Recovering Wonder: A Fresh Reading of the Christmas Story

Christians need to stop listening to the world and start listening to God so that thinking Christian becomes as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. This is Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological conversations, Thinking Christian offers a mix of interviews and discussions that highlight the ways God is working in the lives of his people and question the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that keep the church from conforming more closely to the image of Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everyone, welcome to Thinking Christian. This is Dr. James Spencer. You know, one of the things I remember from Christmases past is sitting in church. I went to a Lutheran church, Missouri Synod, in Carlinville, Illinois, and every Christmas we'd have a service where we put on a nativity play and got to read through the Christmas story. One year, after my voice had deepened, they let me read the whole Christmas story for the congregation. And so it's just one of those fond memories for me of getting to hear the story of Jesus' birth, even though I wasn't a believer at the time. You know, I remember it just being a really special time of year and being caught up sort of in the, at that point I probably would have called it just the spirit of Christmas. You know, but now it's taken on a far different significance having become a believer in Jesus Christ. And so I wanted to just take some time today on the podcast, not to interrupt anybody's Christmas too much, but if you haven't been able to go somewhere and hear the Christmas story, I thought I would try to read through Luke 2 here and just give everyone an opportunity to sit back and listen and really enjoy the story of Jesus' birth. So here we go with Luke 2. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and line of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. And in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was a great multitude of angels and of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. You know, what a fantastic story about our Savior. In Luke 1, we know that Mary was visited by Gabriel, that Gabriel gave her a lot of information about what was going to happen. He told her that she was going to bear the Christ. And, you know, she now finds herself pregnant, traveling with her husband Joseph, who has been called, essentially called by Caesar Augustus, back to the city of his birth, Bethlehem, to be counted. When they get there, they can't find any room. And so they end up having to stay in an inn in a manger. And the shepherds who the angels appear to, they are now given a sign. And that sign is that the baby will be in a manger, that the baby will, you know, they'll find this child sort of lying in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. And so what we have is this sort of interesting convergence of moments. And I think it must have been an interesting time for Mary, particularly, maybe probably for Joseph as well. But specifically, we see Mary's reaction here that she's treasuring all these things up in her heart and pondering them. But as the shepherds come to see Jesus and they're reiterating everything that Mary had already sort of known, that, you know, this was the Christ, that this was a miraculous child, that God was doing something interesting in the world. What an amazing comfort it must have been for her in this moment where she's getting yet another point of confirmation, as if she needed one, but another point of confirmation that all of this is happening on God's timing, in God's plan. And so she must have just been ecstatic that these shepherds are visiting. So as we think about the Christmas story, I think the important part, one of the important parts of the Christmas story is obviously God's involvement in bringing all these things about, the anticipations of Israel, the need to redeem all mankind. This is what God is doing through a little baby who came at Christmas time at the Christ mass. And this is what we celebrate every year at Christmas. So hopefully this reading was pleasurable and I hope it added to your Christmas season. And I look forward to being with you again on Thinking Christian tomorrow. So take care. Have a Merry Christmas. Enjoy your time with friends and family and have a safe and happy holiday season. Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. This is Richard Beebe, producer and co-host of Useful to God radio right here on KLTT. The Christmas story from Dr. James Spencer was made possible from usefultogod.com. I want to tell you about a new daily audio Bible study from Useful to God. It's called Useful to God radio. And we're doing the Gospels in 30 days beginning January 1st. Every year, the Merriam-Webster dictionary will choose a batch of trendy words to add to the dictionary. I know last year it was canceled and woke. This year, gaslighting made the list. How important are words, labels and brands as you can hear words that conjure up negative feelings and put down people.

