The Glory of Christmas

December 24, 2025

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest,
    and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”[d]
15 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.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
21 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.
-Luke 2:13-21 (ESV)

Glory, glory, glory!  Everything is to be done to give God all the glory!  And unbefitting because of our sinful nature, we tend to have a problem with that.  We tend to be reluctant to, block or diminish giving God the glory for everything in life!  And as much as it’s incredible to know that God cares for us so much to give us the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ at Christmas, would you be surprised to know that even paramount to that, God did it not for the final purpose to save his followers, but he did it for the ultimate purpose of his own glory?  Does that statement not strike you?  Or perhaps it bothers you in a certain way.

This is not a common theme that most preachers talk about.  And even if they do, I will guess many preachers don’t know exactly to what extent God is focused on his glory.  John Piper (a reformed Baptist theologian and retired pastor) would argue that God longs for a universal repentance (though it’s not possible) so that all would be saved (1 Tim. 2:1-4), but even that deep and passionate desire to save all people seems to be subordinate to his own sovereign grace which gives Godself all the glory.  When we examine our text in Luke 2:13-21, I believe this is the reason why when the angel appeared with the heavenly host, immediately the first thing they all proclaimed was “Glory to God in the highest” (Lk. 2:13) before anything else was spoken or done.  It coincides with Psalm 19:1 telling us, “….the heavens declare the glory of God”.  I believe this is also the reason why the shepherds returned to where they were, giving God glory and praise (Lk. 2:20).  And in Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (pp. 50), John Piper once said, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”  Now the more I think about that quote, the more it makes sense if you ask me.

Once again, I say everything is to be done to give God all the glory!

And on December 25th, it is likely Jesus wasn’t born on this date (check my Dec. 27, 2023, blog post entitled “Missing the Point about the Christmas Miracle!” for more info).  Therefore, and on December 25th, we don’t celebrate the birthday of Jesus, we celebrate his birth on that day!  And in doing so, we give God all the glory for sending his Son-Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world!

Now did you catch the reaction of the people in Luke 2:18?  The ESV translation says they wondered at the news.  Other translations say the people marveled (NKJV) or were amazed (NIV) by the news.  I personally prefer the NIV and NKJV here (which is rare that I prefer them over the ESV), but isn’t it sad to know how most of the world reacts to this truly AMAZING news now?  Most of the world has gone so far away from giving God all the glory for the miracle of the birth of Jesus.  Aside from the death and resurrection of Jesus, this is the GREATEST news of all time if you ask me!  The hope of the world is here, and God is with us (the Immanuel)!  How could any other news be greater (apart from Jesus’ death and resurrection)?  Forget winning the lottery, forget getting a new job, house or car, or that special Christmas gift, or hanging around certain people under the mistletoe…..while ending world hunger and other great news would be good, this all pales in comparison to the Immanuel being here!

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Getting Ready for Christmas

December 17, 2025

11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. 13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
-Luke 1:11-17 (NIV)

Have we lost what Christmas is all about?  Have we lost the true meaning of Christmas?  No, I’m not talking about wrapping and giving gifts.  I’m not talking about gingerbread houses, candy canes, turkey dinner or egg nog drinks.  I’m not talking about decorating houses with pine trees covered in ornaments and lights.  Now before any of that happens, we all need to get ready for Christmas the right way!  We all need to prepare our hearts for the coming Messiah in Jesus Christ!  Our text in Luke can teach us how to do so!

For anyone forgetting, the miracle birth of Christmas is not just one miracle birth, but two.  Most people remember the birth of baby Jesus (born of the virgin Mary and conceived by the Holy Spirit), but maybe some of us forget the birth of John the Baptist (the earthly cousin of Jesus) was also a miraculous birth.  Verse 14 tells us, “….many will rejoice because of his birth…”  Is that really the case?  How can that be? He famously said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt. 3:2).  How can people rejoice when he’s famously known for saying “repent”? - because that’s how we prepare for Christmas and that’s how we prepare for the coming Messiah!  We cannot prepare for Jesus by buying Christmas gifts for people or even shopping for ourselves.  We can only prepare for Jesus and Christmas by repenting – turning away from our sinful ways and turning to Christ, but in combination with believing he truly is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world! – Repent and believe the good news! (Mk. 1:15).

