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I like Christmas, in a bittersweet kind of way. It’s beautiful and fun and full of hope, but also complex and difficult and sometimes sad. My mother died a few months ago, and I’m sure I’ll really miss her on Christmas morning. Christmas is a time of joy that reminds us that joy is elusive and surrounded by trouble.

Like a baby laid in a manger, you might say.

My favourite secular Christmas song captures this: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas”, originally sung by Judy Garland in Meet me in St Louis, and included on just about everyone’s Christmas album ever since.

It captures the bittersweet nature of Christmas so wistfully and longingly. It speaks of Christmas as a time of gathering and friends and even hope. And yet our lives never live up to that dream. In fact, we can only hope that maybe next year “our troubles will be far away”. Maybe next year, we will actually be able to gather with all our old friends as we once did. “Until then, we’ll just have to muddle through somehow.”

Here’s the James Taylor version:

Of course, the best Christmas carols reflect this even better—that is, the joy of God becoming man because man is in such a desperate state. Hark, the Herald is famous for speaking of “Peace on earth and mercy mild; God and sinners reconciled”. Joy to the world has an often-omitted third verse that speaks of Jesus coming to lift the curse.

But my favourite Christmas hymn, which is hardly ever sung these days, does it beautifully:

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,

All for love’s sake becamest poor;

Thrones for a manger didst surrender,

Sapphire paved courts for stable floor.

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,

All for love’s sake becamest poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,

All for love’s sake becamest man;

Stooping so low, but sinners raising,

Heavenward by Thine eternal plan.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,

All for love’s sake becamest man.

(Here’s the King’s College Cambridge version:)

The news of Jesus’ incarnation is good news, because of the lost and sinful world into which he was born, and which he came to save. He became poor to make the poor rich.

I’ve spent the last few days of this last pre-Christmas week finishing a draft of chapter 2 of the Two ways to live evangelistic book (that a number of you are helping me write). It’s the chapter all about our rejection of God, and all the damage we do to ourselves and each other and the world. I’ve pasted the final section of the chapter below (this is the part that those of you who are partner/subscribers have been waiting on).

It’s certainly not the happiest, tinsel-covered subject for an end of year meditation.

But then again, maybe it’s the perfect pre-Christmas reading; a picture of the black night of Christmas eve into which the light of the world was born.

The 2wtl Book: Chapter 2

The Human Problem

The first two thirds of the chapter sets out the nature of rebellion against God. This final part thinks about the consequences for our lives.

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When we reject God, we attack the foundations of everything that is true and good and beautiful in the world. We embrace the first lie. And then all the other lies and follies and consequences start to compound.

We see this played out in so many ways, in our own lives and in our broader culture.

In our personal lives, perhaps the most significant consequence of our declaration of independence from God is how hard we find it to be interdependent with each other. Once I’ve decided that I’m the centre of my world (not God), that puts me in an odd position with respect to You. We’re no