership is so important and precious. Alone, none of us makes such decisions perfectly, and perhaps not even very well. We need a team of brothers to help discern what challenges in our own congregation to unity in the gospel are worthy of our attention, and not, and how much attention, and for how long.

And is this unity uniformity? Twice verse 2 says to be “of the same mind” and “of one mind.” We might call it like-mindedness, a shared perspective or cast of mind. It doesn’t mean sameness, that everybody believes all the same things about all the same things, but that at the heart, and in the end, there is a like-mindedness in what matters most — in getting the gospel right and longing for it to advance.

So, we are not afraid of relational tensions in ministry, and we check ourselves to make sure that our part in those tensions is owing to the long game of unity, not division, and especially those divisions that stem from selfish ambition and conceit.

Which leads us to verses 3–4 and humility, which is set in contrast to conceit.

2. The Key: Lead our people in humility of mind.

In other words, we aim to serve the church’s needs, not the pastors’ preferences. Paul’s call to unity from Philippians 1:27–2:2 leads to the focus on humility in 2:3 and following.

Humility is far more conducive to real unity than pride and arrogance. Pride may lead to semblances of unity for a while, but in time, pride will produce division. And humility will at times lead to awkward moments and seasons of necessary conflict, but in the end, humility tends toward, and is essential for, true and lasting unity. Much division in churches stems from pride — selfish ambition and empty conceit. And often the first practical step toward addressing division in local churches is individual Christians coming to humble themselves. So, verses 3–4:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Verses 3–4 are the key exhortations in the chapter, leading into verse 5 and the example of Christ. And as pastors, these are charges not just to teach to our congregations, but first to apply to ourselves and model.

“Brothers, let’s not wait till we’re on the brink of quitting to count the joys.”

The idea of humility as looking to the interests of others holds this chapter together from Jesus, to Paul, to Timothy and Epaphroditus. Though he was sick and almost died, Epaphroditus, says verse 26, “has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.” And Paul says of Timothy in verse 20 that he “will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.” Then verse 21, most strikingly: Timothy will not seek his own interests, but those of Jesus Christ.

Verse 4 calls it “the interests of others,” and verse 21 calls it “those of Jesus Christ.” There’s a good caution for us here in how to understand the terms of verses 3–4. Counting others more significant than ourselves does not mean catering to their whims. Looking to the interests of others does not mean letting their desires, however sinful, set the terms for how they will be loved by us or not. Rather, the terms are clarified, and sanctified, in verse 21: the interests of Jesus Christ. The interests of others to which we look, in humility, are those that correspond to, and are not in contradiction to, the interests of Jesus, as revealed in Scripture.

Why ‘the Mind’?

But why the emphasis on “the mind”? I said this key was to lead our people in humility of mind. The reason for emphasizing the mind is that Paul talks about unity “of mind” in verses 2 and 5, and then twice talks about “counting” or “reckoning” or “considering”:

Verse 3: “In humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
Verse 6: Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.”

It’s the same verb in verses 3 and 6. Paul is telling the Philippians, and us, to do what Jesus did. He counted. He reckoned. He regarded. He considered. This involves thought, making calculations and valuations. It requires the use of the mind that serves the forming and shaping of the heart, which then issues in choices and behaviors.

And how we think about ourselves, and others (in our own minds and hearts), really matters. It is critical to actually being humble and not just putting on an external pretense of humility. Humility grows first in the quiet, unseen place of our own thinking and feeling. It is the product of habitual thoughts about ourselves and others that are humble or conceited, loving or selfish.

And this is first and foremost for us as pastors. One danger in ministry is that we quietly, subtly, inconspicuously come to count ourselves as more important, gifted, necessary, respected. Leadership comes with privileges. I deserve them, so we might begin to think. How good a preacher I’ve become. Or what great leadership instincts I have. How many years I’ve put in for these people.

Slowly, over time, pastors can begin to count ourselves more significant than our congregants. We’d never verbalize it that way, but in our own patterns of thought our minds and hearts develop those instincts. And ministry decisions begin to serve our preferences, rather than the true needs of the congregation — which are often at odds with our preferences.

