Christian Theology

Making Christmas Real

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The end of the year brings a strange combination of familiar traditions and genuine challenges.  While we may be surrounded by bright lights and cheerful music, with parties and celebratory gatherings, we may also be struggling financially, wondering how we are supposed to get everything done and concerned about how we will handle looming difficulties.  It could be navigating an awkward conversation with that difficult family member, or coping with the exuberant happiness when we are grieving a loved one, or facing particular challenges that would be hard enough at any time of the year, let alone during the “festive season.”  Life can feel like too much, and Christmas sometimes makes it feel even worse.

As Christmas approaches, whether we are dealing with a particular challenge or not, we will all again be confronted with the challenge of seeing past the consumer festival and the nostalgic traditions to the reality of the incarnation.  Finding the relevance of this critical doctrine is not achieved by simply revisiting familiar truths through nostalgic traditions.  We also have a fresh need to explore how the old truth resonates with contemporary life – including all its challenges.

We are familiar with reviewing the great step taken by the Son of God from heaven to earth – the infinite taking on infancy, the glorious riches to abject poverty, etc.  We are used to noting that He came with a purpose; He took on a human body and life so that He could experience death in that body for us.  Indeed, Christmas is an arrow pointing to Easter, and it is right to think of that each year. 

More than that, Christmas is an arrow pointing to a God who is revealing Himself in the ultimate way, and an invitation opened to rich and poor, local and global, Jew and Gentile.  It is a story to stir our nostalgia and our worship, an inspiring example, and, if told well, a thriller with a villain, a deadly threat, and a perfectly-timed escape.

Actually, Christmas is a many-layered story, with intriguing characters, long-awaited prophecies, and profoundly moving themes woven together. 

And yet, we so often end up repeating it as if it were merely a nostalgic children’s story to retell like an old family tale that gets trotted out once a year as we gather around a fire and nibble on seasonal treats.

How will you engage the Christmas story this year?  How will it connect with your current experiences and concerns in a unique and fresh way in 2025?

Your life, your struggles, are very real.  So was the first Christmas.  It was not a pretty scene with snow falling peacefully.  It contained real fear, real confusion, real hopelessness, real heartbreak.  The bewilderment for Mary would have been so constant, the uncertainty for Joseph so vivid.  The emptiness and despair of life for the shepherds would have been genuinely bleak.  The intrigue of the wise men and all who came into contact with them must have been genuinely perplexing.  The first Christmas was real. 

As we come to another Christmas, let’s not just go through the motions of another ritual celebration.  Let’s not think of it only in picture book scenes, nor apply its truth in nice generalities.  Let’s be sure to bring the most real concerns of our time to the Christmas story and find in it a Saviour who has learned what it is to be human, what it is to enter into a world of political tensions, of the deadly inhumanity of men to one another, of the searing heartache of poverty.  May we find a richer appreciation for our Lord because our 2025 Christmas realities meet with His first Christmas realities.

The reality of the incarnation is big enough to maintain its relevance and to shine forth its significance, no matter how difficult our current experience might be.  May we honour God by bringing our real mess up close to the very real messiness of the first Christmas.  There we will find a true Saviour, who is Christ our Lord, and that really is good news for all of humanity. 

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Peter’s book, Pleased to Dwell, is an ideal read in the Christmas season. To buy in the UK or Europe, click here, and to buy in North America, click here. Please do subscribe to the podcast, and let others know about it too:

Satan Hates Him

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Some years ago, I wrote about a blind spot in contemporary theology. In our church, we have just enjoyed a series about the Holy Spirit. In preaching this series, my mind has returned to this apparent blind spot. Yes, we know that Satan hates Jesus, marriage, and evangelism. But perhaps we should also consider his hatred for the Holy Spirit.

There is a logically obvious connection here. Satan hates God. The Holy Spirit is God, so therefore, Satan must hate the Holy Spirit. But it will be helpful to move past the obvious and ponder the specific reasons.

In the World

We see the enemy’s work as we look at the world around us. For example, we see cults, and we see secular society. In the cults, there is always an undermining of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. So, God gets twisted from a gloriously loving tri-unity into a solitary and monadic power broker. As portrayed by the cults, God can even seem devilish and antagonistic. Thus, the Holy Spirit becomes just an impersonal force.

