One of the many reasons I love the Christmas season is the buoyant spirit of kindness and cheer it always seems to inspire. Strangers wish each other “Merry Christmas” (or at least “Happy Holidays”). Children count the days and then the hours until Santa visits them. Families gather to exchange gifts and make memories. I’m always a little sad on the day after Christmas when the world seems to return to “normal” so quickly.

But return it does.

• We woke up this morning to news that the US carried out a strike against Islamic State militants in Nigeria yesterday. President Trump said the military action was in response to the terrorist group’s attacks on Christians in the region, a reminder that Christianity remains the most persecuted religion in the world.
• Heavy rains led to a “nightmare before Christmas” in Southern California with flooding and mudslides that threaten the region still today. A powerful post-Christmas storm will impact at least fifteen million people in the Northeast beginning today as well.
• A new form of flu is sweeping across the US as the highly contagious variant produces more severe symptoms than other strains, disrupting Christmas plans for many.

By now, you’re hoping I’ll pivot to reasons for hope on this day after the holiday. Let’s do just that, though not in a way most people would expect.

From Plainview to university president

Former Sen. Ben Sasse announced this week that he has been “diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.” His statement hit me hard. Not just because he is only fifty-three years old and otherwise in the prime of his life, but also because I have followed his career for years with deep gratitude.

His story is the American story writ large.

He was born in Plainview, Nebraska (population 1,275), the son of a high school teacher and football coach. He went on to graduate from Harvard, attend Oxford, then earn a master of arts at St. John’s College and at Yale a master of Arts, master of philosophy, and doctor of philosophy.

He worked for the Justice Department while teaching history at the University of Texas at Austin. In the years following, he worked for Homeland Security and HHS before he became a college president at the age of thirty-seven, won election to the US Senate four years later, and won reelection in 2020.

In 2023, he assumed the presidency of the University of Florida, stepping down last year due to his wife’s health.

“Such is the calling of the pilgrim”

I first heard Dr. Sasse speak at a healthcare event a number of years ago and was deeply impressed by the sincerity of his personal commitment to Christ and the rigor of his intellectual passion. I have read much of what he has written in the years since and consider him one of the most significant public intellectuals in America today.

News of his terminal cancer is a shocking reminder that none of us is promised another Christmas. But as Dr. Sasse wrote, Christians have a hope that transcends all else:

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating muscle I once prided myself in). Nope—often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.”

To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality—stiffer stuff. That’s why, during Advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope—often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim.

The first pilgrims of Christmas

There are three ways we know all that we know: practically, rationally, and intuitively. We start a car practically, do math rationally, and like people intuitively.

God reveals his wisdom and will to us in all three ways, as we’ll see today.

This week we have been discussing Christmas in the order it was revealed: to Mary, then Joseph, then the shepherds, then the Magi. We’re connecting their experiences with the promised Son who is “Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Mighty God, and Wonderful Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6 in reverse).

The first pilgrims to meet the Christ of Christmas were the “wise men” who came “from the east” to Jerusalem to worship him (Matthew 2:1–2). They experienced the wisdom of the Wonderful Counselor practically when a star alerted them to his birth (v. 2) and later guided them to “the place where the child was” (v. 9). They experienced his wisdom rationally in the biblical guidance shared by the chief priests and scribes (vv. 3–6). And they experienced his wisdom intuitively in a dream that warned them not to return to Herod, leading them to depart to their home country “by another way” (v. 12).

All of this culminated some two years after Jesus’ birth (cf. Matthew 2:16), showing that the Wonderful Counselor transcends Christmas. For us to experience his counsel, we need to do what the wise men did: seek and follow his guidance in all the ways he gives it, placing our hope not in our wisdom but in his.

And then, when we kneel before the Christ of Christmas one day, our pilgrimage will be over.

“We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise”

Dr. Sasse noted: “Advanced pancreatic cancer is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too—we all do.”

This year’s Christmas memories will soon fade as the culture shifts to post-Christmas sales, New Year’s celebrations, and all that will follow. But our choice each day to make Christ our Wonderful Counselor, to seek and follow his will above all else, will outlive every memory of this fallen world and God’s “well done” will echo in paradise forever (Matthew 25:23).

