Preserving the Holy in Holidays

T.M. Moore @ http://www.breakpoint.org discusses the Holy in the Holidays. He covers:

A GRESHAM’S LAW OF HOLIDAYS

Gresham’s Law of holidays began to set in: the more holidays were multiplied, the more the peculiar affections attached to any of them began to be watered down and reduced.

In Checkov’s “Rothschild’s Fiddle” :

the coffin-maker, Jacob Ivanov, hated holidays because they meant he lost money, since he was unable to work. These days many people maintain a love/hate relationship with holidays: we love them, but not all of them, because of whatever we find special about them, but we hate them for the inconvenience they cause—days when we can’t work or don’t get mail because of some holiday we don’t even acknowledge, or when we have to observe traditions or visit with people we’d just as soon ignore.

HOLY DAYS

The holy days God included in His Law played a special role in this. The great feasts of Israel were instituted for at least three purposes: (1) To reinforce the nation’s sense of the grace and greatness of God; (2) To renew their identity as one people, a covenant community of grace; and (3) To strengthen their souls—heart, mind, and conscience—for service to God and neighbor in everyday life.

Each of the holy days of Israel had a particular focus in reminding the nation of their debt to God: Passover—deliverance, redemption; Harvest—God’s gracious provision and promise; Ingathering—His abundant goodness.

THE DECLINE AND RECOVERY OF THE SACRED

"A Christmas Carol"

Elesha Coffman @ http://www.christianitytoday.com discusses the quintessential holiday story: "A Christmas Carol"

Before "Miracle on 34th Street," before "It's a Wonderful Life," even before "The Nutcracker" ballet, there was "A Christmas Carol." Charles Dickens published his "Ghostly little book" in 1843, just in time for the holiday shopping rush, and it became an instant runaway hit. The tale has never lost its momentum. It has been filmed some 200 times, with actors as varied as George C. Scott, Bill Murray, Patrick Stewart, and Scrooge McDuck playing the leading role.

Why is this story so popular?

1. It resonates.

Dickens was in some ways a literary pioneer, for instance revealing the awesome commercial potential of the serialized novel, but he did not invent the storytelling craft. "A Christmas Carol" echoes medieval morality plays, in which otherworldly beings attempt to influence a human protagonist toward good or evil. Such plays often featured accounts of unhappy death to scare the main character—and the audience-straight.

Medieval Europeans—who lacked a strong sense of salvation by grace—cared much about dying well. Dickens's readers thought comparably less about the afterlife, but they, too, confronted death—from untreatable disease, from childbirth, from dangerous work and squalid living quarters—regularly. For contemporary readers and viewers, it may be Scrooge's bald materialism that provokes chills of identification. Whatever the cultural climate, the "Carol" works.

2. It's Victorian.

Most of what we think of today as "traditional Christmas" hails from the nineteenth century. Sure, some European cultures have awaited Saint Nicholas or Sinterklaas for centuries, but the jolly old elf we all know and love was invented less than 200 years ago by poet Clement Clarke Moore and illustrator Thomas Nast. Moore's "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" first appeared in 1823, a year after Britain's first Christmas card was printed. Nast refined his vision of Moore's white-bearded, red-suited, jelly-bellied Santa toward the end of the century, eventually producing the image everyone now recognizes. Victorians bequeathed us Christmas shopping, too. "A Christmas Carol" taps into nostalgia for this formative holiday era.

3. It's Religious:

The novel's most famous line is Tiny Tim's prayer, "God bless us every one." The novel centers on a Christian holiday and the Christian virtue of charity. Church bells ring out at key moments, and the crowds in the street dutifully heed their call to worship. The novel even ends with a kind of conversion, when Scrooge decides to start loving his neighbor as himself. Who wouldn't applaud that?

4. … but not too religious.