They seem to be the trendy words. Words like Advent and elements of Advent don't normally make the list. Hope, peace, love, and joy are deep words of awakening. Hello, everyone. I'm Richard Beattie, and this week on Useful to God, Dr. James Spencer and I will have another conversation on how we can be useful to God. If I could change the narrative this Christmas, I'd secretly change words that are hopeful for a counseled culture. I'd change the dialogue from debating our rights and hold peace talks for a culture at war. I'd draw a steep contrast to the things that God hates and with whom God loves. And I would also bring the world to its feet with the truth of our stories, where we have struggled together and have made the sacrifices, including being right all the time or unforgiven in a canceling culture, words that don't trend like empowerment, mentoring, minds and hearts, truth and love, and a liberal take on compassionate conservativism. It is your choice to give hope a chance, to lay down your arms and be at peace. It is our choice to love God and our neighbor. When we walk that road together, we can add that notion, joy. Joy will find a way. Dr. James Spencer is here, and we are both at the starting gate and the finish line. The systematic flowchart that we call Advent is both the end of the waiting room and the new start to a new year. James, how are you? I'm doing really well, Richard. Thanks. There's a magazine here in Denver that has a column and a flowchart on various subjects. It could be when to tip, how much to tip, or it could be finding a health care provider or a counselor. It is without a doubt stimulating. I feel that way about Useful to God. We started off at Thanksgiving. We then unpacked the elements of Advent, and we have arrived at joy. How do you find joy in a world that seems to snuff out the spirit? You know, I think that the best way to find joy is to just do something that's actually fairly, it's difficult and simple all at the same time. And so it's to imitate Jesus. And I think here's where we make a mistake. There's a theory that was put out by a gentleman named Rene Girard. And he did a lot of work on what's called mimetic desire or imitated desire. And what he argues is this. We spend way too much time thinking about the relationship between us and the objects that we desire, when what we should really be thinking about is the relationship between us, the people that we are imitating, in this case, Christ, and how that changes our relationship to the objects that we desire. And so when we imitate Christ, what we're really doing is we're saying, I no longer want to relate to the world in the way that I think I should relate to the world. Let me ask you a serious question. 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I want to relate to the world in the way that I think Christ would relate to the world, that I've seen Christ relate to the world. And so to find joy, what we really need to do is sort of tap into Jesus' life, to watch what he did, to attach ourselves to him in such a way that we live according to the patterns that he set. And then figure out then how it is that being like Jesus changes the way we interact with the world. And I think that because if we don't imitate Jesus first, if we don't get this sort of imitation of Jesus right, it's really easy for us to start looking at the things that we don't have in the world or maybe the things that are happening to us in the world or how we're being disaffected by the various economic or political or social or cultural sort of upheavals around us. But the reality is that when I'm imitating Christ, all of those things sort of wash away because as Christ lived, suffered, died, and was ultimately resurrected and glorified, so also will we be. And so these things that we're experiencing, they're not trivial. They're important in the near term, but ultimately they're really of little consequence because we're looking forward to something that other people aren't, which is the hope of being with Jesus in the new heavens and the new earth. And that to me is sort of a really crucial piece of being joyful in a world that can suck the joy right out of you. You know, there's a float advent that we miss in the hustle and bustle, and then you're no longer waiting. Then there's this feeling of, now what? Our highs are really high and then our lows are extremely low. So how can this season be less hard on people and how can we balance out our emotions with our realities and hit the restart button? I think, first of all, it's fine to sort of hope for these bigger moments. My wife and I usually take a short vacation with our children, and I'm really looking forward to it. I enjoy being away, just my wife and my kids. We have a lot of fun. But I also think that I'm with my wife and kids most days. You know, I drive my kids to school every morning. My son and I usually hang out in the afternoons when he gets back from school for a little bit and just talk about his day. Those are special times too. You know, and I think that there is something about us that sort of loses the joy of the mundane. Those everyday sort of moments tend to get squeezed out because what we're looking for is something bigger than what we have. And so what I would recommend to people is just thinking about it in these terms. Look around your world. Look around your mundane activities and find the joy in them day to day, moment to moment, in the present. Just find the joy. Find something to be thankful for. Find something to be joyful about. Find something that you truly experience as a blessing in your day-to-day life. And don't lose that as you're also looking forward to these bigger events. And I think that will create an evenness to the way that we think about our lives and we think about our world. I'm Richard Beattie in Denver, Colorado. And James is near St. Louis somewhere in Illinois. James, we're talking about the systematic ways to get to Christmas and the road to joy. And I wonder, how long can joy be sustained? You know, I mean, I think it's a really good question. I would assume it varies a bit. But I think of, when I think of joy, one of the passages that comes to mind is when the Apostle Paul is talking about finding contentment, which isn't quite the same as joy, but finding contentment in both riches and poverty. And I think that we don't want to minimize the adverse effects that either riches or poverty can have on one's psyche. Being, having too much can be as detrimental to one's disposition as having too little. And I think that we have to recognize that. And so, to me, joy can be sustained as long as we are focusing on the right things. As long as we are not distracted from what truly brings joy, we can sustain joy. But as the little things in our lives, those sort of challenges that we face on a daily basis, you know, whatever they may be, as they begin to crowd Christ out of our lives, we can't really sustain joy because the little things will get us down. There's this great story of, you know, there are people, there were these construction workers who were building a huge cathedral. And there's one who's sort of rolling this boulder up toward the cathedral. And someone stops and says, hey, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm trying to get this stinking boulder through the mud so I can so I can get it up to the castle there, the build site. And he's really frustrated. He's tired of pushing this boulder through the mud. He doesn't like what he's doing. Then the gentleman, the same gentleman, goes over and he looks at this other.

