christmas is the foundation for everything
But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Master.” — Luke 2:10-11
In this year of our Lord, 2025, on this 30th day of November, the Advent season has begun, and will carry on through Wednesday, the 24th day of December. Christmas is very likely my favorite time of the year, where we celebrate the first Advent of our Savior, Jesus, who is both Messiah and King. We do so because we recognize all that his coming means for us spiritually, eternally, and materially, which means we really should celebrate.
As Douglas Wilson writes in his wonderful Advent devotional, God Rest Ye Merry: Why Christmas Is the Foundation for Everything —
The buildup to Christmas should be one of anticipation, learning, and glad expectation. When we long for something, we love to think about it, and when we are thinking about something a lot, this is a good time to learn more about it.
Just as Christmas is a time of year when mulled cider is welcome, it is also a time when mulled thinking should happen as well. Thinking about Jesus, talking about him, and reading about him at the table throughout Advent, are good ways to fill your house up with the right kind of smell.
So I encourage you, dear reader, to think on Jesus, and to think on what kind of celebrating we might do in response to all he has done for us, and the world. I mean, how great is that to add to our Christmas todo lists!?
Now, the best and most important celebration we partake in weekly is to gather with God’s people each Sunday, proclaiming Joy to each other, and Joy to the World. At Grace Church this Advent season, we’ll be pondering the variety of gifts that Jesus brought for us to unpack and enjoy when he entered flesh and the world, succeeding in the mission the Father had given him to be our Messiah. We’re calling our study “What Do You Want For Christmas?”
But while the Sunday morning gathering contains the most important celebrating we can do all week as Christians, our Advent ponderings should not be limited to that morning. Rather, I would encourage you to gather with friends or your family on a regular basis to see, how Wilson says, “Christmas is the foundation for everything.” One way to do that would be to use his resource to guide you (or one like it).
To provide a taste of just how helpful that may be, see below for Pastor Wilson’s first Advent meditation from that guide, where he provides a framework for our celebrations.
Merry Christmas friend.
Day One
St. Alfonse the Lesser
From Advent through Pentecost, we commemorate the life of Christ our Lord, marking His arrival in our midst, His life, His death and resurrection, His ascension into heaven, and His outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon His people. Our observance of these days takes up half the year.
Trinity Sunday is the Sunday after Pentecost, and is the eighth Sunday after Easter. It commences the "ordinary" half of the year, extending from Trinity Sunday to the beginning of the next Advent. But in calling it the ordinary part of the year, we have to realize that if what we have been saying from Advent through Pentecost is true, then nothing is really ordinary. We live our lives in the light of the triune God, walking in His ways, building on the foundation of the historical events we have marked and commemorated.
As we do this, we should always recall the reason for what we do, and how it began in the run-up to Christmas. Man will mark his days, and he will evaluate it somehow. We should want Christians to think of their summers as part of Trinity season, and not primarily as the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Civil holidays are fine, and barbecuing some burgers with the family is just great, but these are not the days we want to use to define our lives. We are Christians — that is the most important thing about us, and that should be reflected in how we celebrate and mark our days.
Of course, at the same time, we want to avoid the problem of ecclesiastical clutter, the problem of some saint's day or other getting underfoot every time we turn around. With the Reformers, we mark the life of Christ and the gracious authority of the triune God. During the first half of the Christian year, remember the five evangelical feast days — Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost. Do not look for any commemoration of St. Alphonse the Lesser, patron saint of three-legged cats.
When everything is special, nothing is. God wants us to cultivate a biblical cadence and rhythm to our lives, and not a constant pounding.
PRAYER: Father and gracious God, we thank you for the arrival of yet another season of Advent. We pray that this season would be marked by the disciplines of joy, and we pray that some of that discipline would shape and form the cadences of our lives. We thank you for this, and we pray in the name of Jesus, and amen.