When we come to forks in the road in pastoral leadership, sometimes (if not often) the truly loving, humble course of action for us as pastors is the more personally costly path — more work, more study, more care, more double-checking, more conversations, more patience, more teaching, more time. But the reason we are pastors, and the reason we sit together at the table making week-in and week-out decisions for the church, is not to cater the church’s life to our comforts and ease, but to discern and seek to meet the church’s needs.

In other words, we are workers for the joy of our people. That’s how Paul talks in 2 Corinthians 1:24: “Not that we [leaders] lord it over your faith [that is, to our convenience and private benefit], but we work with you for your joy.” And serving the church’s needs, putting the church’s joy foremost in our counting, is often the harder, more costly avenue for the pastors — but not joyless. In fact, in the end, more joyful. But in the meantime, less convenient.

So, our call is to endure in leading our people into unity in the gospel, and the key is to lead, through our teaching and modeling, in humility.

3. The Incentives: Lead our people to count like Jesus.

And now the focus is especially on how to endure in ministry — that is, to endure in our work as Jesus endured. And how did he endure?

Now, Philippians 2 does not mention explicitly the joy of Jesus. Verses 5–8 put Jesus’s endurance in terms of self-humbling. But what in the world are verses 9–11 doing here? Incentivizing our self-humbling with what incentivized Jesus’s self-humbling.

We have in this famous Christ hymn something like six stanzas, each with three lines. The first three stanzas capture the increasing degrees of Christ’s self-humbling descent:

[1] [Being] in the form of God,[he] did not count equality with Goda thing to be grasped,

[2] but [he] emptied himself,by taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men.

[3] And being found in human form,he humbled himself bybecoming obedient to the point of death . . . (Philippians 2:6–8)

Then, the last three stanzas, which we’ll come to, capture the heights of his incentivizing, rewarding exaltation.

But in the very middle, Paul breaks the three-line pattern and includes one extra line that is conspicuously out of place at the very heart of the hymn: “even death on a cross.” And the stray line is all the more arresting because it ends with an obscenity.

In the first century, the cross was known to be so horrific, so gruesome, so shameful that it was not a topic of polite conversation. The Latin crux, the Greek stauros, pained the ears and imaginations of the dignified.

Think of all the trials Jesus faced, of all his needs for endurance. He endured decades in obscurity, rejection from his hometown, spiritual dullness and unbelief in his own disciples, opposition from religious (Pharisees) and political (Sadducees) leaders, carnal and fickle masses, one of his own betraying him, another denying him, all his men fleeing, being unjustly accused, tried, and condemned, flogged, reviled, mocked, blasphemed — and worst of all, the suffering and shame of crucifixion.

How did Jesus endure this, of all things? How did he keep going? How did he humble himself and obey to the point of death, even death on a cross?

In a similar passage, Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross.” So, joy, yes — but I want to know more. Specifically, what joy could that have been? What reward could have been valuable enough in his reckoning, in his counting, to pull him forward to finish this race, with the very emblem of suffering and shame standing in the way?

What foretaste of joy, or joys, could endure the cross?

The Gospel of John gives us the best glimpse into his mind as he readied himself for the cross and counted not only the costs, but the joys. Two particular sections speak to the substance and shades of his joy as he owned and embraced the cross in the hours leading up to his sacrifice.

John 12

The first section is John 12:27–33, not long after Jesus’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Previously, Jesus (and John) had said “his hour had not yet come” (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20). Now he owns that it has:

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” (John 12:27–28)

Here we find a first source of his joy: the glory of his Father. When Jesus owns the arrival of his hour, and need to endure, this is the first motivation he vocalizes. He had lived to his Father’s glory, not his own (John 8:50), and now, as the cross fast approaches, he prays first for this, and receives the affirmation of an immediate answer from heaven: “I have glorified it [in your life], and I will glorify it again [in and through your death, even death on a cross].”