worker who's happily pushing a boulder through the same mud. And he goes up to him and he says, what are you doing? And he says, I'm building a cathedral. And it's that sort of end goal, that end purpose, that sort of view, perspective that we need to adopt. If we want to sustain joy, we have to look at the bigger picture as opposed to just looking at this specific activity that we're doing now and trying to figure out why it is that we're doing it and what it's worth and all those kind of things. We need to be remembering that we are building the kingdom of God, and that's a joyful activity. And so if we can focus on those things, if we can focus on that end goal, I think we'll have a much greater opportunity to sustain joy over the long term. And so I go back to my favorite journalist and physician, the Apostle Luke. His second book is a must read. It's called Acts. The Gospel of Luke is Acts 1 and the Gospel of Luke in Acts of the Apostles to me is Acts 2. Sorry, it's my theatrical background. Does it make sense for us to end the year with Christmas and continue the new year with Acts? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really interesting thought. I do think that there is something about Acts that we often overlook. Acts is going to be the first time that the disciples are really without Jesus, and they have to go about building the kingdom without him. Now, they obviously receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and so that's a huge help to them. They're empowered by him. And, you know, in that sense, Christ is always with them through the working of the Holy Spirit. And yet, they used to have Jesus physically with them. He used to be part of their, you know, small knit network. And so I think that there is a really good case to be made that as we read the book of Acts, this is the era that we exist in. We may not be building exactly the same way that the early church was, but we are working in the same way that they were, and we're working toward the same thing that they were. And so as we read Acts, we should definitely be thinking about the new age, maybe not even the new year, but the new age into which we've entered, where Christ is glorified, the Holy Spirit has come, and now it's our job to give testimony to the world that God is the victor and that the gospel is being proclaimed. You know, where I live in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, we have periods where the wind can blow really hard. I was working away on a script, and it was one of those hard winds. We had some boxes, and they had blown up on our roof, and there was a banging and the trees are swaying. Is life a series of advantageous events that we don't really see in our busy schedule? I get that feeling, yeah. I think there's a lot of times where, you know, and I don't know if this is exactly what James is talking about when he says, you know, don't say, you know, tomorrow I'm going to go here or there. And, you know, he's discussing it in terms of making plans and really planning for the future in ways that sort of dismiss God. And he tells his readers that instead what they should do is to say, I will do this or that thing if the Lord wills. And I think there's something in that that we need to learn. It's that we can, you know, the best laid plans of mice and men do often go astray. And if we're smart, what we realize is that our plans are always subject to change depending on what God brings into our path. And so these everyday moments where we could be nudged away from the very important work that we're doing, whatever that very important work may be, nudged in order to do something that God is asking us to do is a really important thing for us to become sensitive to. I wish you could hear this. Thanks for listening. I want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. Christians need to stop listening to the world and start listening to God so the thinking Christian becomes as natural as breathing. Life Audio. Relationships, mental health, work, family. Life can feel complicated, but you're not alone. I'm Shanti Feldhahn. And I'm Jeff Feldhahn. On I Wish You Could Hear This, we share simple, proven, and sometimes surprising secrets from decades of research to help you thrive in life, faith, and relationships. Want real stories, real help, real fun, and real hope? Listen on lifeaudio.com or follow I Wish You Could Hear This on your favorite podcast app.