Today on the Evangelist Podcast we're looking at Four Kinds of Christmas.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_03So Four Kinds of Christmas is launched, Glenn.
SPEAKER_05The video is launched. That's right. Yes, the book's been out for about a month, and then the quiz has been out for about a fortnight. And it seems like we've almost planned this this year.
SPEAKER_03This is like a campaign or something. Yeah, several months it feels like. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05It's been in the I I wrote it in August, so I've been feeling Christmassy for quite some time now. Makes a change from a few years ago when we did um the anti-sante rantu with about three days to go before Christmas night.
SPEAKER_03Do you remember that? No, no.
SPEAKER_05This is typical of what I do. I come into work and I say, Andy, I've had an idea.
SPEAKER_02I can't get anyone else to do it. Will you come out this afternoon with a camera? Yes. It's yeah.
SPEAKER_05Alright, fine. Not another idea. And then what was that? Grown up now. That sort of released on like December 22nd or something in 2012, was it? Yeah, something like that. 2012. And we did yeah, that was the anti-sante rant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Not bad for a launch. Yeah, yeah. So this this new one, we've got Four Kinds of Christmas. Yes. And um it sort of covers four different mindsets, really, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_05Well, mindsets is a good word for it. So yeah, you can either be a Scrooge, you can be a shopper, you can be a Santa, or you can be the stable. And uh you can actually take our scientific personality quiz and find out which you are, go to fourkinds of Christmas.com. Uh if you haven't already, I'm sure you already have, and shared it widely. Um but yes, you can go to Four Kinds of Christmas and discover by answering a a few questions about what kind of Christmas you like to have, which you are, and uh and really the the four kinds of Christmas map onto, if you can imagine a graph with an X-axis and a y-axis, and and um so if you're in the bottom left hand quadrant of the graph, you uh think that it's darkness now and it will be darkness forever, which would make you a Scrooge. Scrooge, exactly. And then if you're the top left hand quadrant, you think that it's light now, but it'll be darkness later, so you therefore are the shopper. The shopper. And then if you're the top right hand corner, you think it's light now, and it's light forever. And in which case you are Santa Santa. Magical. Magical. And then if you think it's dark now, but it will be light later, you are stable. The stable. Exactly. And so those are the four kinds of of Christmas, and it is very, very scientific. Um and uh so you can do the quiz and figure out figure out what you are, but really those four kinds of Christmas are actually four kinds of ways of approaching life. If you think about life is lived in the shadow of of, you know, the valley of the shadow of death, then how do you cope with the darkness? You could be like a Scrooge, or you could say like a nihilist. Maybe the Scrooge maps onto the nihilist, and you just think, well, you know, we've come from compost, we're heading back there. Um you could think that we are we've come from compost, but you know, we may as well enjoy ourselves while it lasts before we sink back down into the slime, in which case you're the shopper, and it's kind of eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. So you're you're more like a humanist, sort of therefore. Um make the best of it now. You could be, um, you know, it's light now, it's light forever. May maybe you're like a theist and you, you know, you believe in Santa and fairy tales and you know the spiritual and the spiritual and all that kind of stuff, and maybe you're just sort of like a a theist. But I think the Christian position is the stable that actually you you take seriously the darkness now, but also you have this incredible hope for the future because Christ has entered into the darkness in order to bring us his light. So that's the idea behind behind the four kinds of Christmas.
SPEAKER_03And it's sort of quite engaging, it's very colourful. If someone were wanted to put it on at their church, maybe uh you know do it as a like a carol service, a four kinds of Christmas carol service. Yeah. Uh how would they go about doing that?
SPEAKER_05Oh, go ahead, do it, please. Uh you can go to our show notes and and um on there we'll make available to you the publicity materials that we use for four kinds of Christmas, so you'll get the the festive reds and the and the icons that we use and the fonts and all that. So you can um you can use the publicity materials that we've got there. You can also show the video for free. Everything um is for free from well from from ten of those you can get the uh the book very reasonably in bulk and uh give that as a lovely Christmas present to everyone who comes along.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's a several churches have just sort of ordered a hundred and you know, had them to give away at the end of a carol service or something.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's done thousands and thousands, so um so that's that's that's great. Um so yeah, thank you to ten of those for being very generous with uh giving that out and and feel free to use it however you wish.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So what was sort of started you off on this th thinking, you know, what was the seed that uh birthed the four kinds of Christmas came?