Next comes a second joy: what the cross will achieve over the ancient foe. John 12:31: “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” Satan, whom Paul would call “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), would be decisively unseated as “ruler of this world,” and Jesus would experience the joy of unseating him, and being his Father’s instrument to disarm “the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15) at the cross.

Jesus mentions a third joy in John 12:32: the saving of his people. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He would be lifted up from the earth — which first meant being lifted up to the cross, as John immediately adds (John 12:33). Make no mistake, in the “joy that was set before him” was the joy of love. He had come to save (John 12:47), and on that Thursday night, he would wash his disciples’ feet to show them the love that, in real measure, sent him to the cross. John 13:1: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

John 17

The second passage is Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer in John 17. On the very night when he gave himself into custody, he echoes two of the joys already introduced, and adds one further “joy that was set before him” that brings us back to Hebrews 12 and, with it, Philippians 2.

First, Jesus prays explicitly about sharing his own joy, and that (again) as an expression of his love for disciples. John 17:13: “These things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” Jesus’s joy — deep enough, thick enough, rich enough to carry him to and through the cross — will not only be his, but he will put it in his people, through both his words and sacrificial work, that they too might endure. John 15:11: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” This is love: it was his joy to share his joy to increase their joy.

Second, Jesus also prays in John 17 in anticipation of his Father’s glory. He recalls that his life has been devoted to his Father’s glory, to making known his name (John 17:4, 6, 26). But now, in the consecration of prayer, and on his final evening before the cross, he prays, third, for his own exaltation:

Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. . . . Now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:1, 5; see also verse 24)

Misunderstand the holiness of Christ, and this moment, and we will misunderstand this culminating joy: returning to his Father, and being seated, as the God-man, with his work accomplished, on the throne of the universe. The joy of being enthroned in heaven — glorified — at the right hand of his Father, will not come any other way than through, and because of, the cross. And his exaltation and enthronement will mean not only personal honor but personal nearness (“in your own presence” and “with you” in John 17:5). “At the right hand” is the seat of both honor and proximity to his Father. Jesus wanted not only to have heaven’s throne but again to have his Father.

And this coming exaltation, with its nearness, is the particular joy that Hebrews 12:2 points to, like Philippians 2: “For the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Joy Will Have the Last Word

Which brings us back to the epistle of joy. As Paul’s hymn says, Jesus endured the cross, and therefore God “highly exalted him.” Jesus endured by looking to the reward — that is, through joy. He counted the joys — his Father’s glory, his people’s good, his enemy’s defeat, and his own exaltation and nearness to his Father, which the final three stanzas of the Christ hymn celebrate:

[4] Therefore God has highly exalted himand bestowed on him the namethat is above every name,

[5] so that at the name of Jesusevery knee should bow,in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

[6] and every tongue confessthat Jesus Christ is Lord,to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9–11)

So, weary pastors, “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Hebrews 12:3–4).

And let’s learn to count the joys like Jesus. We can hardly rehearse too often that the glory of Christ is our great goal and great joy. What a calling we have in him, as we lead our little churches in the cosmic victory, crushing Satan underneath our feet. And we pastors, as workers for the joy of our people, enrich our joy (not impoverish it) by folding others deeper into the joy we have in Jesus.

The day is coming when the many sacrifices and challenges and costs and self-humblings of pastoral ministry will be done. Brothers, on that day, “when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4).

Then the frustrations and discouragements of ministry in this age will feed our unending joy. At last, we will see how our trials and setbacks have been setups for eternal glory. And the church — of which we are part, and for which we have labored — will be finally perfected, in perfect unity, a bride holy and without blemish, presented to Christ in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

Final unity will come. Division and threats will be no more. And every hard step along the path of pastoral endurance will be swallowed up in peace, and glory, and joy beyond our best imagining.

Brothers, let’s not wait till we’re on the brink of quitting to count the joys.

Today marks the first of four Sundays traditionally celebrated by the church as the season of Advent. And with live nativity displays, Christmas plays, and Advent calendars you’d be forgiven if you thought that Advent was only about the birth of Jesus.