Unfortunately, many people do not want to hear this.  In fact, the vast majority of people want nothing to do with this (2 Cor. 2:15-16).  Many people don’t want to be convicted of their sins.  Most people will get terribly angry if you expose any unrighteous behaviour.  But as Christians, that should not stop us, HOWEVER, do it with kindness, gentleness, grace and humility.  After all, Jesus came with grace and truth (Jn. 1:14) and we’re to model ourselves after Christ.  It rarely works well when we come down on someone hard and that includes other fellow believers.  We also don’t have to constantly come down upon others and thumping them over the head with harsh truths of any wrongdoings.  Doing so constantly to others can make us appear falsely self-righteous and unapproachable.

Jesus could’ve called out everyone all the time for their sins, but he didn’t and he didn’t shy away either.  I’m not an expert on this by any stretch, but the more I mature in my own faith, I lean more on the timing of the Holy Spirit on what to say and when to say it.  If we’re constantly coming down on others all the time for their own shortcomings, I guarantee you, you’ll get a crowd of people constantly upset and coming down on you for everything in return and the result will just be an angry mob of people all over, or a hurt mob of people all over with fingers pointed at everyone.  Does anyone want real change?  It starts with the person we see in the mirror and it starts with prayer because we cannot repent and believe without the help of the Holy Spirit!

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The One for His Glory

December 10, 2025

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
-John 1:9-18 (NIV)

Being humbled is not a fun feeling but letting go of pride is therapeutic and healing.  And it’s sad that so often the world works out of pride and arrogance.  Am I immune to this?  Absolutely not and I disgust myself the more I catch my own urge to be validated as a form of false respect and honour.  It’s ironic that I find myself to be a Minister of Word and Sacrament and in many ways the face of the congregation and constantly in the public eye, because for many years I regularly served as the audio/video guy in my home church and the guy that was rarely seen or heard.  Typically, people only noticed me and looked back at me, high in the balcony at the back of the church (where the audio/video booth was) when there was a typo with praise song lyrics or there was a terrible screech or feedback noise from microphones.

And I believe it’s healthy to be constantly reminded that everything is for God’s glory and his glory alone!  It’s especially healthy for North Americans because we generally don’t operate that way.  We as North Americans tend to always be motivated by the nicer car, the bigger and better house, the cushier job and the comfortable retirement – and as long as me and my family are taken care of, nobody else and nothing else matters.  Well, the gospel doesn’t work that way and thank goodness!  As we reflect upon the season of Advent and Christmas we are reminded that the spotlight was never to be shone on us and was always focused on Jesus Christ!  This “disarming” text today reveals nothing of great importance was planned, practiced or executed because of our own selfish goals, but it all happened because of God’s glory.  The fact of the matter is, Jesus was brought to the world for his own glory (Jn. 1:14).  Let that statement rest with you for a few moments. 

This means God the Father takes full ownership and saved his children for his own glory’s sake (Jn. 1:13), through his Son (Jesus Christ), which is also the Son’s glory, because Jesus is also God (Jn. 1:18).  With Jesus, it’s not the case of a created being became God, nor God became a created being and only became a created being with nothing more, such that Jesus at some point didn’t exist as God, but that God always existed as the Father, the Son (the living Word in Jn. 1:1) and the Holy Spirit.  There was never a point when Jesus stopped being God, so let’s not get it twisted.  Jesus existed before creation began as God, he continued to exist as God and taking on human flesh in the gospels while walking the earth (known as the hypostatic union), still existed as God immediately after crucifixion (his human nature died, but his divine nature never ceased) and ascension and currently sits at the right hand of the Father as God (1 Pet. 3:22, Acts 7:55-56, Rom. 8:34, to name a few) and this is all because of his glory!