In secular society, the idea of God is also twisted into a perversion and caricature of reality. As society bombards the population with elevated notions of personal autonomy and a corrupted morality, the convicting work of the Spirit is directly opposed. People are coached not to feel guilty for sin, yet many are convinced they should feel hopelessly guilty for who they are.

In the Church

We also see the enemy’s work as we look within the church. It would be nice to imagine that his attack would lose energy once people become followers of Jesus. Reality reminds us that this is never the case. Does the enemy stop attacking marriage once people know Jesus? Are we no longer tempted to sin once we are believers? Of course not. We must then assume the enemy’s antagonism to the Holy Spirit will also continue within the church setting.

What is the enemy’s strategy to undermine the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives?

Christians seem to feel a pull in one of two directions — both of which are away from the reality of the Spirit’s work. Both directions negate that the Holy Spirit is a divine person rather they portray him as a mere impersonal force. Both distract believers from a beautiful and central element of the Christian life.

The first pull is to restrict the Holy Spirit into a power-focused force. The Spirit becomes the fuel for Christian living and sometimes the power for spectacular displays of personal anointing. Undoubtedly, there is truth in the mix here. Still, the corruption seems to come with respect to the focus’s emphasis and direction. The power, or lack thereof, tends to become the emphasis in Christian life and ministry. People caught up with a power caricature of the Spirit tend to focus either on the Spirit or themselves.

The second pull is to turn the Holy Spirit into a silent and benign figure. The Spirit is assumed to be at work in the ordinary things of church life through various means. There is truth in the mix here as well. He is indeed at work as we read the Bible, hear preaching, etc., but the problem seems to follow this focus’s emphasis and direction. The emphasis on Christian life and ministry can quickly shift to my habits and personal commitments. People buying into a means caricature of the Spirit may focus on themselves and their diligence.

The Work of the Spirit

The pre-eminent role of the Spirit is that of a communicator, specifically relational communication between the Father and the Son, God and us, and believers in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is primarily concerned with the power of love, not some love of power. He pours God’s love into our hearts and baptises us into Christ. The fruit of the Spirit is a continual growth in Christ-like character. He gifts us to build up the body of Christ so that we might point each other to the head, who is Christ.

This is the critical issue with the Spirit — he wants to lift the eyes of our hearts to Christ. That is why Satan so despises the work of the Spirit. By forcing the focus onto us or the Spirit himself, the enemy seeks to undermine the Christ-ward gaze of true Holy Spirituality.

The Holy Spirit seems to be a blind spot for many. Where the Spirit is relegated or twisted in some way, the bottom line will always drift towards an autonomous and self-driven “spirituality” (which was The Lie back in Genesis 3, of course).

Perhaps, we would do well to ponder the spiritual attack against the Holy Spirit. I suspect that we would find our hearts drawn to Christ in the process. After all, this is the goal of the Holy Spirit, not to mention the great fear of the enemy!

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This year’s journey through the Psalms has reached the Psalms of Ascent:

Preachers are Theologians

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

The health of any church depends, in part, on its leaders functioning faithfully as theologians.  It’s part of the package for any elder (pastor, minister, leader, whatever term you are used to).  Leading, feeding, caring and protecting.  How are we to lead others on God’s behalf if we’re unclear on the nature of the church, it’s mission, God’s character and plan?  How are we to feed the saints if we’re not wrestling with the great doctrines of the faith and setting them forth?  How are we to care effectively for souls if we never consider what a human consists of and how they function in relation to salvation and walking in the Spirit?  How are we to protect the flock if we’re unaware of theological trends and errors in the general atmosphere of the contemporary church at large?

The pastoral functions of any church leader require that theological reflection and processing be involved in the ministry.  It is a dangerous error to presume that theology is a function of the academy or the research university.  It is worrying to find many preachers and leaders who think that their task is not that of theology.

If you preach, then you influence.  If you influence, then you lead.  If you lead, don’t make the grave error of divorcing your ministry from that of theology.  If you do, then both your ministry and theology will suffer.  You will suffer.  And so will they.