But there’s more to Advent than the Bethlehem stable. Historically, the church has focused as much on anticipating the return of our glorious King as celebrating his birth. By examining the history of Advent, we recover this season’s neglected meaning.

Easter First

The earliest church centered its liturgical calendar around Easter. In fact, little evidence exists for the celebration of Jesus’s nativity during the first two centuries of church history. The New Testament, after all, discloses little detail concerning the time of Jesus’s birth. Of the Gospels, only Luke’s narrative hints at a time of year: lambing season in early winter when shepherds would have needed to keep watch over their flocks (Luke 2:8).

Where the Scriptures were silent, early Christian authors were too. There is no mention of birth celebrations in Christian writings from the first and second centuries.1 The earliest church, instead, focused on what the New Testament described with great detail — the final days of Jesus the Messiah. 2 For this reason, the celebration of Easter at the time of the Jewish Passover was the primary focus of Christian practice from the earliest days of the church — a celebration Paul implies in 1 Corinthians 5:7–8.

Despite the absence of Christmas celebration, by the end of the second century there was significant interest in determining a date for Jesus’s birth. This interest probably reflects the church’s apologetic emphasis on Jesus’s physical birth in the face of those who were skeptical of his full humanity. While there was vigorous debate around possible dates, by the early fourth century consensus emerged around two likely candidates: December 25 and January 6.3 Over time, the former became the traditional celebration of Christmas and the latter the celebration of Epiphany.4

From Easter to Christmas

But why December 25? Based on their understanding of Daniel’s prophecy, some early Christian writers reasoned that Jesus was conceived on the same day that he was later crucified. Tertullian (ca. 155–220) calculated that Jesus was crucified on the 14th of Nisan, the equivalent of March 25 on the Roman (solar) calendar — exactly nine months before December 25.5 Christians, therefore, reckoned the date of Christmas from their observance of Easter. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) relayed this understanding in On the Trinity: “He is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also He suffered . . . but He was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”6

That Jesus was conceived on the same day he would eventually give up his life may at first seem unlikely. But consider, as the early church did, the equal unlikelihood that the Messiah’s propitiatory death would exactly coincide with the celebration of Passover.7 As Peter confessed, all events, whether seemingly inconsiderable or inestimably significant, are guided by God’s “definite plan and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). His works in creation and his ways in history are beautiful and symmetrical (Psalm 18:30; Isaiah 46:10).

From Christmas to Advent

The precise origins of Advent celebrations are more difficult to determine. By the middle of the fourth century, celebrations of Jesus’s birth on December 25 in the West were increasingly common. A longer period of celebration like that of Lent (the period of fasting and reflection preceding Easter) soon developed around it. In 380, the church council in Saragossa set apart three weeks in December, culminating in the celebration of Epiphany.

So also, the church in Rome began formalizing Advent observances. The Gelasian Sacramentary of the late fourth century includes liturgies for five Sundays leading up to Christmas. By the mid-sixth century, bishops in France had proclaimed a fast on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from November 11 until Christmas Day.8 Pope Gregory I (540–604; also known as Gregory the Great) further developed the Advent liturgies by composing prayers, songs, readings, and responses for congregational worship. Over the next century, these practices spread to England. Finally, around the turn of the millennium, Gregory VII (1015–1085) standardized the four Sundays leading up to December 25 as the period of Advent.

Advent’s Neglected Meaning

Despite the challenge of tracing Advent’s origin, two things are historically clear about the celebration itself. First, in contrast to Lent (a somber season of fasting, reflection, and meditation on the suffering of Christ), the weeks leading up to Christmas were full of jubilance and festivity. In Advent, the church looked back to celebrate the incarnation as the fulfillment of God’s promise to deliver his people from sin, Satan, and death (Genesis 3:15). The church rejoiced with the apostle John, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Advent celebrations often concluded with baptisms and highlighted new life and union with the incarnate Christ.