To me, do you know what’s the most powerful verse in our reading today? Verse 12!  God gave the right to become his children!  Without God we have no right in anything in life.  Have you ever seen videos of an alpha male dog walking in the mist of other dogs?  Instinctively everyone else lays down and becomes silent at the presence of the dominant alpha/apex.  Everyone else is not even worthy enough to speak!  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here is a video about dogs:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UF1OdgbRLcg

I know this is just the animal kingdom, but amazingly they get it right and so often we get it wrong in the presence of our God.  We constantly like to run our mouths, grumble, lie, deny, or boast in the presence of the almighty God and we forget how glorious and how powerful God really is.  If it were in medieval times, any of us would be considered quite fortunate to even enter the king’s courtroom and be in his presence and be granted permission to speak.  All glory is given to the one and only Son, and may we be considered incredibly fortunate to be given the right to become children of God!

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No More Swords

December 3, 2025

The time is coming when all things will be made right and forevermore!  The time is coming when all people will be brought under the joyful reign of the true and perfect king in Jesus Christ!  The time is coming when the old powers and the old order will pass away.  The time is coming when this old order will globally be revealed as not being order at all but chaos, and chaos will be defeated!

….and this time is coming SOON!

How soon is SOON? SOONER than you think!  And for me, that’s all I need to know!  Because this tells me that ultimate hope will be answered and met, once and for all and in a short time.  Furthermore, some of you may remember that I already publicly shared before, hope can only be found in Jesus Christ!  He is the Messiah, he is the Christ, he is the one and only Saviour of the world!  And without him, life would be completely meaningless, and I refuse to believe life would be void of meaning!  If I believed that nonsense, then it would imply we as Christians worship a god of disorder – contrarily to that notion, meaning has order, order has function and function has ultimate purpose.  And in God’s economy ultimate purpose is to rightfully elevate our triune God and magnify his glory above all else! – I refute and refuse to believe things and events ultimately happen not for the sake of God’s eternal glory (Rom. 8:28)!  For this reason, Jesus the Saviour of the world must and will come back to bring his glory into completion!

Now look at the picture that Isaiah paints to show this completed glory from our limited perspective.  It would be a world where….

1)      The Lord stands out as supreme to be exalted above all else.

2)     All nations and all people will be joined in the highest exaltation and worship of the Lord.

3)     Jerusalem will be the world’s capital where the Lord and Messiah/Jesus will establish his throne (in the future glorified temple on Mount Zion)

4)     From Jerusalem, ultimate, perfect and unrefuted law (and thus order) will be established and maintained by the Lord himself.

5)     Swords (war tools) will turn into plowshares (farming tools) with their spears (killing tools) turned into pruning hooks (fruit developing tools) – this is REAL peace!

6)     All are not invited into this magnificent time (only the true descendants of Jacob/the true remnant of Israel meaning true spiritual followers of Jesus Christ whose hearts have been circumcised and it’s not by physical lineage – see Rom. 2:28-29, Matt. 3:9).

Oh and by the way, this same prophetic description was revealed in Micah 4:1-3 as well.

Can you picture this kind of world?  In particular I’m amazed at the fact there will be no more swords for war and thus, no more conflicts!  How is this possible?  In Isa. 9:6 amongst numerous descriptions, the Saviour of the world is described as the Prince of Peace!  It is only made possible because the peace that he is and he brings is perfect in his divinity and since it’s brought by the second person in the trinity himself (Jesus) and because God himself is perfect in all he is and all he does, it’s a perfect peace, such that the world has never seen since the fall of human kind in Genesis 3.  And THAT my friends is what the world has been longing for!

And THIS is why Advent is so important for Christians – we await this perfected time for his called believers.  Imagine all the pain and suffering this world has ever known that will one day come to an end forever!  I refuse to live eternally in a world of endless and meaningless suffering, and more importantly, I refuse to live in a world without Jesus!  Thank goodness Jesus is coming back!
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