Hidden Christmas by Timothy Keller
HIDDEN CHRISTMAS
by Timothy Keller
If you are looking for an advent book that is different than the normal this is it. Timothy looks beyond the traditional story to the background, to the hope and offer of salvation within Jesus' birth. In doing so we can experience the redeeming power of God's grace in a new and meaningful way.
What is Christmas really all about? Do you feel like me that increasingly the real meaning is being pushed out? Timothy Keller in his introduction of the book Hidden Christmas outlines 3 aspects that people focus on which have helped remind me of some of the aspects of Christmas that have deeper meaning ...
The emphasis on light in darkness comes from the Christian belief that the world's good comes from outside of it.
The giving of gifts is a natural response to Jesus' stupendous act of self-giving when he laid aside his glory and was born into the human race.
The concern for the needy recalls that the Son of God was born not into an aristocratic family but into a poor one. The Lord of the universe identified with the least and the most excluded of the human race.
The emphasis on light in darkness comes from the Christian belief that the world's good comes from outside of it.
The giving of gifts is a natural response to Jesus' stupendous act of self-giving when he laid aside his glory and was born into the human race.
The concern for the needy recalls that the Son of God was born not into an aristocratic family but into a poor one. The Lord of the universe identified with the least and the most excluded of the human race.
But ... Each of those themes is a two edged sword ...
Jesus comes as Light because we too are spiritually blind to find our own way. Jesus became mortal and died because we are too morally ruined to be pardoned any other way. Jesus gave himself to us and so we must give ourselves wholly to him.
Just as I read earlier today in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 19 (amazing how this appears again in what I am reading today) "we are not our own". Christmas like God himself is both more wondrous and more threatening than we imagine.
You probably know this quote ...
"Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee" St AugustineBut what did he mean?
He believed that even when you seem to be enjoying something else, God is the actual source of your joy. The thing you love is from him and is lovely because it bears his signature. All joy is really found in God and anything you do enjoy is derivative, because what you are really looking for is him, whether you know it or not.
Now that puts a different slant on that phrase.
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." Isaiah 9 verse 2
This great light referred to is the sun. Sunlight brings life, truth and beauty.
The sun brings life - if the sun went out we would freeze. The sun is the source of all life. In God we "live and move and have our being" Acts 17 verse 28. We exist only because he is upholding us, keeping us together every moment.
The sun shows us the truth. If you drive a car at night you need lights. Light reveals the truth of things, how they really are. God is the source of all truth - 1 John 1 verses 5 and 6. God made your mind. Only through him does your reasoning capacity work and only through Jesus can we understand who he is and who we are, his creation.
The sun is beautiful. Light is dazzling and brings joy. We need light for joy.
How can this light dawn on us? Isaiah 9 verses 6 and 7 - "for into us a child is born". This child brings it. He is a human being but he is also God! This is the gift given to us through grace. How do we receive it?
Admit you are a sinner.
Come in repentance
Accept Christ for who he is and what he has done.
Isn't it amazing that when Jesus died in the cross darkness fell over the land. The Light of the world descended into darkness in order to bring us into God's beautiful light.
his is my third read through of Hidden Christmas by Timothy Keller. To be honest I am finding new things that I have never thought about before.
For instance ... Matthew starts with a genealogy. Why? Today we talk about ourselves, our work, our accomplishments but in bible times it was your family, your pedigree and clan that made you. Did you know that Herod the Great purged many names from his genealogy because he did not want anyone to know they were connected to him? Matthew's genealogy was so different - 5 women who could all be called mothers of Jesus. No ordinary women either - these women were not Jewish. Racial outsiders. They recall the most sordid, nasty and immoral incidents in the bible. But the male ancestors were moral failures too.
What does this mean? How can I apply this to me? It doesn't matter who you are or what you have done. The grace of Jesus Christ can cover all our sin and we can be accepted into God's family. But also we can see that sometimes God takes his time to make sure his promise is fulfilled. God does not work on our timescale.
In the genealogy there were six sevens of generations - Jesus is the beginning of the seventh seven. Seven is a significant number in the bible. Back in Leviticus 25 we read of the last year of the seventh period of seven years. This was a foretaste of the final rest that all will have when God renews the earth. That only comes from Jesus Christ.
For instance ... Matthew starts with a genealogy. Why? Today we talk about ourselves, our work, our accomplishments but in bible times it was your family, your pedigree and clan that made you. Did you know that Herod the Great purged many names from his genealogy because he did not want anyone to know they were connected to him? Matthew's genealogy was so different - 5 women who could all be called mothers of Jesus. No ordinary women either - these women were not Jewish. Racial outsiders. They recall the most sordid, nasty and immoral incidents in the bible. But the male ancestors were moral failures too.
What does this mean? How can I apply this to me? It doesn't matter who you are or what you have done. The grace of Jesus Christ can cover all our sin and we can be accepted into God's family. But also we can see that sometimes God takes his time to make sure his promise is fulfilled. God does not work on our timescale.
