Christmas Words and Phrases You Didn’t Want to Admit You Didn’t Understand
This one looks at some common (and less common) phrases knocking around at Christmas that you may or may not know.
Odd Christmas Preaching Phrases (Reflections From An Outsider)
On a similar note: ‘I’m strange when it comes to Christmas – I recognise that. I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas. So, by the time I became a convictional follower of Jesus later in life, I came to Christmas largely as an outsider. Consequently, with many of the elements of Christmas that others, including Christians, find normal, I found (find) them… unusual. Even jarring.’
O Come, All You Unfaithful
‘I wept quietly, hoping no one would notice, as I sat among our church family at the annual Christmas concert. I had never heard the song before, but the first line was like a sucker punch after many years of trials.’
Wrap up some stuff this christmas
‘You and I were created for a world full of things. God placed Adam and Eve in the garden surrounded by objects: dirt, leaves, food, fungus, rocks, and then some. Not only that, he prepared his creatures to make more things. He enabled them to carve wood into shapes, create paintings, sew tapestries, mold metal, and form toys to play games like marbles. Things were to multiply right along with the image bearers of God. Thus, every tool, object, pillow, toy, and tchotchke in our world today stands as one more creation under the God by whom all things exist (Rom 11:36).’
The Nightmare Before Christmas is about Disenchantment
This was a fascinating analysis of the film The Nightmare Before Christmas: ‘Every year I watch the Nightmare Before Christmas just before Halloween, and I think to myself: “What is this movie really about?” I’m usually pretty intuitive about these kinds of things, but tNBC has always haunted me because I’ve never felt like I quite had it right. I never had the one puzzle piece that unlocked it. This year, it all clicked into place: it’s about life in a secular age.’
He came to a world condemned: O root of Jesse
‘“O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem” is initially an unassuming, even underwhelming line. We might expect to hail the promised deliverer as “Cedar of Lebanon” or “Oak of Righteousness” or “Tree of Life,” not as “Branch” or “Sprout.” Such a nickname seems more fitting for a junior-varsity point guard than for the Savior of the world. Yet the old hymn draws our attention to a rich biblical theme of hope on the other side of calamity, renewal from the rubble, deliverance through devastation.’
From the archive: Merry Gnostic Christmas
‘If we don’t just enjoy good gifts and glorify God because of them, we are being deficient Christians. We are essentially spurning God’s good gifts to us. When the Lord states in his Word that wine is a good gift from him – notwithstanding the legit reasons some people might be best abstaining – we are effectively calling God a liar when we shun it and decry it as evil. The same is true for any good gift he gives us. When we refuse to enjoy what is manifestly not sinful, or we have to ‘spiritualise’ stuff to make it kosher, we are spurning what God has called good and given to us for our enjoyment.’