As I often say, we cannot measure the eternal significance of present faithfulness.

In his post, Dr. Sasse quoted part of the last stanza of Amazing Grace. Here it is in full:

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.

And every day will be Christmas.

Quote for the day:

“If I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God.” —Oswald Chambers

Our latest website resources:

• What does Christmas say about God?
• Australia attack, Rob Reiner, Christmas movies, Candace Owens & football updates
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

For many reasons, Christmas is a holiday unlike any other. There are holiday sales, expected to top $1 trillion for the first time. There’s travel, as more than 122 million people are expected to hit the roads and skies between December 20 and January 1. And there’s Santa Claus: to reach an estimated 238 million homes worldwide last night, he had to visit seven million per hour—116,667 per minute or 1,944 per second.

But sales, travel, and Santa are part of Christmas every year. This is not: For the first time since 1925, today’s date is the same as the last two digits of the year. Today is also unusual for those who use the day/month/year format in that it is nearly palindromic: 25/12/25.

I could not have written the first paragraph without help from researchers who knew facts I did not. However, nothing in the second paragraph required specialized skill or scholarship. I could have figured out the rarity of today’s date without the USA Today article explaining it, but I didn’t. This knowledge was available to everyone, but it took someone who knew what I didn’t to help me know what I now know.

The same holds true with the “reason for the season.” According to Gallup, 96 percent of those who celebrate today will do so by exchanging gifts. However, only 54 percent will display decorations with a religious meaning, such as a Nativity scene. And as I noted yesterday, only 47 percent attend religious services on Christmas Eve or today.

Imagine going to a birthday party where the guests gave each other presents while ignoring the person whose birthday prompted the gathering. So it is for Jesus with millions of Americans. Once I point out the fact that today’s celebration is supposed to be about the Christ of Christmas, the truth becomes obvious.

But knowing this and experiencing it are not the same thing.

The most surprising Christmas guests

This week we’re taking Christmas in the order it was revealed: to Mary, then Joseph, then the shepherds, then the Magi. We’re aligning their experiences with the promised Son as “Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Mighty God, and Wonderful Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6 in reverse).

So today we come to the shepherds and the promised “Mighty God.” Of Isaiah’s four descriptions of the coming Messiah, this would have been the most troubling and even fearful for them.

Shepherds in first-century Israel lived on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Because they had to tend their flocks for months in the Judean wilderness, they were unable to keep kosher dietary laws and other religious rituals and thus were barred from synagogues and the temple. Because they worked without supervision, they were thought to be thieves as well.

Of all the people Jesus could have arranged to attend his first birthday, they would be the most surprising—to polite society and to themselves as well.

“The Truth that can never be told”

Here’s the good news: The Mighty God—literally the “God who is a champion in might”—is so omnipotent that he can use anyone who is willing to be used. And the shepherds were willing to be used, becoming the first evangelists in Christian history:

They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child (Luke 2:16–17).

Note the order:

1. They heard the message (vv. 8–14)
2. They came to worship Jesus (vv. 15–16)
3. They told the world (vv. 17–20).

Here’s my ministerial problem: I too often jump from the first to the third. I hear the Christmas story and work to share it with others without stopping at the manger to bow before the Child waiting for my worship.

So I am resolved to make today about Jesus; to take time for silence before his Spirit and reverence before his throne; to focus my mind and heart on my Savior; and to speak my unspeakable gratitude for his wondrous grace. I invite you to join me.

Frederick Buechner spoke of “the Truth that can never be told but only come upon, that can never be proved but only lived for and loved.”

How will you “come upon” this untellable Truth today?

Quote for the day:

“Isn’t it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?” —Francis Chan

Our latest website resources:

• What does Christmas say about God?
• Australia attack, Rob Reiner, Christmas movies, Candace Owens & football updates
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

Will you observe Christmas tomorrow? If so, according to a new Gallup survey, you’re in the majority: 88 percent of Americans will join you.

Will you attend church services today or tomorrow? If so, you’re in the minority: only 47 percent of Americans will join you, down from 64 percent in 2010.