In the genealogy there were six sevens of generations - Jesus is the beginning of the seventh seven. Seven is a significant number in the bible. Back in Leviticus 25 we read of the last year of the seventh period of seven years. This was a foretaste of the final rest that all will have when God renews the earth. That only comes from Jesus Christ.
The word Immanuel means 3 things - He is God, he is human and he is with us. What does "with us" mean? In Mark's gospel Jesus chose 12 disciples and they were with him. This means being in Jesus' presence, conversing with him, learning from him, having his comfort moment by moment.Do you know him or do you only know about him? It means having a personal relationship with Jesus. And that requires courage.
Joseph had to have courage - when an angel shows us and tells him to marry Mary and that she is pregnant with the Holy Spirit, he realises he will be shamed, socially excluded and rejected. It would also mean he would be in danger of his very life. There are 3 kinds of courage required by all believers ...
Courage to take the world's scorn
Courage to give up your right to self-determination - in other words on your terms. Joseph didn't get to name Jesus. He would be his earthly father but no rights over him. To come to Christ means denying ourselves. In doing so we will learn our true identity.
Courage to admit you are a sinner
How do we gain this courage? By looking at Jesus himself. It took infinitely more courage for him to be with you - he could only save us by facing an agonizing death that had him wrestling in sweat in the Garden of Gethsemane. He became mortal and vulnerable so that he could suffer, be betrayed and killed. He faced all these things for you and he thought it worth it.
Joseph had to have courage - when an angel shows us and tells him to marry Mary and that she is pregnant with the Holy Spirit, he realises he will be shamed, socially excluded and rejected. It would also mean he would be in danger of his very life. There are 3 kinds of courage required by all believers ...
Courage to take the world's scorn
Courage to give up your right to self-determination - in other words on your terms. Joseph didn't get to name Jesus. He would be his earthly father but no rights over him. To come to Christ means denying ourselves. In doing so we will learn our true identity.
Courage to admit you are a sinner
How do we gain this courage? By looking at Jesus himself. It took infinitely more courage for him to be with you - he could only save us by facing an agonizing death that had him wrestling in sweat in the Garden of Gethsemane. He became mortal and vulnerable so that he could suffer, be betrayed and killed. He faced all these things for you and he thought it worth it.
I love how Timothy Keller helps us to look at why the wise men visited King Herod.
If you want to be king and someone else comes along saying he is king then one of you has to give in. Only 1 person can sit on an absolute throne. Jesus came to us claiming to be God the King. Luke 14 verse 36. He is calling for an allegiance to him so supreme that all other commitments look weak by comparison. But at the core of the human heart is the impulse that says "no one tells me what to do." There is a "little King Herod" in all of us. We want to rule, to be the master of our own fate.
This dark episode of King Herod's violent lust for power points to our natural resistance to, even hatred of, the claims of God on our lives. We create God's of our liking to mask our own hostility to the real God, who reveals himself as our absolute King. And if the Lord born at Christmas is the true God, then no one will seek for him unless our hearts are supernaturally changed to want and seek him.
Where's the true King? That is the most disturbing question possible to a human heart since we want at all costs to remain on the throne of our own lives.
Jesus doesn't behave like a king the world expects. He did not have any academic credentials. He had no social status. When Joseph brought the family back he settled as far from the centre's of royal power as he could. Remember what Nathaniel said - "Nazareth. Can anything good come from there? " God arranged things so that was exactly where the Messiah grew up. We need desperately to feel superior to others. And everything about Jesus contradicts and opposes that impulse. The world insists if anybody has the answers, they have to come from certain places. They have to come from people, who look a certain way, who have gone to certain schools. But not God!
Timothy Keller describes attending a Christian conference and in particular a session on how to read the bible. The speaker asked everyone to sit for 30 minutes and write down at least 30 things from the words "come follow me". She urged everyone to take the full 30 minutes. Everyone sat quietly and did as told. Initially Timothy put his pen down after 10 minutes believing he had seen everything there was but realised everyone else looked as though they were continuing to work. Timothy looked again at the words. After 30 minutes the speaker asked everyone to circle the best insight or most life changing thing in the words. Then she asked how many found this in the first 5 minutes. Nobody raised their hand. Again she asked everybody if they found it in 10, 15, 20 and 25 minutes. More found something in the last 25 or 30 minutes. That session changed his attitude toward the bible and his life.
Mary pondered and treasured the words from the shepherds. It means she savoured them. It was an attitude not a technique. This is what it means to hear God's word.
Mary pondered and treasured the words from the shepherds. It means she savoured them. It was an attitude not a technique. This is what it means to hear God's word.
Timothy Keller in his book Hidden Christmas has a chapter on Mary's faith.
