Pornography is not new. Archeological discoveries testify that fascination with sexual portrayals is nearly as old as humanity. Yet our times present new challenges. Technological advancements coupled with moral corrosion are increasing the accessibility and normality of pornography at a dizzying rate. This poses a tremendous threat (and opportunity) for parents. We are raising children in a more pornographic world.

Roughly three thousand years ago, a father wisely spoke to his sons about the same ultimate dangers our children face today. Pornography was not as prevalent, but sexual temptation abounded. So, Solomon spent precious time talking with his sons about the dangers and delights of sexuality. I’m convinced his wisdom is still applicable to us today as we lead our sons and daughters. What follows is not a full-scale parenting plan, but nine principles to consider as we parent in a pornified age.

1. Cultivate the conversation.

Whether you like it or not, the world is having a sexualized conversation with your children. As parents, we aim to not be like Adam, who stood by as the serpent threatened his family (Genesis 3:6). Rather, we engage our children in conversation about all topics — including sex and pornography. Throughout Proverbs, Solomon models this initiative. Right at the outset, he says, “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching” (Proverbs 1:8). Solomon repeats the call no less than 25 times in the book. He has an ever-evolving conversation with his son about every arena of life.

Satan wants you to feel uncomfortable talking with your kids about intimate issues. Don’t let him deceive you. Children are hardwired to desire parental care and leadership. They are grateful when their parents lovingly engage in conversations about the blessings and dangers of life. So, wise parents set a tone in the home that encourages and rewards open, honest, ongoing dialogue.

“Wise parents set a tone in the home that encourages and rewards open, honest, ongoing dialogue.”

The more you have normal conversations with your children about sex, the easier it becomes to have serious ones. Talk about sex as you would talk about other significant life topics. When they ask questions, answer them honestly and appropriately. This eases awkwardness and builds rapport in preparation for the serious conversations you know are coming. Solomon revisited the subject with his sons four times in the first seven chapters of Proverbs. This suggests that ongoing conversations are more natural than one or two big scheduled meetings.

As your children grow, the tenor and content will develop as well. Speak with younger children about appreciating beauty, protecting private parts, God’s design for sex, and knowing the difference between good pictures and bad pictures. Introducing these topics early will pave the way for more thorough conversations in the future. Reading the Bible from cover to cover as a family will provide no shortage of opportunities to talk about sex, temptation, and God’s help to deliver.
Above all else, remember that God is a good Father who loves to give wisdom to his children when we ask (Luke 11:5–13). Solomon pled for wisdom to care for those under his leadership, and we must do the same (1 Kings 3:9; James 1:5).

2. Encourage honesty.

Telling the truth can be terrifying for children, especially when the truth involves sexual sin and temptation. Shame, fear, and awkwardness will tempt them to retreat and hide. Wise parents tenderly lead them down paths of truth in every area of life, including conversations about pornography.

Recently, a mother from our church shared that her son was shown porn by a friend at school. She was scared and didn’t know how to respond. While it was a sad moment, we celebrated the fact that her son brought the incident to her. He didn’t always tell the truth, but that time he did. Praise God.

Regularly ask age-appropriate questions about what your children are seeing online. For example:

Have any friends or family members ever shown you inappropriate pictures?
Have you ever accidentally seen inappropriate pictures or read inappropriate stories?
Have you looked up anything you know might be wrong?

As you ask questions like these, assure them that no matter what, you’ll always love them. They may feel awkward, shameful, or fearful to tell the truth. Be patient with them and give them time to process. Open the door for them to come back to you anytime if they remember something they need to tell you.

If your children admit to looking at pornography, don’t shame them. Meet their honesty with appreciation. Thank them for being brave and talking with you. Ask if they have any questions they want to process with you. Spend time in prayer with them, asking God to protect and heal them. If your child gets caught looking at pornography and tries covering it up, remind him that people have been tempted to hide sin since the beginning (Genesis 3:7–8).