Dickens attended an Anglican church, but his beliefs were Unitarian. His God blessed all, his Christ was a very good man, his religious countenanced no creeds, and his Bible yielded only noble precepts for living. In his posthumously published The Life of Our Lord, he put it this way: "It is christianity to do good always—even to those who do evil to us. It is christianity to love our neighbor as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them Do to us. It is christianity to be gentle, merciful, and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them, or of our prayers or of our love of God, but always to shew that we love him by humbly trying to do right in everything." Not surprisingly, then, there is no Christ in "A Christmas Carol," which unfortunately renders the story highly suitable for network television and school productions.

Perhaps, then, "A Christmas Carol" is not only still a hit, but still a cautionary tale. Thanks to Dickens and a host of other Victorians, Christmas consistently warms the heart. Changing the heart, though, requires an entirely different story.

For more information:

An article on the faith of Charles Dickens is tucked at the end of CH issue 27: Persecution in the Early Church.

A Christmas Carol and Its Adaptations
http://www.dickensachristmascarol.com/

Everyman, a 15th-century morality play
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/everyman.html

Thomas Nast's Christmas Illustrations (illustrated catalog)
http://www.philaprintshop.com/nastxmas.html

Incidentally, E.T.A. Hoffman wrote "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" in 1816, but it was not popularized with Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky's music and Marius Petipa's choreography until 1891.

The origins of the candy cane.

Elesha Coffman @ http://www.christianitytoday.com discusses The origins of the candy cane.

According to most (internet) sources:

A faithful Indiana candymaker developed the treat as a witnessing tool. The candy is hard because God's church is founded on the rock, white because of Jesus's purity (or his virgin birth), peppermint flavored as a reference to cleansing hyssop, and curved to represent a shepherd's staff and/or the letter "J" for Jesus. Accounts vary regarding the red stripes, though they all agree that red stands for Christ's blood. Depending on which story you read, three small stripes might represent the Trinity, or small stripes could mean the stripes by which we're healed, or our small sacrifices in comparison to Christ's ultimate sacrifice (represented by a large stripe). One site even suggested that the green stripe sometimes featured reminds us that Jesus is a gift from God, though why green signifies a gift I don't know.

The motivation for candy cane apologetics can be seen in a quote from one of the sites: "Doesn't it seem strange that something we often see as unimportant and insignificant can be turned into something so vibrant, so important, simply by knowing its origin?" Of course, the same site proclaims that candy canes were originally a code between English Christians in the seventeenth century, when all public religious symbols were banned. That's simply not true, and neither are most of the other stories.

Historical Tradition

Tradition holds that in about 1670, the choirmaster at Cologne Cathedral was frustrated by fidgety kids at the living Nativity. He had some white, sugar-candy sticks made to keep the youngsters quiet. The sticks were curved like shepherds' staffs in honor of the shepherds at the stable (score one for the apologists). The idea caught on, and candy sticks became common at living Nativities all over Europe.

In 1847, a German-Swedish immigrant named August Imgard put candy canes on his Christmas tree in Wooster, Ohio. The sweets gained popularity here, too, and around the turn of the century, they assumed their now familiar properties of red stripes and peppermint flavoring. (Though these elements might have been added for symbolic purposes, there's no evidence to confirm that theory.)

In Albany, Georgia, in the 1920s, a candymaker named Bob McCormack made canes as special treats for family and friends, but the confections were difficult to mass-produce. Then, in the 1950s, Bob's brother-in-law Gregory Keller, a Catholic priest, invented a machine to speed up the process. Other members of the McCormack family worked on new packaging to keep the canes from breaking in transit, and Bob's Candies (www.bobscandies.com) became the world's leading candy cane producer.

Summary

So yes, the candy cane's origin was Christian. But it was almost certainly not designed to be the tasty theological treatise it's now purported to be. As Barbara "the cane mutiny" Mikkelson posted on the Urban Legends Reference Pages (www.snopes2.com/holidays/xmas/cndycane.htm), "It's charming folklore at best, and though there's nothing wrong with Christians now finding (and celebrating) symbolism where there wasn't any before, there is something wrong with myths being presented as fact." For the sake of history, I have to agree with her.