SPEAKER_05It was actually it was actually a a sermon from 2012, actually. It was it was the same sermon that birthed the anti-Sandy Ranti. Um back in twenty twelve, I I was preaching on Isaiah Nine, and I sort of saw that Isaiah nine verse two says, Those living in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of deep shadow, a light has dawned. And really that idea of living in the darkness, how do you live in the darkness, really gave me the idea of the there's lots of different false ways of living in the darkness. Like with Scrooge, you can just kind of just make your home in the darkness and be just as bitter as your bitter circumstances. Or if you're the shopper you can kinda eat, drink and be merry but the darkness wins. Or you can be a Santa and just bury your head in the sand and and, you know, forget that there is such a thing as darkness. But actually it's Christmas that that helps you to take seriously the darkness, but also to to have this otherworldly hope that uh Isaiah 9 verse 6, you know, to us a child is born, to us a son is given. So yeah, it kind of came from a sermon back in in uh 2012 on Isaiah 9, and actually that same sermon spawned the Anti Santi Ranty and Christmas in Dark Places, which was our video from a couple of years ago, and this year's. So yeah, evangelists we only have one talk and we just keep trotting it out, basically.
SPEAKER_03And so the video is like a summary, isn't it, of uh of these four different kinds in two and a half minutes.
SPEAKER_05In two and a half minutes, in rhyming couplets we try and Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So we we went to an old barn, uh uh a large, very windy uh straw straw stroom. Where's the straw stroom sable? And uh set up this we we had friends that set up this huge wall. Yeah. Which we wallpapered like a Yes, like a house.
SPEAKER_05And we we sewed together Santos Grotto's back back cloth, which is like a twenty-one meter square bit of uh velour um felt kind of thing. And and yeah, so it was a set within a set within a set within a set.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it unfolds as it goes on.
SPEAKER_05It unfolds as it goes on, and that that's the sort of the visual idea to it. And we're we're gonna we're gonna play it to you, and you're not gonna be able to see it. But um yeah, we actually had about twenty stage hands that were sort of moving the set around so that seamlessly in one take Um we transition through the four kinds of Christmas and wind up in the stable with the baby in the manger. Um and they say never work with children or animals and we're gonna not only did we try to do that, we also tried to do it in one take and with three four scene changes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, let's let's take a listen to the soundtrack, and uh, if you want to see the video uh at the end of this, you can uh click onto the episode show notes.
SPEAKER_05Every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a steak of holly through his heart. I like the darkness. At least it's cheap. I keep adjusted to the gloom, the creeping doom that soon consumes the earth in tombs. I hum its tune, assume its tone, and make my home right here, in the only world we know, this world of woe. Let others throw their festive flings. I think I'll keep my five gold rings. Uh, yeah, four calling birds. Uh, three French hens, two turtle doves. She loves the doves. Yeah, shove it on the card above. No, never fear, my dear, I'll pay it all. Next year. For now we'll drink to Christmas cheer, and deck the holes with tinsel bling. Forget what our tomorrow's bring.
SPEAKER_04We'll raise a glass of festive sherry, eat and drink and be quite Merry Christmas, everyone! What's your wish for me, my son? Hamper full of festive fun with snowdrops, rainbows, furry mittens, unicorns, and mealing kittens. Santa Slay may bring them near, but were you good for me this year?
SPEAKER_05Why, yes, I think I didn't sink as low as some, I know. Although. Hey, no! Father Christmas, mind your own business. The kids might believe, but they are naive. I know for certain. I see through the curtain. But when you strip it all bare, what exactly is there? See, Scrooge looks darkness full in the face, embracing the chill, but he loses the will to hope. The shopper copes better, throws off fetters, wears garish sweaters, but becomes a debtor, spending now but nothing later, tending down into death's crater. Santa offers Christmas cheer the most wonderful time of the year, but is it real? At least Scrooge knew the deal with the dark. In this stark world, can we face facts like Scrooge? Then paint it rouge like the shopper, proper banter like Santa, but below the ho ho ho, can we know a truth beneath Treacle? Good news of great joy for all people? Are we able to strip back to the stable? This fable made flesh, our maker enmeshed in the mess, to bless us, possess us, and be heaven's yes to our race, to embrace us in grace evermore in our place, pledging flesh, blood, and bone to exchange a throne for a manger, endangering all to be present to you, to be God's present to you. If you're Santa or Shopper or any such thing, if you're Shepherd or Mary or Joseph or King, for this the herald angels sing. In him the light shines and all is forgiven. To you, this Christmas child is given.