What is often neglected, however, is that Advent celebrations also looked to the future. The term “advent” (Latin, adventus) translates the Greek parousia, a word that in the New Testament always speaks of the Messiah’s second coming. Advent looks forward to the final realization of all that Jesus’s incarnation at Christmas put into motion. For this reason, instead of the Gospels’ birth narratives, Advent sermons often centered on eschatological passages (like Luke 21:25–36 and Matthew 24:37–44) or on the Triumphal Entry (Matthew 21:1–9) as a joyful anticipation of Jesus’s victorious second coming. Leo I (400–461) reminded his congregation that Christmas looked both backward and forward:

Hence because we are born for the present and reborn for the future, let us not give ourselves up to temporal goods, but to eternal: and in order that we may behold our hope nearer, let us think on what the Divine Grace has bestowed on our nature on the very occasion when we celebrate the mystery of the Lord’s birthday. Let us hear the Apostle, saying: “for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. But when Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory” who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Ghost for ever and ever. Amen.9

Songs of the Second Coming

This future orientation was reflected not only in sermons, but also in song. In the sixth century, a series of seven Advent songs emerged, one for each day of the week leading up to Christmas. Called the Great Antiphons (or the “O” Antiphons), each expresses longing for the Messiah’s return:

O Key of David and scepter of the House of Israel;you open and no one can shut;you shut and no one can open:Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

This rich tradition of looking back and looking forward has been passed on to Reformed Protestant denominations. In the Book of Common Prayer (1549), Thomas Cranmer (1489–1555) used material from the Gelasian Sacramentary and the writings of Gregory the Great to develop Advent liturgies reflecting on both Christ’s nativity and his second coming. While many contemporary services focus on themes of hope, joy, peace, and love, Cranmer’s Advent liturgies are primarily focused on Christ’s future appearing.10

We may neglect Advent’s future-orientation in our contemporary celebration, but, intriguingly, the theme of Jesus’s second coming runs deep in our favorite Christmas carols. Isaac Watts’s (1674–1748) “Joy to the World” celebrates Jesus’s glorious return and his future kingdom where sin and sorrow are no more (Revelation 21:4):

Joy to the world! the Savior reigns;Let men their songs employ;While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plainsRepeat the sounding joy,Repeat the sounding joy,Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,Nor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make his blessings flowFar as the curse is found,Far as the curse is found,Far as, far as the curse is found.

Finally, consider John Mason Neale and Henry Coffin’s “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” a translation of the ancient Great Antiphons:

O come, Thou Key of David, comeAnd open wide our heavenly home;Make safe the way that leads on high,And close the path to misery.Rejoice! Rejoice! EmmanuelShall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations, bindAll peoples in one heart and mind;Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease;Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.Rejoice! Rejoice! EmmanuelShall come to thee, O Israel.

History illuminates the richness of Advent’s celebration and anticipation. And one practical way of recovering the deep joy of this future-oriented season might just be to believe what we sing.

December is the darkest month. January may be coldest (at least here in the northern hemisphere), but December has the winter solstice, least daylight, and most nighttime hours. Without a fresh layer of snow to reflect the moon and stars, December is as dark as it gets. This makes it both a surprising and wonderful time for the light of Christmas — and for the season of waiting we call Advent.

From now until December 21, the days will grow shorter, and we’ll be waiting with increasing expectation for the light to return and grow brighter. Advent itself is a season of waiting, and an ancient invitation to slow down (during the month that has become the busiest of the year). The season bids us to mark the days and make them count, to relearn a pace of life that is more unhurried (and more human) in the midst of December’s consumer chaos.

Advent invites us to wait for Christmas with patience and hope, and to be ready, when Christmas finally arrives, so that we’re not caught off guard, but actually enjoy the great feast.

Short and Sweet

The English “Advent,” from the Latin adventus, means “arrival” or “coming.” The advent in view each December is the first coming of Jesus, and with it, his promise to come a second time. Advent begins the fourth Sunday before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve.

Each year, in our season of waiting to rehearse the arrival of God himself in human flesh, Christians remember the people of faith who waited centuries — not months and years but centuries! — for the coming of God’s promised Messiah. They had God’s precious promises: a seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15; Romans 16:20), a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18; Acts 3:22; 7:37), a priest who would surpass the first-covenant order (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 5:4–6; 7:11–17), a son of King David and heir to his throne (Isaiah 9:7; Matthew 1:1; 22:42) who would be greater than David, as his Lord (Psalm 110:1). For centuries, God’s people waited. And they “did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us” (Hebrews 11:39–40).

