Stephen Nichols

For some laity, I think they can articulate that Jesus is the God-man.

But once you start getting into some of the finer points of the heresies that try to get into how those two natures combine, some Christians, I think, can feel this might be a little out of my depth.

And so they don't venture too far into Christology.

And I want to encourage people to definitely go out into the deep end of Christology.

You know, read the Nicene Creed.

Read the Chalcedonian Creed.

Go back then.

to Paul's teaching on who Jesus is in his epistles, go back to putting together that composite as we see Jesus in the gospels, and have this rich, truly rich understanding of Jesus as the God-man.

And as we think on that, and as we meditate on that, now we marvel at who Christ is and what he has done.

Well, I mentioned, you know, the idea really came from thinking about them and thinking about some time during a Christmas when they were all little of working through these biblical texts with them.

And I wanted them to know, you know, as they grow up and have their own families, if God wills, that hopefully they would use this as well in their families.

And it might pull a smile on their face if they see that I dedicated it to them.

Yeah, sure.

And I certainly don't want to get prescriptive here and say this is the way that you keep Christmas or celebrate Christmas, but it's fun to dip back into church history and see different traditions.

So the Festival of Lessons and Carols basically walks through the whole story of Christmas and it starts with the Old Testament texts and it moves to the gospel fulfillment and the incarnation and the birth and incarnation of Christ.

And then it moves into the epistles to...

Sort of put a bow, so to speak, on the whole package of the meaning of Christmas.

And then it's carols in between.

Now, you can have traditions where the carols are pretty intense and likely largely unknown.

So, you know, you substitute in any hymns that fit with that.