SPEAKER_02There it is. So there. So there. Take that.
SPEAKER_05Take that and share it.
SPEAKER_03So as I say, uh you can share it. Uh just go to the show notes for the podcast, speaklife.org.uk slash TEP to view the video, share it.
SPEAKER_05Sharing is caring. To go to forekinds of Christmas.com. That's right. And we want people, having watched it, to take the quiz and to get the book if they're not a Christian already, and to Yeah, to inquire further about it. So yeah, I mean we've we've hoped that the there are various ways into Four Kinds. So people some people come through the quiz and then order the book. Um some not just order the book, like order a free copy of the book. Um some people watch the video and do the quiz and and get the f get the free book. So yeah, we're we're hoping that people will do that. Um just, you know, very, very initially as we launch the quiz. Uh we've had quite a few people ordering the book already. So, you know, we can pray for for those folks to Yeah, to I mean it's only a 40-page book that um takes them through this sort of Isaiah 9-y kind of sermon and and uh leads them through to perhaps even, you know, praying to receive Jesus. So let's pray that lots of people actually do that.
SPEAKER_03Okay, well we're gonna finish slightly different on the uh podcast today. Glenn is gonna do a talk, or the normal Carol's talk that he would do for the Four Kinds of Christmas, and he's gonna be doing this at uh in Norwich Cathedral for the Christian Union of East Anglia.
SPEAKER_05That's right, East Anglia University, yeah. So I'll be doing that. That's the next place I'll be doing it. So yeah, for your listening pleasure. Um and and it look, if you're a speaker in any way, feel free to rip it off. I'm sure I've I'm sure I've ripped this talk off many, many people have kind of like a magpie stolen it from about thirty different evangelists, so feel free to rip it off yourself if you like.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_05Every kid wakes early for Christmas, but I woke with the sunshine blazing through the curtains. Christmas is, after all, one of the longest days of the year. In Australia, anyway. Breakfast for me was a sickly mix of tropical fruit and Cadbury's roses. Uh having smeared my face in a mangoed chocolatey glaze, I'd pull on my Sunday best, uh usually a surfer t-shirt and board shorts combo, ironed for special occasions, and then we'd head to church. After church it was presents and then lunch. Usually some kind of roast, uh not turkey, of course. Uh no one chooses turkey, unless compelled by centuries of peculiar tradition. Freed from the constraints of custom, Australians are able to see turkey for what it is. It's the food equivalent of a dehumidifier sucking the moisture out of every cell in your body. Most Australians have ditched turkey, since it has all the texture, yet none of the flavour, of cotton wool. Of course, having rid ourselves of turkey, the whole traditional Christmas lunch then falls apart. Soon you realise that every other component had only been drafted in in order to make the bird edible. We dollop on huge helpings of gravy and stuffing and cranberry sauce and bread sauce, bread sauce, all to wash down this Death Valley made flesh. In the old world, Brussels sprouts, those fettered parcels of soil and fart, they can almost be justified for their moisture content. If you lose the turkey, though, it's a whole new world of possibilities. So for lunch we would have lamb or beef or seafood or a barbecue or anything but turkey. We would pull our crackers, don our paper crowns, tell terrible jokes, and eat till we burst. Then burst we did, outside for a swim, before hours of backyard cricket, and finally a classic Australian carol. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Christmas in Australia on a scorching summer's day. Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is butte. Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, that's wrong. I know you're thinking that, because having lived half my life in the UK now, I've learnt the limits of British tolerance. Brits are an understanding bunch, uh, perhaps the most tolerant in the world. You m you manage to forgive so much. Neighbours, the Wiggles, Danny Minogue. Once again, we're sorry, please accept Kylie as a peace offering. Britons will forgive a lot, but there's one thing that Brits seem to find inconceivable a summer Christmas. And you know what? I think you might be onto something. Blazing sunshine is not the right context for Christmas. Proper Christmas happens in the bleak midwinter. I'm not just saying this, I genuinely mean it. Christmas is a winter celebration. I don't really mean the weather, I do mean the mood. Whatever the hemisphere, whatever the climate, there is something inescapably wintry about Christmas. At least according to the Bible. In the next few minutes, I just want to explore a famous Christmas reading. It gets wheeled out at all the traditional carol services. It's sung twice during Handel's Messiah, and it predicts the birth of Jesus, seven hundred years ahead of time. Here's the