Now we live, with fantastic privilege, in the era of the Messiah. Christ has come as the climax of history and revealed the Godhead and his gracious purposes. It is good for us, though, to rehearse the patient waiting and anticipation of God’s ancient people, to renew and deepen our appreciation of what we now have in him. And like them, to wait for the advent that is to come.

Baby Steps for Jesus

To be clear, the risen Christ, Lord of the church, has not mandated that we celebrate Advent. Or Christmas, or Easter, for that matter. Observing Advent, or any other season or calendar square, does not secure (or keep us in) God’s favor (see Galatians 4:10–11; Colossians 2:16–17). Christ has finished that work, and through his Spirit, we are joined to him, receiving the Father’s full acceptance by faith alone.

Advent, then, is an opportunity, not an obligation — an occasion to make much of Jesus. Here at the outset of another December, we might consider three concentric circles in which to take up some modest initiative to point ourselves and others to Christ.

And if I may, let me emphasize modesty. New seasons can bring the temptation to endeavor more than we can realistically sustain. Wisdom often chooses small but significant beginnings that ultimately add up, day by day, to a more Christward, worshipful Advent.

In Our Own Hearts

First, ask about your own soul. How might this new and brief season be an opportunity to tend to your own heart and faith? The length of Advent makes it ideal for habit formation. Ask how you might seek to warm your soul during the darkness of December. What fresh initiative might you take in personal devotions or your spiritual habits to both quiet your soul in all the noise, and lead you into a new year, with spiritual buoyancy rather than discouragement?

You might lay out some Advent reading (and meditation) plan in Scripture — in the birth narratives of the Gospels, or in Isaiah (the great Christmas prophet), or working through the minor prophets, or even the book of Revelation. This time of year, many reach for Advent devotional books (two options from Desiring God are Good News of Great Joy and The Christmas We Didn’t Expect). You might identify certain passages of Scripture to memorize and meditate on. Or you could ask yourself, Has some particular means of God’s grace been absent from my life in recent months? Consider fasting or renewed practices in prayer or local-church fellowship.

In Our Families and Churches

Moving out from our own hearts and private practices, ask how you might draw others into the joy of waiting well for Christmas. Special Advent plans for family devotions have been a favorite of ours over the years (including the very spiritual use of chocolates for the kids). Long readings can be a challenge with small children. One idea for young families is to plan for one particular Advent verse (or short passage) for each day, with a brief, heartfelt explanation from mom or dad. Without small children, you can aim higher (yet remember the wisdom in small beginnings).

Beyond family devotions, consider other Advent traditions, whether adjusting old practices or starting new ones, to bring Christ-intentionality to the season. One we’ve enjoyed now for many years is trying to make the most of a social custom, the family Christmas card. Each year, we strive not only to send a new family picture and give updates on the kids, but also to say something clear and compelling about Jesus.

As for church families, pastors and elders might think how to make Advent special in the rhythms of our fellowship. I know an old pastor who wrote Advent poems for each Sunday in December. It was a labor of love for 27 years. Many churches do Advent candles with special readings or set apart those weeks for an Advent sermon series. Many do Christmas concerts and extended worship in song. Some keep largely to the minor chords and Advent mood of waiting up until Christmas Eve, and then bring in the bright, major chords of the Christmas season from December 25 to January 6.

In Our World

Wonderful as it may be to warm our own hearts at the fires of Advent, we find an outward impulse at the very heart of that first Advent.

Advent marks the greatest missionary act in history: God himself, in Christ, came into our world to dwell among us and save us from our sins. Heaven forbid, then, that we keep all the warmth of Advent indoors and to ourselves. There is no better time than Advent and Christmas to speak boldly of Christ’s love and seek to show it through acts of love.