Now consider two other recent Gallup headlines: “US Mental Health Ratings Continue to Worsen” and “Americans End Year in Gloomy Mood.”

I believe declining church attendance is related to declining well-being in a way that might surprise you, but will—I hope—greatly encourage you as well.

 “To run where the brave dare not go”

A recent article by clinical psychology professor Ross White advises, “Your purpose isn’t something to find, it’s something you form.” He reports that online searches for the phrase “find your purpose” have risen by more than 3,000 percent in the past three decades. However, he encourages his clients to take a different path.

In his view, our life purpose works with what and who we already are and evolves over time while serving its own ends. The goal is to form a direction that “brings meaning and vitality to our lives.”

I’m reminded of the testimony of Albert Camus, who called himself an “absurdist” and viewed the universe as meaningless: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

His words stir something in me. The idea that I can form my own purpose and thus bring “meaning and vitality” to my life is viscerally attractive. I’m reminded of “The Quest,” a song I first heard as a young boy and has been performed or recorded dozens of times since:

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love, pure and chaste, from afar
To try, when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star!

After all these years, I can still recite these aspirational lyrics in my mind today.

But are they true?

A nativity set missing a figure

Joseph is often called the “silent man of Christmas.” In all the biblical narratives, he speaks not a single recorded word. I remember a nativity set I once found in a store which included figurines for Jesus, Mary, shepherds, Wise Men, and even animals, but none for Joseph. If you set it out, I’m not sure how many people would notice the omission.

And yet, without someone doing what Joseph did, there would have been no Christmas.

He agreed to make his pregnant fiancée his wife, ignoring the societal scorn that would likely come as a consequence. He risked his life by embarking on a journey to Bethlehem for the birth of a baby who was not his. He risked his life again by taking the child and his mother to Egypt to escape the murderous clutches of King Herod.

He risked his future and prosperity once more when, “being warned in a dream,” he “went and lived in a city called Nazareth” (Matthew 2:22, 23), a town so insignificant that it is mentioned not once in the entire Old Testament.

While his words are nowhere recorded, he changed the course of human history—not just by protecting Jesus, but by modeling obedience for him. So it was that when his adopted son came to teach his disciples to pray, he began with the Aramaic word he first used for Joseph: Abba, “Father” (Matthew 6:9). Scholars tell us that Jesus was the first rabbi in Jewish history to address the Lord of heaven in such a personal way.

Now Joseph’s example is God’s invitation to us today.

“More than conquerors through him who loved us”

Isaiah foretold the coming of One who would be “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Yesterday, we considered Mary’s commitment to our Prince of Peace. Today, let’s emulate Joseph’s commitment to him as our Everlasting Father.

Here’s my point: we will seek and trust our Father’s purpose rather than our own to the degree that we believe he loves us more than we love ourselves.

You might think that you always want whatever is best for yourself, but I doubt it. If you’re like me, you too often succumb to temptation to make choices you know will cost more than they pay, then punish yourself with guilt for your failures. And you see yourself in the mirror of the opinion of others, valuing yourself only when and as they do. Since popularity is always fleeting, so is your esteem of yourself.

By contrast, the Christ of Christmas knows every failure of your past and future but loves you unconditionally (1 John 4:8). What’s more, he likes you. Our Lord “takes pleasure in his people” (Psalm 149:4), “delights in the welfare of his servant” (Psalm 35:27), and “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).

He is on our side so fully that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Paul adds:

Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (vv. 38–39).

Experiencing this all-conquering love is the key to the well-being our souls long to embrace.

The choice that changes everything

Now we have a choice. We can form our own self-reliant purpose for our own ends, or we can seek and follow the purpose of an Everlasting Father who loves us more than we could ever love ourselves. We can strive to “reach the unreachable star,” or, like Joseph, we can take the hand of the Creator of the stars as he reaches down to us.

Famed missionary Jim Elliot prayed,

“Your will, Lord. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.”

Will you make his prayer yours today?

Quote for the day:

“He who obeys sincerely endeavors to obey thoroughly.” —Thomas Brooks (1608–80)

Our latest website resources:

• What does Christmas say about God?
• Australia attack, Rob Reiner, Christmas movies, Candace Owens & football updates
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum