The Encourager Newsletter - Vol.3 Issue 40

Toward Knowing God and Walking With Him

A FREE WEEKLY PUBLICATION with a BIBLICAL WORLD VIEW –

Dan Carr, Editor

The Baffling Power of Christmas

Without question, Christmas is the most powerful day of the year in America and in many other parts of the world. More people willingly plan for, spend more money for and participate in Christmas celebration than any other day. Let's lay one myth to rest: it's beyond the ability of merchants to lure so many people into their stores and induce them to spend beyond their means. Why DO we spend so much at Christmas? Why do so many people refuse to buy "holiday" trees? Well, uh, we want an unblemished Christmas; a pristine Christmas with a Christmas Tree—not a meaningless "Holiday Tree." So, we try to celebrate Christmas.

Along with church bells and great music and programs great and plain, thousands of people get drunk to avoid missing out on…whatever Christmas is about. Popular entertainers have long been encouraging our troops overseas at Christmas time. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby are American Christmas legends. Decorations and music and comedy skits all wrapped in a Christmas theme. Grinch has been stealing "Christmas" as he saw it. That naughty Grinch…tch, tch, tch.

In the past, Hollywood recruited its best writers and performers and produced enduring movie classics like White Christmas, It's A Wonderful Life and The Miracle on 34^th Street. Great effort and talent tried to spin "gold" out of the word: Christmas. Warm, human feelings are generated but is this Christmas? Peanuts has their annual Christmas rerun and Linus explains the meaning of Christmas (one of the clearest explanations). More recently we have The Music Box and The Christmas Shoes with more focus on the real Christmas. Still, we are faced with a higher suicide rate at Christmas time. Why are so many people saddened and depressed at Christmas time?

Me thinks we have allowed a mere shell of Christmas to gradually overtake us until we have very little left of Christmas. But it's the greatest time of the year to explain the heart of the Bible to millions of people! People are more open to the real gospel of the Christmas story than all the other eleven months. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everylasting life (Jn 3:16).

One of the most powerful tools we have in proclaiming the Gospel of Christ is to recapture the true meaning of Christmas. Church programs put on by children and viewed by their families is a powerful statement. It's a spoonful, but it's a very good spoonful. Every Christmas carol is a reminder that there's more to Christmas than a fat man in a red suit and the fiction that fuels our buying frenzy.

I hope you will carefully read Barbara's article below about The Advent Season. I believe the observation of the Advent Season is one of the best tools we have to recapture the real meaning of Christmas. I knew nothing about the Advent Season until I was grown. Churches and familes should link hands to observe Christmas for four Sundays—and every day of the four weeks between those Sundays until Christmas sinks in many times.

Twenty years of Christmas Advent can go deep-down into the souls of growing children. A tradition can be started that will be an effective engine for generations to come, if there are to be any more generations. The coming of the Lord is surely upon us!

This week I read a short paperback book:The Case For Christmas by Lee Stroubel (Zondervan). He has a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale University; was the award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and a spiritual skeptic until 1981. But his soul troubled him as he vacillated between his childhood observance of Christmas and the impressive arguments made by skeptics in his adult life. Christmas faded and skepticism grew to be a giant.

Still, the seeds of Christmas gnawed at him to employ his able skills as a lawyer and investigative reporter. For two years he consulted top experts in Jewish and Christian history and turned over every stone of his skepticism until he was driven to his knees—driven to bow before the babe in the manger and the empty tomb in Jerusalem to embrace God's Son! If you think you are a skeptic, perhaps you should walk behind this skeptic and save yourself some trouble.

He concludes: "So I talked with God in a heartfelt and unedited prayer,admitting and turning from my wrongdoing, and receiving his offer of forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus. I told him that with his help I wanted to follow him and his ways from here on out."

His assessment of that prayer is expressed: "There was no choir of heavenly angels, no lightning bolts, no tingly sensations, no audible reply. I know that some people feel a rush of emotion at such a moment; as for me, there was something else that was equally exhilarating: there was a rush of reason."

This morning we received a Christmas card that says it well: "If our greatest need had been information, God wuld have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior." Ω

The Advent Season

—Barbara Carr

My mama loved Christmas. She would begin by putting poinsettias in all the windows and singing "Christmas Time's a Comin'." Daddy would sometimes bring in evergreens and holly from the woods for her to spread around. I still love the smell of evergreens. He also brought in a tree. After we got electricity, he would put on the lights and then all three of us would decorate the tree. Georgia didn't arrive until I was almost fifteen. After she arrived, our Christmases were really joyful.

