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Hurting through the Holidays :: Advent’s Hope

Physical and emotional pain can make the holiday season feel like a torrent of expectations to appear happy. The unspoken demand of “Christmas joy” weighs on those mourning the loss of a loved one, suffering a long-term illness, or carrying the pressures of daily anxiety or depression. At some point this converges with the seasonal stress of wrapping up the final quarter of the year, scheduling events, and traveling through busy airports.

The musical messages that flood every store and streaming site are less than helpful. While festive, the top 10 Christmas songs in the U.S. are unapologetically devoid of spiritual joy. From Lennon’s Christmas-as-political-statement, “Happy XMas (War Is Over),” to Mariah Carey’s, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” which desperately pleads with a lover to fill a need far too large for any person, these songs speak of happy feelings but miss transcendent peace.

Settling for happiness as proxy for true joy isn’t a recent change in America’s Christmas tradition. In 1944 Judy Garland sang, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” the song mandates merriness—challenging, “from now on your troubles will be out of sight,” while predicting, “through the years we’ll all be together”—yet offers no sufficient solution as to how any of this will come to be.

The season of Advent, contrary to demanding a facade of holiday spirit, is an invitation to rest in the promise of Christ’s redemptive joy. When Christ talked about anxiety and trust he wasn’t minimizing the stresses of life, he was revealing the sufficiency of his love.

It’s only by placing our faith in the gospel that we are given the opportunity to displace it in ourselves and our circumstances. We stop looking to calm daily anxieties with our own success, appearance, or accolade—which change far too often to offer the security and hope we need.

“In the world you will have tribulation,” Jesus said to his followers. “But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Lord, renew in us, this Advent, the hope of your victory, the promise of your relief, and the joy of your redemption.

Listen: As With Gladness Men of Old by Choir of the King’s College, Cambridge.

Editor’s note: When Christ talked about anxiety, or discouragement, his words were focused on the daily pressures common to all people. He was not, nor are we above, trying to speak to mental health conditions that persist despite great effort and desire. In all things we look to Christ, but in many we find ourselves holding on for future relief, future glory, future joy—Christ will return, he will make all things new.

Today’s Reading
Micah 4 (Listen – 2:33)
Luke 13 (Listen – 5:02)

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Why We Celebrate Advent :: Advent’s Hope

As a commercial event, Christmas seems to come too soon each year. In the church calendar—observed by Christians around the world for centuries—Christmas morning marks the beginning of the season, and our hearts now rest in the season of Advent. To put that in the language of modern music, celebrating “Joy to the World” before we cry “O Come O Come Emmanuel” misses the hope of Advent.

“The ancient theologians of the Church, such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, look upon the Christian life as one continual festival,” observed Ida von Hahn-Hahn in the 19th century. “Because the night of sin has been overcome by redemption, because reconciliation with God has brought peace and true joy to the soul, and because from this joy no one is excluded who does not voluntarily separate himself from God.”

Hahn-Hahn, a German countess who wrote a series of books on church history, highlighted the importance of Advent throughout history in preparing the souls of the faithful for Christmas:

Particular times were set apart as festivals, which, like faithful messengers of religion, returned every year, unceasingly announcing the work of redemption, and by their attractive festivity enkindling man, and preparing his soul for the everlasting feast of heaven.

The fast of the four weeks of Advent, to prepare the sinful world for the merciful coming of the Lord… is not to be fulfilled by a trifling and superficial joy, but by the supernatural rejoicing of a heart entirely resting in God, and a life wholly consecrated to Him. Zeal for sanctification should extend over all the aims and objects of life.

Our goal in this season isn’t to usurp materialism only to restore an idyllic image of Christmas-past. Advent is a season where we seek the renewal of our souls in Christ as we prepare for Christmas-present, and long for Christmas-future—the great second Advent where the broken are restored, the dead are revived, and the hope of the gospel brings forth the restoration of all things. So in this season we joyfully, and longingly, sing together, “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.”

Listen: Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus, by Christy Nockles (2:59)

Today’s Reading
Micah 3 (Listen – 1:51)
Luke 12 (Listen – 7:42)

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Vibrant Faith :: Weekend Reading List

Our mission at The Park Forum is to cultivate vibrant faith and sharpen cultural insight through curated devotionals and scripture readings. Each day over 4,000 of us read, pray, and expand our faith through this community.