3. Guide their curiosity.

God created us to be curious. It is natural and good for children to consider their bodies, desires, and the words they hear. Parents do well to encourage curiosity and point children toward God’s beautiful design. At the same time, exploration can also be dangerous.

Satan wants to sabotage our curiosity and corrupt wholesome wonder with sinful investigation. He knows that early exposure to pornography or sexual experiences can deeply shape brain development and confuse affections. This is why we help our children “keep [their] heart with all vigilance” (Proverbs 4:23). This can happen with planned conversations, but most opportunities show up in daily life (Deuteronomy 6:6–7).

Years ago, our family passed a Victoria’s Secret store while walking through a shopping center. My children’s eyes were instinctively drawn to look at the pictures of nearly nude women hanging in the window. Without scolding them, my wife and I inquired, “Why do you think we were drawn to those pictures?” The encounter provided an opportunity to remind them that the reason we’re drawn to beauty is that God is beautiful, and we’re created to enjoy him (Psalm 27:4).

But Satan takes good things God created and twists them in a way that tempts us to look away from God. God created the women in the pictures to reflect his image and point people to him. But Satan tempted the models to misuse their beauty and tempted us to treat them like something to consume instead of someone to love.

Opportunities for instruction are endless. Parents can pray for God’s help to notice opportunities and to winsomely assure our children that curiosity is to be guided and guarded by God’s word. Curiosity that leads to celebrating God’s creative wonder is good, but sinful curiosity leads to great danger. We must teach them the difference.

4. Warn of danger.

Solomon soberly warns his son of sin’s dangers. He cautions him that following forbidden lovers will steal innocence, honor, reputation, health, livelihood, and even his very life (Proverbs 5:7–14). He who succumbs “destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonor. . . . It will cost him his life” (Proverbs 6:32–33; 7:23).

So, we warn our sons and daughters. As they are being seduced by Satan, we warn them of his whispers. Do not minimize the danger of pornography: it is satanic discipleship.

“Do not minimize the danger of pornography: it is satanic discipleship.”

Satan uses pornography to awaken dark affections and hijack neurological development. Through porn, he trains us to demean others by seeing them as objects to consume rather than neighbors to love. He assures us that sexual desire is an appetite to satisfy instead of a gift to steward for the service of others. He wants to confuse our children about their own sexuality and identity. In short, pornography is poison for the soul.

Sin makes us slaves to our appetites. Solomon warns of what we call addiction when he says, “The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin” (Proverbs 5:22). Addiction dehumanizes us as we insanely overlook all reason to follow sin, just “as an ox goes to the slaughter” (Proverbs 7:22). So, with Solomon, we warn our children that revisiting sin produces patterns that feel impossible to stop.

The older a child becomes, the easier it will be to connect decisions with consequences. You may find ways to share consequences from your own life, from the lives of others around you, or from characters like David from the Scriptures. We can’t scare our children into being holy. But we must warn them of Satan’s prowling.

5. Woo with desire.

Rules and guardrails can aid our children’s battle against temptation, but no weapon is more powerful than appropriately oriented affections. Rules are intended to protect our passions by pointing them in the right direction. Solomon instructed his son to find sexual satisfaction in his wife: “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. . . . Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love” (Proverbs 5:18–19). Song of Solomon is filled with blush-inducing language. Why? Because God gladly gives the gift of sex for a husband and wife’s enjoyment.

Parents are to teach their children about God’s good designs. Assure them that God is the one who created intimacy, orgasms, and romantic affection. Remind them that in marriage, God has provided a place to enjoy and explore our sexual desires. The world offers our children a mirage of cotton-candy pleasures, but God’s designs are good and satisfying.

While directing desire toward a spouse is appropriate, desire’s ultimate aim goes further. Our children may never marry. Their spouse may become sick, and intimacy may be hindered. This is why our chief aim must be to delight in God. Jesus laid this hope before us when he said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). The deepest reason we resist temptation is so we can know and enjoy God. Teach your children to seek joy in God above all other pleasures.

6. Model the way.

Protecting your children happens as much by what you do as by what you say. Parents set the tone in the home by how they engage with entertainment. As Charles Spurgeon once said, “Train up a child in the way he should go — but be sure to go that way yourself.”

