Hidden Christmas by Tim Keller (2016)

Posted on 2017-12-23 by thelittleman

Christmas, like God himself, is both more wondrous and more threatening than we imagine. (5)

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As December rolls on, I continue to read Christmas selections that I’ve found through my searches online, and despite the unanticipated busyness of this holiday season, I have greatly enjoyed the effort. After finishing a Christmas mystery (Hercule Poirot’s Christmas), I felt it necessary to get back to heart of Christmas, this time with a fresh collection of Christmas sermons from the prolific pastor, Tim Keller.

As I’ve come to expect from Keller, his biblically-founded insights into Christmas aren’t merely the common, feel-good portions that pastors generally highlight during this season. Instead he focuses on some of the lesser-known passages which deal with the Savior’s birth, and I really enjoyed the refreshing—and oftentimes convicting—lessons he brings to light throughout the book.

For this brief review, I’d like to highlight two points he made in various chapter which have had an impact in my life at present. As I go through a very difficult period at school where it seems the administration rewards unprofessionalism and castigates those who stand up for what’s right, I needed to hear these two lessons on: the “residual anger and hostility” I as a believer have toward God in my flesh, and how, if I live like Jesus, “there won’t be room for [me] in a lot of inns.”

The first point comes in Keller’s chapter about the Herod who murdered all those little babies at the time of Jesus’ birth. Keller emphasizes the enmity that this world (and that the prince of this world) has toward God and His only Son, Jesus, but then turns the spotlight onto us believers who truly love Him and have given our lives to serve Him:

I also have a word of advice to Christians. You might say, “How can we be enemies of God? Doesn’t Paul say that through Jesus we have been reconciled to him, at peace with him (Romans 5:1–11)?” Yes, that is wonderfully true. He has forgiven us and we are reconciled to him. But you must recognize (as Paul shows us in Romans 6–8) that you still have a heart with residual anger and hostility to God. It is still there. Until we get to the very end of time and are glorified, and we get our perfect bodies and our perfect souls, it is still there. Always take that into consideration…

Why do you think it is so hard to pray? Why do you think it is so hard to concentrate on the most glorious person possible? Why, when God answers a prayer, do you say, “Oh, I will never forget this, Lord,” but soon you do anyway? How many times have you said, “I will never do this again!” and two weeks later you do it again? In Romans 7:15 Paul says, “What I hate I do.” There is still a little King Herod inside you. It means you have got to be far more intentional about Christian growth, about prayer, and about accountability to other people to overcome your bad habits. You can’t just glide through the Christian life. There is still something in you that fights it. (Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas, 49)

What a powerful message! How difficult it is for me to pray sometimes! “Dear Lord” has become the most powerful sleeping pill for me as late, and why? Because I have taken a break from intentionality. I have allowed “that which I hate” to become “that which I most often do,” and Little King Herod is coming back to haunt me. One particular passage that has comforted me lately is this: “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” (1John 4:4).

The second point deals with the opposite end of the spectrum of the Christian life. Whereas point one deals with the internal and how we struggle to live rightly, this second point deals with the external and the successes of living rightly. Keller writes:

You don’t have to be Jesus Christ to get people furious at being exposed for what they are. Just living an honest, moral life will expose gossip in the office, corruption in government, racism in the neighborhood. The manger at Christmas means that, if you live like Jesus, there won’t be room for you in a lot of inns. (Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas, 78)

In my situation as manager of a kindergarten, I see one of my teachers getting drunk on school nights and calling in sick with a “toothache” or “the flu.” I know he’s lying, and I know the doctor’s notes he procures are based on lies. The school knows he’s lying, and yet when I call for a reprimand, I get blamed for “stirring up problems.” How can I continue this way, being condemned as a trouble-maker for standing up for the safety of our students? It is this Christmas season and this book by Keller that has helped me to realize that I will not find peace with this world for standing up for what is right. Jesus Himself later affirmed that He didn’t come to bring peace to this world but a sword (Mark 10:34), and I think this exposure of the black hearts of men by the Light of the World is part of what He meant.

I found great comfort, conviction, and education from this book. I highly recommend it to one and all.

©2017 E.T.

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