When the angel first appears to Mary we see that she was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be - Luke 1 verse 29 (do look it up for yourself!). The word wondered in the original Greek means to make an audit. It is an accounting word meaning to add things up, weighing and pondering, to be intensely rational. Of course she is troubled! She is asking herself "am I really seeing an angel? What is going on here?" She asks "how can this be?" She shows us that responding in faith is a whole person experience that includes the intellect. She had been trained as a Jew not to believe that God could ever become a human being. A combination of evidence and experience shattered the barriers and she came to faith She doubted, she questioned, she used her reason and she asked questions - just as we must today if we are going to have faith. When Mary expresses doubts there is no hint of divine disapproval.
There are people like Mary who are open to the truth and are willing to relinquish sovereignty over their lives if they can be shown that the truth is other than what they thought.
Mary's faith happens in stages. Christian faith requires the commitment of our whole life. Yet few go from being uncommitted to being full committed in a single stroke. The process can look very different for different people.
John Bunyan author of Pilgrim's Progress spent nearly a year and a half in a state of great agony and depression before breaking through and receiving God's grace and love. The Philippian jailer in Acts 16 had a flash of recognition, accepted God fully and was baptised immediately. Mary is like neither - she shows that conversion and acceptance come at different speeds to different people.
The first time she heard the message she thought it was crazy, impossible. She finds it hard to believe. But she doesn't stop the conversation, she asks for more information.
First it was measured incredulity. Then it was simple acceptance. Some people will never make a move to Jesus unless it all comes together for them - rationally, emotionally and personally.
When the angel first appears to Mary we see that she was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be - Luke 1 verse 29 (do look it up for yourself!). The word wondered in the original Greek means to make an audit. It is an accounting word meaning to add things up, weighing and pondering, to be intensely rational. Of course she is troubled! She is asking herself "am I really seeing an angel? What is going on here?" She asks "how can this be?" She shows us that responding in faith is a whole person experience that includes the intellect. She had been trained as a Jew not to believe that God could ever become a human being. A combination of evidence and experience shattered the barriers and she came to faith She doubted, she questioned, she used her reason and she asked questions - just as we must today if we are going to have faith. When Mary expresses doubts there is no hint of divine disapproval.
There are people like Mary who are open to the truth and are willing to relinquish sovereignty over their lives if they can be shown that the truth is other than what they thought.
Mary's faith happens in stages. Christian faith requires the commitment of our whole life. Yet few go from being uncommitted to being full committed in a single stroke. The process can look very different for different people.
John Bunyan author of Pilgrim's Progress spent nearly a year and a half in a state of great agony and depression before breaking through and receiving God's grace and love. The Philippian jailer in Acts 16 had a flash of recognition, accepted God fully and was baptised immediately. Mary is like neither - she shows that conversion and acceptance come at different speeds to different people.
The first time she heard the message she thought it was crazy, impossible. She finds it hard to believe. But she doesn't stop the conversation, she asks for more information.
First it was measured incredulity. Then it was simple acceptance. Some people will never make a move to Jesus unless it all comes together for them - rationally, emotionally and personally.
Mary eventually comes to exercising faith from the heart. It is only when she visits Elizabeth that it all comes together for her. The knowledge and insight of Elizabeth confirm what the angel said and this gives Mary deeper assurance of faith. Now she bursts into praise. She is giving her heart joyfully. In the end faith always moves beyond mental assent and duty and will involve the whole self - mind, will and emotions.
True faith is not something you simply decide in yourself to exercise. God has to open our hearts and help us break through our prejudices and denials. It is some kind of power outside of you putting its finger on you, coming to you and dealing with you. Unless God comes and reveals himself to us as he did to Mary we would never be able to find him.
True faith is not something you simply decide in yourself to exercise. God has to open our hearts and help us break through our prejudices and denials. It is some kind of power outside of you putting its finger on you, coming to you and dealing with you. Unless God comes and reveals himself to us as he did to Mary we would never be able to find him.
In Mark 3 we are told that Jesus' "mother and brothers" (verse 31) found his claims and ministry to be literally madness. We are told that they went out to bring him home by force, because he was "out of his mind" (verse 21). When they arrived where he was ministering and called him to come ut to them, Jesus had to repudiate them. That does not mean he broke his relationship with his mother, for even as he was dying he loved her and made provision for her (John 19 verses 25 to 27). But when Mary and the rest of his family told him to stop preaching and teaching , he retorted "Who are my mother and my brothers?" (verse 33). Then looking around at the crowd and his disciples he said "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother" (verses 34 and 35).
Mary stands before us as a representative of everybody who loves Jesus. If you love Jesus and have him in your life, a sword will pass through your heart as well. There will be inner conflict, sometimes confusion, sometimes great pain. You will get things wrong. You may fight with him. And you may fight with yourself.
"The Child of God has 2 great marks about him ... he may be known by his inward warfare - as well as by his inward peace." J C Ryle
When you put your faith in Christ many struggles are ended or nearly so. The struggle to prove yourself to find an identity, to have a meaning in life that can handle suffering, to find true satisfaction - all of these fights become resolved. However, a whole new set of struggles are touched off by faith in Christ.
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