“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.”
– G. K. Chesterton
Christmas is much more than simply the celebration of Jesus’ birth: it reminds us of the central truth of ‘the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us’ (John 1.14), fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 7.14 that the virgin will conceive and bear a Son, who will be called Emmanuel, ‘God is with us’.
First Text: Matthew 20:20-28
Second Text: Philippians 2:1-11
Music to Practice:
Reflect:
“We talk glibly of the “Christmas spirit,” rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But… it ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round…. The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor — spending and being spent — to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others — and not just their own friends–in whatever way there seems need.”
– J. I. Packer, Knowing God