My kids know that my phone doesn’t do what their mom’s does. I don’t have social media apps, and I can’t search for everything they want me to. Why? My phone is locked down to help me honor Jesus. Every child has asked me why my phone is lame, and I’ve explained that not everything on the Internet is good for us and that I try to protect myself in ways mommy doesn’t need to because her sin struggles are different. God intends our daily visible devotion to him to provoke questions from others that open doors for us to share gospel truth (Exodus 12:26; 13:14; Deuteronomy 6:20).

The same is true when we sit down to watch a movie. My children know that we will screen any movie before we watch it. They have seen me pass on dozens of movies I’d like to watch because they contain unhelpful content. Reviewing song lyrics, apps, shows, and everything else we consume has become second nature for our children. By God’s grace, we’re cultivating a culture at home where stumbling into sin may still happen, but it will be harder because mom and dad have tried to model practical ways to avoid sin and pursue holiness.

7. Put up protections.

The world is designed to make sinning easy and pursuing holiness hard. Intentional effort in protecting our children is essential to faithful parenting. Devices with screens should not be given to children without training, confirmation of maturity, and prayerful consideration. When the time comes, the stewardship should be soaked in Solomon’s warning, “Keep your way far from [temptation], and do not go near the door of her house” (Proverbs 5:8). But warning isn’t enough; we must also set up roadblocks to help them obey.

We currently have six layers of protection to slow the flow of smut into our home. A friend set up a DNS filter to protect our family’s Wi-Fi from explicit material. Parental controls are set on all devices. We removed the Internet browser from our Smart TV and gaming system. We installed monitoring and filtering software on all devices (we use Bark and Covenant Eyes). We use Clear Play on nearly every movie we watch. Passwords are required for all our children to download apps on their devices. These are all basic protections parents can consider using.

You may also need to set reminders to check your children’s devices and usage regularly. As your kids become more tech-savvy, ask them to help you protect their hearts from sin. Ask them to show you how they would get around protections you’ve set up and how to make them better. This conversation may take some work, but it sits near the heart of true parenting. We don’t want to only set up rules and guardrails; we want to do it together as we deepen our love for God and each other.

8. Encourage otherness.

Following Jesus will often put your children out of step with their peers. They will feel “other” in a way that will be hard for them and for you. Parents desire their children to have friends and be liked by others. But we know that some relationships can corrupt and hinder their walk with Jesus (Proverbs 1:15–16; 13:20; 1 Corinthians 15:33). At times, their “otherness” will feel oppressive and shackling. They’ll miss out on shows everyone is talking about. Sleepovers at friends’ houses will happen without them. Trends will come and go, and they won’t join in. They’ll be left off threads and overlooked on guest lists. At times, they’ll feel invisible.

Parents, help them embrace their otherness. Following Jesus on the narrow road is always costly (Matthew 7:13–14; Luke 9:23–25), and they will need your help to trust that true joy is found in loving Christ, not in being loved by the world (John 15:11). If you’re a Christian, you know how hard the struggle can be. Share how you’ve trusted Jesus in costly times. God can use the tears and late-night conversations to cultivate depth of character. They are being shaped into young men and women who will enter the world of television, the Internet, locker rooms, friendships, and the workplace with integrity formed in the crucible of otherness.

This is also a unique opportunity to help them discover the preciousness of the church. God’s people need one another to make their pilgrim journey through this dark world. Pray for your children to develop godly friendships, and search for ways your local church can help your children grow in godliness.

9. Give them Jesus.

If your children make it through high school without seeing pornography, it will be a miracle. The likeliness of them encountering pornographic images is almost a statistical certainty. I don’t say that to evoke fear, but to encourage sobriety. What should you do when your children see pornography?

Show them Jesus.

They need to see the one who gives grace to those who sin and have been sinned against. Show them the one who bled and died and rose to supply forgiveness, help, healing, and hope for what sin seeks to steal. Create an atmosphere of grace in your home that points your children to Jesus, who rose to put shame to death.