Over the last year we’ve sought to grow not only our knowledge of Scripture, but our understanding of the culture we live in. We believe that fostering an informed faith is one of the first steps in making the grace and peace of Christ known in our communities.

Today, for the final Weekend Reading List of the year, we want to take a look back at some of our favorites.

 

Restorative Silence

Once a spiritual discipline, silence is now more likely to be viewed as the uncomfortable penalty for those who do not have enough to do. But how can we hear the whispers of the Spirit without the cloister of silence?

 

 

David Brooks on Simplicity and Morality

Life seems to become perpetually more overwhelming, despite the time and money we spend simplifying—most of us feel underwater when it comes to work, family, and personal life.

 

 

 

The Bible’s Future

More versions of Scripture are available, while less people are reading and legally able to spread the word of God than ever before. It is time for Scripture’s seventh major transition.

 

 

Christian Civility

Civility falters when people live in fear—fear that their views may be wrong; fear that their power is limited; fear that there is no sovereign who cares for their interests.

 

 

Confronting Sin

Today’s calls for racial justice, if anything, understate the problem—white America, however well meaning, is astonishingly oblivious to pervasive inequity.

 

 

Today’s Reading
Jonah 4 (Listen – 1:56)
Luke 9 (Listen – 8:05)

This Weekend’s Readings
Micah 1 (Listen – 2:46) Luke 10 (Listen – 5:40)
Micah 2 (Listen – 2:11) Luke 11 (Listen – 7:33)

 

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Thanksgiving and Prayer

Reflection :: Gospel Community
Philippians 1.3-11

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Prayer of Thanksgiving
from an undated and anonymous papyrus

On you we call, Lord God, all-wise, all-surveying, holy, the only true Sovereign. Your will is that all should be saved and come to knowledge of the truth.

With one voice we offer you praise and thanksgiving; full-hearted, full-throated we sing you the hymn you have right to at this hour. In your mercy you called us (holy the calling!), taught us and trained us, gave understanding, wisdom, and truth to us—gave us life eternal.

You brought us back with the pure and precious blood of your only Son, freed us from lies and error, from bitter enslavement, released us from the Devil’s clutches and gave us the glory of freedom. We were dead and you renewed the life of our souls and bodies in the Spirit.

Give us the strength of your support. Give us encouragement, give the light that goes with it. Make us live by the faith preached by your holy apostles and the high teachings of the gospels of our Savior, Jesus Christ. May we not be content only to hear and speak of them, but behave and act as they bid us.

Teach us to look upwards, to seek out and search the heavenly, not the earthly. If that is our attitude and if you act in us, what glory for your power, all-holy, omnipotent, worthy of all praise; glory through Jesus Christ, your beloved, with the Holy Spirit, now and through the ages.

Amen.

*Prayer abridged and adapted from an undated and anonymous papyrus, on display in Berlin, published in Patrologia Orientalis (18:442), 1907.

Today’s Reading
Jonah 3 (Listen – 1:31)
Luke 8 (Listen – 8:09)

 

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The Joy of Christ

[Jesus said,] “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” — Luke 7.41-42

The most intellectually offensive part of Christianity is not its insistence on miracles—including the incarnation and resurrection—but its foundational teaching that each person is deeply marked with the pride and brokenness of sin. The modern mind, like the Pharisaical mind, is convinced it just needs a little forgiveness.

The core philosophy of internal goodness helps us hold the power and fullness of God at bay. If we are really not all that bad, we don’t really need all of Christianity—a touch of its ethic on top of our otherwise good hearts will suffice. And, if we do not require that much forgiveness, we are not all that indebted to God. Our relationship with him can function ad hoc—waxing and waning as we perceive need.

In Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis writes:

I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke.

Everyone there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes. But this is near the stage where the road passes over the rim of our world. No one’s eyes can see very far beyond that: lots of people’s eyes can see further than mine.

While the central message of Christianity assumes our brokenness, it is not predicated on it. In this way, Christianity is surprisingly focused on a relationship between God and man—with pride and brokenness on display as the key barrier to that relationship.

Jesus draws attention to the forgiven debt not as the foundation of his relationship with the generous woman in Luke 7, but as the context for her gratitude. She discovered something the prideful religious leaders had not: the joy of pursuing something of ultimate worth and joy.

Today’s Reading
Jonah 2 (Listen – 1:20)
Luke 7 (Listen – 7:14)