place of Christmas, according to the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. He writes, The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. Christmas begins in darkness. Isaiah mentions it twice in one sentence. The second time he calls it deep darkness. Yes, a light dawns, but as we'll see, it comes from out of this world. Darkness is the context. The rest of the Bible agrees. Eavesdrop even briefly on a carol service, and you'll hear repeated references to darkness. In the original telling of the story, Christmas happens with people huddling together in the gloom. It's not about reflecting the brightness of our sunny circumstances. Christmas, according to the Bible, belongs in a land of deep shadow. That's important to remember at Christmas. Especially because it can be such a difficult time. In a 2010 survey, 18% of respondents agreed with the statement, I dread Christmas. In another survey, it was revealed that 19% hate Christmas parties. For many of us, Christmas is anything but the most wonderful time of the year. Every relational fracture is exacerbated. Every family breakdown is exposed, and every pang of bereavement is given fresh oxygen. Half a million UK families will have an empty chair at Christmas lunch because they've lost someone this year. Christmas doesn't seem to help at these times, but only to hurt. If you're finding Christmas particularly hard, Isaiah assures you you're not alone. The true context for Christmas is darkness. But what do we do about it? I reckon there are four kinds of Christmas that map onto the four ways in life that we handle the darkness. There's Scrooge, the Shopper, the Santa, and the stable. And these are basically ways of navigating life in a land of deep shadow. Scrooge says, yes, darkness is all around, and it always will be. Act accordingly. The shopper says, the light is going out, so let's celebrate while we can. They want to believe that all is light. But the stable preaches the original Christmas message. Here we take the darkness seriously, but by entering it we are offered the brightest future. Let's begin with Scrooge. In Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge has a ruthlessly consistent approach to the darkness. He looked out on a bleak world, looked ahead to a bleak future, and he lived accordingly. Listen as he spreads his own brand of Christmas cheer. Every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a steak of holly through his heart. Dickens wrote, External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather could chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he. No falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Here's one way of handling the darkness. You make your home in it. Become just as bitter as your bitter circumstances, and say, Bah humbug to Christmas. That's an approach to Christmas, and it's an approach to life. Do you know Scrooges? Are you a Scrooge? In a sense, Scrooge is taking our situation seriously. According to Isaiah Chapter 9, we are in the land of the shadow of death. That's our situation. And Scrooge is taking it seriously. Mount Doom towers over us, overshadowing all that we do. This creeping oblivion, death, will claim us all. And so Scrooge understandably says, Bah humbug, to all our celebrations. Scrooge gets something right, we do live in a dark world. But he gets something wrong too. Actually, we are built for joy. That's what the shopper gets right. The shopper says to Scrooge, the weather outside is frightful. But the fire is so delightful, so if you've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. The shopper says, Let's stoke the fires and celebrate. If you're a Christmas shopper, uh you're different to Scrooge. You you wear the gaudiest seasonal knitwear, the novelty reindeer socks, the mistletoe headband, you raise your glass and wish everyone a very merry winter. You see, the the shopper is not religious. If you're a pure Christmas shopper, you've given up on Jesus and church, along with Father Christmas and fairy stories and that kind of thing. Without such beliefs, you figure that this life is all there is. So eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. That's your unofficial motto. And there's something very right about the shopper's response. We're not meant to be Scrooges, we were built for joy. The Prophet Isaiah speaks of the future that the Christmas child will bring. In our reading, Isaiah looks forward to the end of all things. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 3. You, Lord, have enlarged the nation and increased their joy. They rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. How does Isaiah think of the future? With joy. The word rejoice is repeated three times here, and our future will be all the more joyous for having come through the darkness. On the far side of this dark valley, Isaiah looks forward to an incredible hope. There'll be liberation and world peace. He goes on in verse 4 for as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered. The yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their impressor, every warrior's boot used in battle, and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. Just picture the scene that Isaiah is painting. All weapons will be melted down and turned into tractors and televisions and toasters. Blood stained military uniforms are no longer needed. John Lennon might have sung Happy Christmas war is over. Isaiah promised it. There will be a time when warfare ceases, and the whole world will gather around a great bonfire to celebrate. Right now we live amidst darkness, defeat, burdens, and battle. Right now we suffer through war and bloodshed. But the Christmas child will bring an end to war. He will prove to be a prince of peace, and when he ushers in that joyful future it will be a time of feasting and celebration. In fact, it will be a lot like Christmas. Every time Jesus describes his future hope, he speaks of it in terms of a family gathering around great food with friendship, singing and celebrations. According to Jesus, creation is heading towards feasting joy, a bit like Christmas. And so the Christmas shop has a right to emphasize family food and festivities. Such celebrations reflect a deep truth about what we were created for. But there's a problem. If you're a shopper, you don't actually believe in the happily ever after. Essentially a shopper has the same view of the future as Scrooge does. Without a belief in God or anything beyond death, the shopper's life is all about blazing brightly now because the grave awaits. And when Christmas Day is over and when the batteries have died and the tree has withered and the credit card bills hit the doormat, the Valley of the Shadow remains. So what do we do about that? If we want a meaningful and joyful Christmas, true hope for the future is vital. Without such hope, Christmas cheer is like tinsel, and we are like the tree. We are perishing. We can surround ourselves with family, feasting and festivities, but those things cannot keep us alive. Without God we have no life in us, no real life that can possibly outshine the shadow of death. So what should we do? Should we get depressed and become like Scrooges? Or maybe we should just pretend the darkness away. That's what the Santa's do. Let's think about the Santas for a second. If you're a Santa, you are a believer. What do you believe? You believe in Santa. I mean you don't think that there's a fat man living at the North Pole. No, you think if you're a Santa that there is a god, or some kind of spiritual power, but this god is basically a big Santa in the sky. See, the similarities between Santa and popular perceptions of God are endless. Think about it. Santa is basically for children. He lives very far away, he's irrelevant to the vast majority of our lives, but if we really want something, we might put in a request. Santa doesn't ever show up, not that we see, but actually we're not sure that we want him to show up. We want what Santa gives us, but we'd rather he didn't pull up a chair and share our pudding. We're probably glad that Santa never makes an appearance during the festivities. Frankly, I'm nervous about what the old man might say after a couple of glasses of red wine, aren't you? He may give a jolly ho ho ho, but push beneath the beard in the catchphrase. I'm just not sure what's there. That's Santa, but it's also a common view of God. For so many people, God is a distant, mostly irrelevant, possibly jolly, but not particularly personable dispenser of stuff. We want his things we certainly don't want him. And isn't it curious the way that Santa gives better gifts to the rich kids? It's very suspect. That's our complaint against Santa and against God. We question his fairness, and beneath the propaganda we wonder is he really all loving? Like the stories say. You know the song? He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice. Santa Claus is coming to town. He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake. Have you ever stopped to consider how creepy this is? I mean, is this a Christmas carol or is this the North Korean national anthem? Alright, I'll stop laying into Santa now. I'm only having fun. I'm not really bothered about Santa. Here's what I am bothered about. Many people think that God is a Santa in the sky, a childish fairy tale or a distant moralist. Whenever I talk about the Christmas message, there'll be some people who think that I'm doing a slightly grown up version of the Santa story. Perhaps that's how you think of Christianity, that it's basically about flinging the darkness and buying into any old myth just so long as it's comforting. Perhaps you think God is a distant dispenser of blessings and curses. He's making a list, he's checking it twice. If that's how you think of God, let me assure you Christians do not believe in Santa in the sky. If that's who God is, make me an atheist. I who can be bothered with an invisible benefactor far away? Not me. Not Christians. When Christians talk about God, we're not talking about wish fulfillment and we're not talking about a light that we hope exists beyond the darkness. We're talking about a light that showed up in the darkness. Isaiah