Some time ago, a mother found pornographic sites in her daughter’s search history. Her heart sank and her eyes welled with tears. This was one of her worst nightmares. After a few prayerful moments, she knocked on her daughter’s bedroom door and sat beside her. She asked questions, and her daughter admitted that she’d heard her friends talking about something sexual, and she searched it several times. She admitted that she knew it was wrong. She wanted to talk to her parents but didn’t know how.

They cried together, prayed together, talked about what she had seen, answered questions, and agreed that time off devices would be wise for the next few weeks. Together they developed a plan to talk more, pray more, and read the Bible together more often.

Though temptation still lingered, the daughter and her parents fought the battle together. She also found strength to help other friends who had similar struggles. Through the situation, they discovered ways God uses Satan’s evil for eternal good (Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28).

My prayer is that God will help us and our children lean into Jesus, who will give us the faith to persevere in a pornographic world.

Audio Transcript

We’re back, and we’re back into an online controversy — a “brew-haha,” as it was called. Pastor John, on September 30 you tweeted about coffee. You posted Hebrews 12:28, which says, “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.” And in light of this reverent, awe-filled vision for our worship, you posed this open question: “Can we reassess whether Sunday coffee-sipping in the sanctuary fits?”

As I mentioned last time, the tweet was loved and hated and spread all over the Internet to the point that, after a couple weeks, it had 1,000 retweets, 1,500 comments, 3,000 likes, 2.7 million views, and feature articles online from Fox News here in the States and the Daily Mail in the UK. None of which you saw, which we talked about last time, on Monday.

Now, there’s a lot behind that tweet, a whole worldview really. So, we are building out the context behind it, and you are talking about how to build and shape a church with this “reverential vibe” in everything that happens on Sunday morning. Last time, you signaled that you wanted to get into the nitty-gritty of helping church leaders move their church away from casual worship toward something better and more fitting to what Hebrews, and all of the Bible, calls for. So, get practical, and pick up the discussion for us at this point.

I argued last time that sipping coffee in the holiest hour of congregational worship does not fit with the reverence and awe that Hebrews 12:28 calls for. “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,” Hebrews says.

But I argued that sipping coffee is not the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is that people and leaders don’t have a heart that resonates with what I mean by “reverence and awe” and the holiness, the sacredness of that hour of congregational worship on Sunday morning (usually). Those realities are not prominent in their mind and heart, those reverent realities. They know those words: reverence, awe. They know the words, but the words don’t have compelling existential content, with the kind of serious joy that makes people eager for reverence and awe. They’re just words.

And I argued that you don’t solve that problem by creating external rules. You solve it by awakening internal, heartfelt reverence. So, things that are unfitting don’t get outlawed; they just fall away. I think that’s the way I tried to do it. I don’t think I ever laid down rules for 33 years of preaching.

What I’d like to do here now is to point a way, a possible way forward for pastors to lead the church gradually — say, over five to ten years. You’ve got to be patient to move from the atmosphere of a casual, chipper, coffee-sipping, entertainment-oriented gathering to a more seriously joyful, reverent, deeply satisfying encounter with God. So, maybe in this episode, Tony, we could talk just for a few minutes about the kind of preaching that would lead in that direction.

Developing a Godward Mindset

But before I say that, the pastor’s mindset overall should be that it’s fitting for one hour a week, or an hour and a half, that the people of God meet him with a kind of radical Godward focus that has weightiness to it and seriousness to it, and that this weightiness and seriousness of God-centeredness become the most satisfying experience in our people’s lives. That’s the mindset we’ve got to have: “I want to do this in a way so that they love this, they want this, they come for this. This is not tolerated — it’s desired.” That’s the mindset.

We will never out-entertain the world. I just need to settle that. We’ll never out-entertain the world, nor should we try, because we have something infinitely better, something our souls were made for.