Each December we see our world convulse in the irrationalism of sin. Remarkably, the secular world both stops for Christmas, like no other day of the year, and at the same time tries so hard to paper over Christ with Santa and reindeer. Advent is a call to take a risk and speak into the tension. Pull back the curtain. Make the pinprick of light into a beam.

Another Lost Opportunity?

Scottish theologian Donald Macleod, who died this year, once lamented,

Every year the world — and the church — experiences Christmas, that curious amalgam of paganism, commercialism, and Christianity which Western civilization has invented to tide it over the darkest days of the winter. Christmas is a lost opportunity, a time when the world invites the Church to speak and she blushes, smiles, and mutters a few banalities with which the world is already perfectly familiar from its own stock of clichés and nursery rhymes. (From Glory to Golgotha, 9)

What surprising word might you speak, or act of generosity might you take, toward unbelieving neighbors and family and coworkers? Might Advent be an occasion, and excuse, to take the potentially awkward initiative for Jesus you’ve been wanting to take all year? Perhaps your words and faith-inspired efforts will prove to be their turning, from darkness to light.

May the opportunity not be lost on us this year. Make this Advent your invitation to make much of Jesus in your own heart, in your home, with your church, and in our world.

Part 12 Episode 169 Human depravity reveals itself when people sin, and when they urge others to do the same. In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper turns to Romans 1:28–32 to give us hope in the face of all the depravity around us.

I’d like to walk with you through the pages of a fairy tale about friendship and loss, shadows and beauty. You’ll know if you want to accept this invitation by considering the following moments of companionship, moments when I felt the extraordinary break into the ordinary.

We sat together on the roof shoulder to shoulder, talking about everything and nothing, just a bit giddy with being together. Then the wind picked up, blowing with the sunshine through her hair. Wisps of soft brown fell across her face. Suddenly, she was no longer just a girl from my school. She came from a realm beyond, from beauty and mystery. I was, and remain, entranced.

One late afternoon, I sat on the shore with a new acquaintance. Looking at the ocean, our conversation lengthened beyond expectation. The moon rose. Suddenly, he said, “Okay, this is what I really believe.” And when he finished, I said, astonished, “Really? Me too.” No filters. No hiding. Just the sense, “I know you — as if I always had. No matter what, now I know you, and you know me.” Years later, despite many spats and reunions, our conversation still pierces me with a sense of what heavenly communion will be.

Near nightfall, I looked up into the slowly darkening summer sky. Two birds, wing to wing, flew westward, chasing the sunset. They were together. But together they were alone against the dark, hurrying to catch the light. With a heart stab, I thought, That’s us, my love: flying together, trying to beat the darkness and make the day stay. We will fly as fast and long as we can, seeking home. The night will come, but it will last only until final dawn.

These earthly tastes of aching beauty in companionship come from somewhere else, from the place we most want to be. That’s the essence of George MacDonald’s 1867 fairy tale The Golden Key, along with all his other fairy tales. They are not allegories, but they evoke an awareness of a realm beyond the ordinary. They are not specifically Christian, but they are an on-ramp to God’s great story of recreating the world in Christ. C.S Lewis reflected that, while he was still an atheist, a MacDonald novel prepared him to receive the gospel as it “baptized” his imagination.

For many, MacDonald piques the longing for the Otherworld so profoundly that, after reading one of his stories, we feel as if our whole life points toward the quest to reach it. So let’s move into The Golden Key, considering three aspects of the story.

Companionship in Quest

Independently, two children find their way into a forest that is part of Fairyland. The girl, Tangle, comes to a cottage in the woods. There she is welcomed by a beautiful, ancient woman. The lady, who wishes to be known only as Grandmother, gently tends the “tangles” of neglect the girl has known.

Meanwhile, the boy, Mossy, has followed a sunset gleam of light into these same woods. There he finds a golden key lying at the base of a rainbow. Soon he too comes to Grandmother’s house. She encourages Mossy that finding the lock that the key opens will be the quest of his life. “You must look for the keyhole. That is your work. I cannot help you. I can only tell you that if you look for it, you will find it.”

