Work on what you believe on Christmas, not what you do
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I am in Austin doing various Christmas things with my family. My wife and I were both born and raised here, and most of our family still lives here. We just got back from the Trail of Lights in Zilker park, and tomorrow morning, we’re going to my mom’s house to open presents.
I’ve mentioned before that Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday. I tend not to like holidays in general. I don’t even celebrate my own birthday. Most of these traditions I just tolerate. But I got to do something this morning that really embodied the “Christmas Spirit” to me.
My father-in-law probably does more good in a week than most people fit into a year. For instance, every Tuesday morning, he goes to his church early to set up for a homeless outreach the church hosts. They give out unlimited bus passes for free, along with warm hats, gloves and socks, so that transportation is not a barrier to working and improving their lives. Because I’m in town, and he and I would be the only ones awake at that time in the morning, I thought I would blow off working on my column and go with him.
I met with a man there who was having a hard time with various parts of his life and needed a lot more than a bus pass that would only last him 31 days. It seemed to me like he needed something permanent.
Whole books have been written about how to smoothly transition a conversation into spiritual things. Rejecting the whole body of work on the subject, I prefer to jump in head first. “Tell me what you think about Jesus.”
His response was typically heart-breaking. “Well, I believe in him. I know he died for my sins, and he rose again, but my faith isn’t as strong as it used to be.” Borrowing a page from my other hero Socrates, I asked, “What do you mean by that?” “Well, you know,” he replied, “I need to be more responsible. I’ve got to get my stuff together. I’ve got to make things right with my kids …” I asked him if he thought that’s what the Bible said he needed to do, and he seemed pretty certain.
And he’s not 100 percent wrong. The Bible does set up a standard of righteousness that involves responsibility and doing the right thing and providing for children. But he wasn’t 100 percent right either. What we do doesn’t affect our faith. Our faith affects what we do. So I told him about the book of Galatians.
The whole book of Galatians was written to people who thought like he did. They had a whole list of things they needed to perform in order to be right before God. Some people had come to the Galatian church teaching that the men needed to be circumcised and that the whole church needed to keep kosher and basically become Jewish before they could become Christians. Paul’s strongest words in the New Testament are reserved for combatting this idea. In Galatians 5:12, he actually suggests that people who teach such things shouldn’t just stop at circumcision, but to go all the way and “emasculate themselves.” He doesn’t take the subject of confusing the place of works in the Christian’s life lightly.
Previously in the letter, he asks, I would like to learn just one thing from you, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?
The Christian life is begun and continued by faith in Jesus and in his gospel.
I know you’re wondering what a homeless man or the book of Galatians has to do with Christmas. Maybe you’re convinced by now of just how bad I am at doing Christmas. But actually, my favorite Christmas text is in Galatians. Nestled between sarcastic rhetorical questions in chapter three and calls for genital amputation in chapter five is one of the most beautiful descriptions of the incarnation in the Bible, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir” (Galatians 4:4-7).
If I have to celebrate Christmas, that is what I will celebrate. Jesus came to do all the good required for us to have a right standing before God on our behalf. He fulfilled all the requirements for us so that we can stand before God as his children. There is nothing more we can do but to trust Jesus and accept his free gift. If for the first time, it is for eternal life. If for the second, tenth or hundredth time, it is for abundant life.
So, for Christmas, this is what I told the man, and it is what I pray for you. Do not work so hard on what you do. Work on what you believe. The doing will come naturally when your trust rests on Jesus. According to Galatians 5:22, one of the results of this continual trust in Jesus is joy. If you focus your thoughts and your heart on trusting Jesus tomorrow morning, you will certainly have a Merry Christmas.