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:
Denison Forum
DAILY DEVOTIONS, NEWS AND INFORMATION 