The Joy of Christmas

Ligonier Ministries is offering free downloads of several Christmas messages from R. C. Sproul. From http://www.ligonier.org:

This Christmas season, it is our hope that you will take the time to reflect on the gift of Jesus Christ as our perfect Mediator. The Word became flesh and won for us the crown of redemption, the foundation for the joy of Christmas. Please enjoy this free downloadable series and Tabletalk article as our gift to you.

Read Dr. Sproul's article Born of the Virgin Mary.

Christmas Messages by Dr. R.C. Sproul

1. The First Gifts of Christmas (Part 1) 23:47

2. The First Gifts of Christmas (Part 2) 22:54

3. How Should We Think Because of Christmas (Part 1) 22:04

4. How Should We Think Because of Christmas (Part 2) 17:11

Theology in Tune

Elesha Coffman @ http://www.christianitytoday.com reviews Theology in Tune: Christmas carols and the theological debates surrounding them.

Take this quiz: Take a look at the carols you sing this season—you'll find a nice primer on Christology. For starters, name these tunes:

• "God of God, and Light of Light begotten, Lo, He abhors not the Virgin's womb; Very God, begotten, not created"

• "King of kings, yet born of Mary, As of old on earth He stood, Lord of lords, in human vesture, In the body and the blood"

• "Jesus is our childhood's pattern, Day by day like us He grew; He was little, weak, and helpless, Tears and smiles like us he knew"

• "O that birth forever blessed, When the Virgin, full of grace, By the Holy Ghost conceiving, Bare the Savior of our race"

• "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail th'incarnate Deity"

(Answers at the end of this article)

The fiery debates surrounding the carols:

On December 7, 430, one man's views on "th'incarnate Deity" earned him a condemnation from Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria. He was later deposed and exiled by the emperor following the Council of Ephesus. But just how heretical Nestorius's views really were is open to some debate.

During the fourth century, two rival concepts of the Incarnation arose. The school of thought centered in Alexandria focused on Christ's divinity; the school centered in Antioch, Nestorius's home base, emphasized Christ's humanity. The Alexandrian side lobbed a heresy into play when the venerable bishop Apollinarius (c. 310-c. 392) suggested Jesus's human mind and will were completely subsumed by his divinity. This idea was refuted by the Council of Constantinople in 381. The Antiochene camp produced its own heresy a few decades later when Nestorius, an outspoken and abrasive preacher, began a sermonic attack against the term Theotokos ("God-bearer") as a designation for Mary. His lay audience thought he meant Jesus was just a man; theologians believed he was suggesting that Christ had two natures and two wills, or was in fact two coexisting persons (one human, one divine). The two-person theory became known as Nestorianism.

But is that what Nestorius really intended to say? Probably not. His attack on Theotokos arose from a fear that the term overemphasized Christ's divinity (the Apollinarian heresy), not from a desire to deny that divinity. Cyril and others defended the title, at least in part, because devotion to the Virgin Mary was already on the rise, and because a assault on the term was in some ways an assault on the many respected theologians who used it. But for his whole life, Nestorius was convinced his beliefs were perfectly orthodox. Though he does seem a bit fuzzy on precisely how Christ's natures blended together, he was most likely a victim of his own strident, unguarded language—the use of which had earned him the nickname "Firebrand." (See issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church for more on Nestorianism and other disputed theologies.)

* Carol quiz answers: O Come, All Ye Faithful; Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence; Once in Royal David's City; Of the Father's Love Begotten (yes, a few were a little on the obscure side); Hark! the Herald Angels Sing

"Grown Up Christmas List" by Amy Grant

Christmas Traditions: Unearthing the origins of Yuletide customs.

Ted Olsen@ http://www.christianitytoday.com discusses the origins of Yuletide customs.

• Christmas cards began instead as New Year's greetings.
  
• The Christmas tree was associated with the Edenic Tree of Knowledge and decorated with apples—forbidden fruit.
  
• Holly was thought to be the tree from which the cross was made.
  
• Hanging mistletoe comes from an old Scandinavian military custom: enemies encountering each other under the plant laid down their arms in truce until the next day.

Francis of Assisi (c. 1181-1226)

Francis's friars (and perhaps Francis himself) were the first to write simple, happy, Gospel-based songs. These were much lighter and festive than hymns and are considered by historians as the first carols.

Francis also is the first person on record to create a Christmas nativity scene.

On Christmas Eve 1223, in order to "Set before our bodily eyes … how he [Jesus] lay in a manger," Francis and his companions worshiped in a cave near Greccio, Italy, surrounded by the traditional oxen, sheep, and donkeys.

An early Francis biographer recounted, "Neighborhood people prepared with joy according to their capacity, bringing candles and torches to illumine the night that has been the light of the world through its star. Finally, the saint of God arrived and saw it and was glad. The manger was ready, hay was spread, and the ox and ass led in.

"Thus, simplicity was honored, poverty exalted, humility praised. Greccio was made a new Bethlehem. The night became as day to the joy of men and animals. The people were happy at this great mystery. the forest echoed with the voices of the congregation; the rocks cried out in jubilation. The friars sang their debt of praise to God, and the night echoed with their hymns. The saint of God stood near the manger, overwhelmed with love and swelling with happiness."

12 Crazy Days of Christmas

The hassles of the Christmas season can overshadow the reason for it. You'll identify with the never-ending list of difficulties this funny video portrays.

Produced by Restoration Video and available for download at FaithVisuals.com

The Real Twelve Days of Christmas

Edwin and Jennifer Woodruff Tait @ http://www.christianitytoday.com review The Real Twelve Days of Christmas

The "real" twelve days of Christmas are important not just as a way of thumbing our noses at secular ideas of the "Christmas season." They are important because they give us a way of reflecting on what the Incarnation means in our lives. Christmas commemorates the most momentous event in human history—the entry of God into the world He made, in the form of a baby. The Logos through whom the worlds were made took up His dwelling among us in a tabernacle of flesh. One of the prayers for Christmas Day in the Catholic liturgy encapsulates what Christmas means for all believers: "O God, who marvelously created and yet more marvelously restored the dignity of human nature, grant that we may share the divinity of Him who humbled himself to share our humanity." In Christ, our human nature was united to God, and when Christ enters our hearts, he brings us into that union.

Three Traditional Feasts

The three traditional feasts (dating back to the late fifth century) that follow Christmas reflect different ways in which the mystery of the Incarnation works itself out in the body of Christ. December 26 is the feast of St. Stephen—a traditional day for giving leftovers to the poor (as described in the carol "Good King Wenceslas"). As one of the first deacons, Stephen was the forerunner of all those who show forth the love of Christ by their generosity to the needy. But more than this, he was the first martyr of the New Covenant, witnessing to Christ by the ultimate gift of his own life. St. John the Evangelist, commemorated on December 27, is traditionally the only one of the twelve disciples who did not die a martyr. Rather, John witnessed to the Incarnation through his words, turning Greek philosophy on its head with his affirmation, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, KJV). On December 28, we celebrate the feast of the Holy Innocents, the children murdered by Herod. These were not martyrs like Stephen, who died heroically in a vision of the glorified Christ. They were not inspired like John to speak the Word of life and understand the mysteries of God. They died unjustly before they had a chance to know or to will—but they died for Christ nonetheless. In them we see the long agony of those who suffer and die through human injustice, never knowing that they have been redeemed. If Christ did not come for them too, then surely Christ came in vain. In celebrating the Holy Innocents, we remember the victims of abortion, of war, of abuse. We renew our faith that the coming of Christ brings hope to the most hopeless. And, in the most radical way possible, we confess that like the murdered children we are saved by the sheer mercy of Christ, not by our own doing or knowing.

In the Middle Ages, these three feasts were each dedicated to a different part of the clergy. Stephen, fittingly, was the patron of deacons. The feast of John the Evangelist was dedicated to the priests, and the feast of the Holy Innocents was dedicated to young men training for the clergy and serving the altar. The subdeacons (one of the "minor orders" that developed in the early church) objected that they had no feast of their own. So it became their custom to celebrate the "Feast of Fools" around January 1, often in conjunction with the feast of Christ's circumcision on that day (which was also one of the earliest feasts of the Virgin Mary, and is today celebrated as such by Roman Catholics). The twelve days of Christmas saw similar celebrations of the topsy-turvy and the unruly. A "Lord of Misrule" was often elected at Christmas and ruled the festivities until Epiphany. A schoolboy was traditionally chosen as bishop on December 6 (the Feast of St. Nicholas) and filled all the functions of bishop until Holy Innocents' Day. The Christmas season also sometimes saw the "Feast of the Ass," commemorating the donkey traditionally present at the manger. On this day, people were supposed to bray like a donkey at the points in the Mass where one would normally say "Amen."

It is easy to dismiss all these customs as pagan survivals (which many of them are), or at best as irrelevant and harmless follies. Indeed, the medieval church frowned on most of these practices, and the Reformers of the 16th century finished the job of suppressing them. But perhaps there's a message here worth pondering—that in the words of the horrified pagans of Thessalonica, the message of Christ turns the whole world upside down. In the birth of Jesus, God has put down the mighty from their seats and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Nothing will ever be safe or normal again. In the words of Michael Card, we are called to "follow God's own fool." And yet, paradoxically, this greatest of revolutionaries was not a rebel. The one who revealed the surprising meaning of God's Law and turned the tables on human traditions nonetheless submitted to be circumcised according to the teaching of Moses.

Epiphany

Finally, on Epiphany (January 6), the celebration of Christmas comes to an end. "Twelfth Night" (as all lovers of Shakespeare know) is the ultimate celebration of Christmas madness (Shakespeare's play features one of his many "wise fools" who understand the real meaning of life better than those who think they are sane). Epiphany commemorates the beginning of the proclamation of the gospel—Christ's manifestation to the nations, as shown in three different events: the visit of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the turning of water into wine. In the Western tradition, the Magi predominate. But in the Eastern churches, Jesus' baptism tends to be the primary theme. In the Bucharest subway, children leading lambs walk through the trains in commemoration of the Lamb of God to whom John pointed. Orthodox Christians traditionally have their homes blessed with holy water on or around this day. Nowhere is Epiphany celebrated more joyously than in Ethiopia. Pilgrims from all over the country converge on the ancient city of Aksum, where they bathe in a great reservoir whose waters have been blessed by a priest.

Epiphany is often a forgotten festival (although, by the accident of Edwin's mother's birthday falling on January 5, his very un-liturgical family preserved the ancient tradition of keeping the Christmas decorations up until Epiphany). As the true end-point of the Christmas season, however, Epiphany sends us into the world to live out the Incarnation, to witness to the light of Christ in the darkness. Following Jesus, we have been baptized into his death and resurrection. Whether we are called to martyrdom, or to prophetic witness, or simply to faithful living in the joys and sorrows of our daily lives, we live all of our days in the knowledge of our dignity, redeemed through Christ and united to God. We are part of the strange society of people whose world has been turned upside down, and we go out to witness to this topsy-turvy truth: "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us: and we beheld his glory … and of his fullness have we all received, and grace for grace" (John 1:14, 16).

Advent Devotion: The Lighting of the Third Candle

Mark D. Roberts @http://markdroberts.comhas an Advent devotional for the Third Sunday in Advent

We Remember the Meaning of Advent

Advent is a word that means “coming” or “visit”. In the Christian season of Advent we prepare for the “advent” of Christ at Christmas. Our preparation includes many things:

• We remember Israel’s hope for the coming of God’s Messiah to save, to forgive, and to restore them.

• We remember our hope for the second coming of Jesus.

• We remember our need for a Savior to save us from our sins.

• We prepare to welcome Christ at Christmas into our world . . . and into our hearts.

By lighting one candle each week of Advent, we help ourselves to get ready for the birth of Jesus. So far we have lit two candles. The first helped us to hope for God our Shepherd; with the second we asked God to come and forgive our sins.

Today we remember the joy of waiting — because we know how the story ends!

He concludes with a prayer for God’s Help

Dear God, thank you for this season of Advent that helps us to prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas. As we read the Bible and light a candle, may excitement for Christ’s coming burn in our hearts. Amen.

"The Twelve Days of Christmas."

Elesha Coffman @ http://www.christianitytoday.com reviews "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

From 1558 to 1829, Catholics in England were prohibited from practicing their faith at all. Possessing or professing anything Catholic could get you killed in any of a number of horrible ways. In response, the beleaguered believers wrote "The Twelve Days of Christmas" as a covert way to teach the catechism. The song's "true love" is God, "me" is the believer, and each gift has spiritual significance:

1 Partridge in pear tree = Jesus on the cross
2 Turtle doves = Old and New Testaments
3 French hens = Faith, hope, and charity
4 Calling birds = Four Gospels and/or four evangelists
5 Golden rings = The Pentateuch
6 Geese a-laying = Six days of creation
7 Swans a-swimming = Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit
8 Maids a-milking = Eight Beatitudes
9 Ladies dancing = Nine fruits of the Spirit
10 Lords a-leaping = Ten Commandments
11 Pipers piping = Eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers drumming = Twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed

Like the candy cane story, this tale begins with a skewed version of English history. In 1558, England's Catholic queen, "Bloody Mary" Tudor, was succeeded by her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth. Though Protestants were now in power, and open practice of Catholicism was forbidden by law (until the Emancipation Act of 1829), this was hardly a death sentence for all the country's Catholics. There were periods of intense persecution but also periods of relative leniency, including much of Elizabeth's reign, during which the Via Media ("Middle Way") between Catholic and Protestant practices held sway. But even when the situation for Catholics in England was truly bleak, they never needed to be secretive about the truths supposedly hidden in "The Twelve Days of Christmas," because all of those ideas are held by Protestants as well.

Other arguments also challenge the hidden catechism theory. One, merely remembering the number of gospels, Beatitudes, and commandments isn't enormously helpful—you still have to remember what those lists contain. Two, there's no existing evidence that English Catholics used songs or nursery rhymes as spiritual mnemonics (on the contrary, many nursery rhymes were political satires). Three, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" very likely originated in France: three French versions of the song exist, and at least one item in the song, the partridge, was known in France but wasn't introduced in England until the late 1770s. France, incidentally, has been Catholic for centuries.

The English version of the song first appeared in print in 1780, when it was listed as a "memory-and-forfeits" game in a children's book, Mirth Without Mischief. The object of the game was to sing along without mixing up any of the gifts; a mistake could cost a kiss or a candy. However, the song was certainly popular before 1780, and it might even be related to an older song called "A New Dial," or "In Those Twelve Days." "A New Dial" can be dated back to at least 1625 and was explicitly spiritual, though its purpose was not to teach a catechism. And while no evidence links the two songs, the "meaning" assigned to days two, four, six, eight, and ten is the same for both.

The Paradox of Christmas, Pt 6 of 6 (John MacArthur)

If you want a truly meaningful Christmas this year, you need to understand the true meaning of Christmas. And that starts with understanding the Person of Christmas: Jesus, Himself.

The Paradox of Christmas, Pt 5 of 6 (John MacArthur)

If you want a truly meaningful Christmas this year, you need to understand the true meaning of Christmas. And that starts with understanding the Person of Christmas: Jesus, Himself.

The Paradox of Christmas, Pt 4 of 6 (John MacArthur)

If you want a truly meaningful Christmas this year, you need to understand the true meaning of Christmas. And that starts with understanding the Person of Christmas: Jesus, Himself.

The Paradox of Christmas, Pt 3 of 6 (John MacArthur)

If you want a truly meaningful Christmas this year, you need to understand the true meaning of Christmas. And that starts with understanding the Person of Christmas: Jesus, Himself.

The Paradox of Christmas, Pt 2 of 6 (John MacArthur)

If you want a truly meaningful Christmas this year, you need to understand the true meaning of Christmas. And that starts with understanding the Person of Christmas: Jesus, Himself.