And most of our people don’t know this. They don’t know what’s better than the fun they have in watching videos and other kinds of entertainment. They just don’t know. They’ve never tasted the real thing. Something profoundly stabilizing, strengthening, refining, and satisfying at the depths of our being is what people long for, and they don’t know what they’re longing for until they’re shown it over time.

So, here are five appeals to pastors with regard to preaching.

1. Build Bible-people.

Rivet the people’s attention on the Bible, the very words of the Bible. Deal in great realities, and show them those realities from the text. Build trust in the Bible. Build trust in yourself as a Bible man, so that people say, “We can trust him because he’s a Bible man.”

Some people will leave the church because of this orientation; it’s too frightening and threatening to submit to the Bible like this. Others are hungry for this, and they’re going to come. Over time, seek to bring into being a people whose mindset is self-consciously and happily under the Bible’s authority. Seek to create a people who measure everything by the Bible. Every thought, every emotion, every word, every action, put through the sieve of Bible teaching — and what the Bible really teaches about everything.

The way you handle the Bible and the glories you see in it will bring about this kind of congregation. They’re not their own. They belong to Christ, and his word is their life and their law. That’s what needs to come into being through your Bible-saturated preaching.

2. Make God the dominant reality.

Make the glory of God and all that he is for us in Jesus the main reality people sense over the years, as they hear you preach week in and week out: “God is the main reality here. God is big. God is weighty. God is precious. God is satisfying. God is near. Don’t mess with God. God loves us.” I mean, it’s just a massive, weighty vision of God. Make the greatness and beauty and worth of God the dominant reality.

Be amazed, pastor, be amazed at God continually — that God simply is, that he just is, without beginning. This blows the mind of every four-year-old, right? “Who made God, Daddy?” the child asks. “Nobody made God,” responds the father. “Woah.” Eyes get big. “He just always was there.” God is absolute reality. All else, from galaxies to subatomic particles, is secondary. Everything we see is secondary.

God is the primary reality. Help your people to see this and feel this, that God relates to everything in their lives, all the time, as the main thing. He is the main thing in their lives. He’s the supreme treasure, the main value, the brightest hope, the one they are all willing to live for and die for.

3. Tremble at God’s wrath.

Make sure that the ugliness of the disease of sin in us and in the world and the fury of the wrath of God against that disease are felt by your people. God’s grace, precious grace, will never be amazing — not the way it should be — if our people do not tremble at the majesty of God’s transcendent purity and holy wrath against sin. If they do not feel the fitness of the outpouring of the cup, of the fury of his wrath against sin, they will never be amazed that they’re saved.

This is one of the main contributors to the happiness of serious reverence. It’s paradoxical, I know, that you would have a high, holy, trembling view of God’s wrath be the main contributor to the happiness of the seriousness of reverence. But it is so.

The 1,500-degree fire of the building from which we have just been snatched by the firemen can still be seen. We see it. We feel it. We see the smoke. We hear the crackle. And the trembling of our unspeakably happy thankfulness is anything but casual.

4. Exalt Christ and his work.

Exalt Christ in his majesty and lowliness, in his suffering and resurrection, and in the unimaginable riches of what he purchased for us. Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Every single good that God’s elect receive, from now to eternity, is owing to the blood of Jesus Christ. Knowing that I don’t deserve this and what it cost him makes me tremble in my ecstasy.

5. Wonder over the new birth.

Finally, teach your people the miracle of their own conversion. Nobody knows from experience the glory of the miracle of new birth. We only know the wonder of the new birth from Scripture.

“Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ . . . and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5–6) — nobody knows this. Nobody knows this stupendous reality from experience. We know it because God tells us it is so.

We have to teach our people that they are supernatural beings. Most people come into the sanctuary feeling very natural, right? We have to help them feel another way: “You’re a miracle. You’re a walking resurrection from the dead. You’re not merely natural anymore. This is not a moment of gathering natural people. Our faith, which is our life, is a miracle. God created it. It is trust. Our saving faith is trust in a supremely treasured Savior and Lord.”

May I venture to say that preaching like this will, over time, create in your people an eagerness to encounter God in his word in a way that will make coffee-sipping seem out of place?

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.