Mama loved to cook, so she brought out all the favorite recipes and started cooking, baking, and making candy. At times, she covered the Christmas table with cake layers for cooling. One time she had devil's food cake layers cooling on the dining room table. Georgia was little, but she was big enough to climb. Me and Mama (incorrect grammar, but I really like to say it.) were in the kitchen. Georgia came walking in the kitchen and said, "Come look at your cakes." She had climbed on the table and taken a handful from each layer and ate it. Mama wasn't ruffled one bit. She said, "Once we get them frosted no one will know the difference." That was Mama.

On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, Mama would read the Christmas story from the book of Luke Chapter Two, with Daddy looking on. Christmas Day, we opened gifts and ate an enormous dinner and maybe talked about baby Jesus' birth. I had such a happy childhood. We didn't know about the Advent Celebration but we did think reverently. I didn't hear about Advent until years later.

This year we were at our daughter Joy's home for Thanksgiving. She and her family always include the four weeks of Advent in celebrating the birth of Jesus. The Sunday we were there began the Advent Celebration. She and her husband, Jim read the scriptures and notes for the first Sunday of Advent on Saturday because everyone was leaving Sunday morning. The reading was the prophecy of Jesus' birth taken from the Old and New Testaments.

I decided to look up references on Advent. The word Advent is taken from the Latin word adventusm which means coming. "It's telling and re-telling the story of why God came into this world, the incarnation, and also pointing and looking forward to His coming again." (Notes of Rev. Marty O'Rourke)

The Advent Season begins a full month (four Sundays) before Christmas. The first Sunday begins a week of studying the prophecy about the birth of Jesus; the second week is a study of Hope; the third week is a study of Joy and the fourth week is a study of Worship. This study prepares us for the birth and return of Jesus Christ.

An Advent wreath is made by using a wreath-ring. Then evergreens are intertwined into the frame. The finished wreath lies flat on a table. Evergreens represent eternal life, which is ours when we accept Christ as our Savior. It symbolizes God's love. God's love is eternal, no beginning and no end. It can also represent the crown Jesus wore at the crucifixion. Five candles are used—three are purple representing 1) royalty of Christ; 2) the hope in Christ and 3) the light of Christ. One pink candle represents the joy in knowing Christ. One white candle placed in the center of the wreath represents the purity and holiness of Christ.

The fourth Sunday preceding Christmas, a purple candle is lit. That is the first Sunday of Advent. The second Sunday two purple candles are lit. The pink candle is lit on the third Sunday. All four candles (3 purple, 1 pink) are lit on the fourth Sunday. The White candle is lit on Christmas Eve. Each week the wreath shines more brightly.

This is a great study for the month of December. Christmas is not just a time of shopping, dining out and vacations. It is a time to celebrate and remember. Read the prophecies:

His Birth Isaiah 7:14; Isaiah 9:6; Micah 5:2, 4-5

His anointing Isaiah 11:1-4

His Betrayal Psalm 41:4; Zechariah 11:12-13

His Death Isaiah 53; Psalm 22:1-31

His Crucifixion Isaiah 53:12

His Resurrection Isaiah 25:8, Psalm 16:10

His Return In Glory Acts 1:10-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18; Revelation 22:20

His Glorious Reign Isaiah 11:3 through 12:6

The second week of Advent is a study of hope. Hope in Hebrew is qavah. This word depicts a sense of confidant expectation based on certainty. Malachi ends the Old Testament with the hope of the Messiah's arrival. The New Testament, 430 years later, gives us the hope of the returning of the Messiah.

The third week focuses on joy and anticipation. Habakkuk 3:17-19; Nehemiah 8:10; Luke 1:26-33; John 15:9, 11-12; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; Psalm 16:11

The fourth week focuses on worship. "Worship is more of an attitude and less of action. It is a God given gift which helps us mature and change as we learn to express our love for God." (Lisa Robertson) The scriptures for this week are on holiness and humility: Revelation 4:11; Psalm 95:6-7; Luke 1:46-49; Isaiah 9:6; Job 38:4, 7; Luke 2:8-13

On Christmas Eve, Adore Him. Luke 2:8-13. "A seemingly insignificant moment in time — the birth of a baby — altered history and gave life to all humanity." (Robertson)

I hope you will study these scriptures. Advent scriptures help us to look forward to Jesus returning to set His feet on the Mount of Olives. As Jimmy DeYoungs says, "Keep Looking Up. It may be today, if not it may be tomorrow." Ω

This article can also be viewed at http://www.biblewalking.com