Interview with Michael Wittmer

Justin Taylor @ http://theologica.blogspot.com recently intervied Michael Wittmer, Associate Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, on issues related to his excellent new book, Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough.

He notes:

I am also conservative because I believe that right doctrine matters as much as good behavior, and in fact the latter only truly proceeds from the former. I also believe that this right doctrine is the historic beliefs of the church found in Scripture, the Apostles and Nicene Creed, and most faithfully expounded in the Reformed branch of Protestant Christianity.

He classifies various beliefs for Christians into three categories: (1) what they must believe, (2) what they must not reject, and (3) what they should believe.

In the book of Acts, the bare minimum that a person must know and believe to be saved was that he was a sinner and that Jesus saved him from his sin. As Paul told the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:29-31; cf. 10:43). This is enough to counter the postmodern innovator argument that we can be saved without knowing and believing in Jesus.

Th Apostle's Creed discussed by Al Mohler

Al Mohler's addressed the topic of the Apostle's Creed in his chapel addresses:

• Credo: I Believe
• God the Father Almighty
• Maker of Heaven and Earth
• Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord
• Conceived of the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary
• Suffered Under Pontius Pilate
• Was Crucified, Died, and Was Buried
• The Third Day He Arose Again from the Dead
• He Ascended into Heaven and Sitteth on the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty
• Whence He Shall Come to Judge the Living and the Dead
• The Holy Spirit
• The Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of the Saints
• The Forgiveness of Sins
• The Resurrection of the Body and Life Everlasting

The Paradox of Christmas, Pt 1 of 6 (John MacArthur)

If you want a truly meaningful Christmas this year, you need to understand the true meaning of Christmas. And that starts with understanding the Person of Christmas: Jesus, Himself.

The Lighting of the Second Candle: Waiting for Forgiveness

Mark Roberts @ http://www.markdroberts.com continues his series for the Second Sunday of Advent

[Re-light the first purple candle]

We Remember the Meaning of Advent

Advent is a word that means "coming" or "visit". In the Christian season of Advent we prepare for the "advent" of Christ at Christmas. Our preparation includes many things:

• We remember Israel's hope for the coming of God's Messiah to save, to forgive, and to restore them.

• We remember our hope for the second coming of Jesus.

• We remember our need for a Savior to save us from our sins.

• We prepare to welcome Christ at Christmas into our world . . . and into our hearts.

By lighting one candle each week of Advent, we help ourselves to get ready for the birth of Jesus. Last week we lit a candle that signified our waiting for God our Shepherd.

Today we focus on the coming of Christ who brings forgiveness from our sins.

Prayer for God's Help

Dear God, thank you for this season of Advent that helps us to prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas. As we read the Bible and light a candle, may excitement for Christ's coming burn in our hearts. Amen.

Scripture Readings

Psalm 130:1-8

In this psalm we join the psalmist in crying out for God's forgiveness.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

God promises to make a new covenant with us, in which our sins will be forgiven and forgotten.

Luke 1:68-79

When an angel appears to Zechariah in the temple and tells him that his wife will give birth to a son, the old man doesn't believe the angel. As a result, Zechariah is unable to speak for many months, until immediately after the birth of his son John (the Baptist). Right after the birth, Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks the prophecy that we will read.

Lighting of the Candle

[As someone lights the second purple candle, the following should be read or paraphrased. If you're doing this online, in order to "light" the next Advent candle, click on the wick of the purple candles until you "light" the right one.]

We light this candle because, like God's people centuries ago, we also need a Savior who will forgive our sins. The purple color reminds us of the seriousness of our sin and our great need for God's forgiveness.

Prayer of Hope

Dear God, as we light this candle, we recognize our sin and our need for a savior. We wait for your forgiveness in Christ. We long to be purified so that we might present ourselves to you in righteousness. Come, Our Savior! Amen!

Closing Song

[To be sung to the tune of "O come let us adore him" from "O Come All Ye Faithful."]

O come to us, forgive us,
O come to us, forgive us,
O come to us, forgive us,
Christ the Lord!