Soon, Grandmother tells the children it is time for them to venture forth, urging Tangle to accompany Mossy on his quest to find where the golden key fits. So, “Mossy and Tangle took each other’s hand and walked away into the depth of the forest. . . . By the time they got out of the forest, they were very fond of each other.” Their days in Fairyland have passed as years in our realm. Tangle and Mossy are young adults as they leave the forest and begin to ascend the mountains.

As I enter this tale, I naturally wonder what the golden key might be. Finding the lock it opens seems a worthy life goal. Is the golden key the gift of a rare faith? An impulse to push beyond the ordinary for deeper meaning? Perhaps it’s a rallying to Jesus’s words, “Seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). Maybe the golden key is believing that God “exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). Either way, if we burn with that call to quest, we know how priceless it is to find someone who will quest with us. We gladly join hands with companions who will walk with us along that narrow path.

Upward Passion

As Tangle and Mossy climb, they find a long tunnel that goes through the mountain. They come out overlooking a vast plain surrounded by mountains.

When they descend into it, they discover that the ground is covered with moving shadows — all kinds of shadows. Leaves wave as if in a breeze. Myriad flowers appear amidst them. Birds fly from branch to branch. Yet as Tangle and Mossy look around, they see no trees that could make such shadows. No actual birds fly overhead. The plain is bare; the mountains sheer. From where do such shadows come?

As they walk across the plain, knee-deep in the mysterious shadows, the leaves fade, and different kinds of shadow forms appear. People, wild horses, mythic creatures — some “unspeakable beauty” — move across the ground. But these glorious, fantastic shadows still seem to have no source!

About midway across the huge plain, Tangle and Mossy sit down to rest, lost in their own thoughts. Then MacDonald writes,

After sitting for a while, each, looking up, saw the other in tears: they were each longing after the country whence the shadows fell.

“We MUST find the country from which the shadows come,” said Mossy.

“We must, dear Mossy,” responded Tangle. “What if your golden key should be the key to it?”

As they first set out, Tangle and Mossy’s quest was sincere but vague. Now it is intensely focused. From where do shadows come that are more beautiful than this earth? That’s the country they thirst to reach.

This scene sends me to the way Hebrews describes the faithful. “People who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. . . . They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:14, 16). Their desire resonates with David’s: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).

As the years of questing faith have unfolded, my wife and I have found that our desire for God has both clarified and intensified. We were on the journey from the beginning. But now the beauty of Christ calls in even deeper parts of us. We have sat in the sea of earthly shadows and wept for the sorrow. We have encountered the heavenly shadows in prayer and worship and cried for joy.

Separation and Reunion

Tangle and Mossy spend the rest of this day (what would unfold in our world as many years) crossing the plain. By evening, the shadows grow deeper and more sinister. The night descends. The story takes a grievous turn. Suddenly, Tangle realizes she no longer has hold of Mossy’s hand. She cries out his name but hears no reply. Then “she threw herself down and wept in despair.”

For the rest of the story, until the very end, Tangle and Mossy must journey on without each other. They both persist in the quest through strange and fantastic encounters. They cling to love and the clarity of what they most deeply desire to reach together. As I interpret the story, both pass through death before they can meet again.

The closer we grow to a companion in the quest, the more searing the cut of parting before the final goal is reached. Paul had to leave Ephesus. He knew he would not see those dear believers again in this world. “There was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because . . . they would not see his face again” (Acts 20:37–38). This journey “further up and further in,” as Lewis described it, can be laced with grief.

Finally, Mossy finds a door that his key opens. Inside a great hall, Tangle has been waiting for him for years. Soon, another door unlocks to his golden key, and the two begin a now sure ascent to the world from whence the shadows fall. MacDonald concludes, “And by this time, I think they must have got there.”

At every reading, The Golden Key reawakens my desire to reach that High Country. Memories rise of when I felt its breezes blow into this world. I feel poignantly how precious, yet brief, are the steps of the quest walked next to a true companion. And I find hope that, in Christ, we cannot be forever lost to each other. The journey’s end is sure.