finishes his famous Christmas passage by talking about the promised light. It turns out that the light is a person. Isaiah nine verse six for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. For Isaiah, the light is not a concept or a fairy story, the light is a royal child born into our darkness. And here is the final kind of Christmas the stable. Just think of the nativity scene. The promised Christmas child is born to Middle Eastern teenagers, and according to Luke chapter two, he's wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger because there's no room for them in the inn. There in that manger, which is a feeding trough, there in that manger is placed the one who Isaiah called the great light of the world, the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. But now he has come down to the womb of Mary, to participate in mammalian birth, to get laid in a feeding trough. Why? The Bible says he is God the Son, and he has become God our brother. He has come down on a trajectory that has taken him from the very highest heaven down into the stable, but he will keep going down, down, down, he will keep on walking through our valley of the shadow. He will feel our darkness, and on the cross he will take our darkness on himself, paying for our sins in full. Jesus comes down, down, down because this is what love does. At Christmas time, airports are crammed full of tearful reunions. People pay thousands of pounds and cross oceans just to be with one another. Why? Because love bears the cost to draw near. And Jesus bore the cost to draw near to us. Imagine you are at the airport waiting for your own Christmas reunion. Your successful older brother is flying in from New York, he's been living there for the last ten years while you've struggled on at home. Dad died six months ago, mum's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, you're out of work, and the debts are piling up. As your brother approaches you you notice that he's carrying more bags than you expected. With tears he says to you I'm back for good now. We'll get through this. That's the meaning of Christmas. Jesus did not merely pay us a visit in the stable. Jesus is God the Son, becoming our elder brother. He is joining himself to our family in all its poverty, and he's pledging his life to us forevermore. When you see Jesus in the manger, you're seeing a promise. He is committing himself to our race and to our plight. He's saying, I'm here now, and we'll get through this. He's saying, I've come to shoulder your burdens, just like Isaiah promised. This is the ultimate Christmas gift. As Isaiah says, To us a son is given. If you call out to Jesus, asking him into your life, you get to receive Jesus as your very own Lord and guide through the valley. He takes the government of your life onto his shoulders. He fills you with his spirit so that his spirit is now your spirit. He introduces you to his father so that his father is now your father. He promises you his future, so that his eternal life is now your eternal life. It's all for you. To you this child is born. To you this son is given. So how will you respond? Maybe you look at the darkness and you become a Scrooge. But listen, you know that we are built for joy. Maybe in spite of the darkness you become a shopper, you celebrate now because you know it's the grave later. But you know that we're built for hope. Maybe you try to forget the darkness and become a Santa. But you know that we can't deny the truth. So if we don't want to deny hope, and if we don't want to deny joy, and if we don't want to deny the truth, what about the original Christmas? What about the stable? Here you are offered the truth of Scrooge. Yes, there is a bleak midwinter that needs dealing with. But you're also offered the joy of the shopper. There really will be family feasting forever. And you're also offered the hope of Santa, there really is someone up there who likes you. He loves you. He has come for you. But these truths, these truths that offer the best of what Scrooge and Shopper and the Santa are offering, these truths are earthed in reality. Because in the stable you see it's all about a person. A person who has shown up, a person who can be known. Do you know him? Let me offer you some words that you might want to say to get introduced to Jesus. They're not magic words, but I'll just offer a prayer but a prayer by which you can make your own response to Jesus. A prayer where you can just say yes to this ultimate Christmas gift. Let me pray, and if you'd like, you can echo this prayer quietly in your heart. Dear Jesus, it's hard in the dark. And I recognize that there's darkness in me, too. I'm sorry for my selfishness and my sin. Thank you that you came to live my life here in the darkness. Thank you that you died my death on the cross. And thank you that you rose again. I want you in my life. Please be my Lord, my guide, and my friend forever. I want your father as my father. I want your spirit as my spirit. I want your life to be my life. Help me to walk with you and with your people through the darkness and into your eternal light. Amen.