Do you remember Spring of 2020? I bet you do. Anyone alive at the time and reasonably aware is not likely to forget the COVID-19 pandemic. The days were filled with uncertainty, and the internet was filled with man’s best attempts at wisdom. I recall one anecdote on managing hope and expectations that seemed to pop up regularly, known as the Stockdale Paradox. As the concept recalls, James Stockdale was a naval officer who spent seven years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, North Vietnam. After his release, he famously philosophized about those who did and those who did not make it out of the prison camp alive. He said false hope of rescue would kill a man. Those who did not make it out, according to Stockdale, died of a broken heart because of their unrealistic expectations for a quick deliverance. He distinguished this false hope from a brutal confrontation with the facts that allowed him to deal with reality while maintaining faith that he would one day be freed. His conclusion was this: there is nothing wrong with hope in and of itself, but it must be the right kind of hope. Here, as we consider Christmas, we do well to ask the question, “What is the right kind of hope?” While Christians have the answer to that question already, we must be careful not to allow the short-lived enjoyment of the season to trivialize the profound joys we have when we consider our ultimate deliverance and the sin that makes it necessary. In other words, let us confront the hard facts of life and see the joy of Christmas realistic and full.
The Promise of Our Hope
The Christmas season is one in which much of humanity at least winks at the idea of some kind of unseen, future hope. The music, decorations, movies, presents are all pictures of a kind of optimism, a belief that there is something good in this world and possibly something good in the world to come. Yet so many people are like those prisoners of war that will never make it out alive because they fail to have a brutal confrontation with the facts. Christmas, however, fully realized in Christ, gives us a blunt view of the facts, acknowledging a world broken by sin while also bolstering a hope that sustains us unto true and everlasting freedom. We all need hope like this, from the most depraved to the most sanctified, from theological babes to intellectual giants.
Our hope begins with a promise. The protoevangelium—or “first gospel”—of Genesis 3:15 is the promise of a child, one that would crush the head of Satan, the great adversary who exploits our sinful nature and would have us enslaved to it. From Genesis 3:15 forward, the dark details of our imprisonment have been illuminated by the hope of a child to come. We see that hope perpetuated through Eve, “the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20), then through Noah’s faithful son, Shem, after the flood (Gen. 9:26), and then through God’s promised son to Abraham, who would be a blessing to all nations (Gen. 12:1–3; 22:18). When God rescued Israel out of Egypt he referred to the nation as his “firstborn son” (Exod. 4:22), and God later promised David, the great king of Israel, that his son would be on the throne of an everlasting kingdom (2 Sam. 7:12–13).
Matthew traces God’s promise of a son from generation to generation in the genealogy that begins his Gospel. This promise of God, starting with Adam and Eve and extending through the nation of Israel, is colored with both God’s grace and humanity’s sin. His promise culminates in Jesus himself and serves as a firm basis for our hope. Jesus Christ is the reason why Christmas time is characterized by joy and good cheer, even by the secular world (though they would never admit this as the reason). However, to try and celebrate the hope of Christmas without recognizing both God’s promise as its foundation and man’s sin as its bane is akin to holding the false hope of rescue that Stockdale saw in his fellow prisoners. Christmas comes rightly with joy and good cheer only when we do not shy from the gritty details of our captivity to sin.
The Brute Facts of History
The history of mankind is fraught with sin and death, even as God’s promise holds strong. Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve, killed their second son, Abel (Gen. 4:1–2, 8). Noah was ridiculed and disgraced by his son, Ham (Gen. 9:22). Abraham distrusted God’s promise of a child by his wife Sarah and instead impregnated her servant Hagar (Gen. 16:2), and when Sarah heard the promise of a son by her own womb, she showed her lack of faith by laughing at God (Gen. 18:12). An entire generation of Israelites denied their firstborn status as God’s people by rebelling against him in the wilderness (Num. 14:20–23). King David famously threatened God’s promise by his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriah (2 Sam. 11:4–5, 15). See the dark underbelly of our Christmas promise. Engage with the reality of mankind’s captivity to sin. Do not allow the sentimentality of the Christmas season gives you a false hope in some nebulous notion of joy and good cheer. Let us confront the brutal facts of our reality. Mankind is enslaved to the envy of Cain, the disrespect of Ham, the distrust of Abraham, the rebellion of Israel, and the lust of David. No man can hope rightly in the promise of Christmas until he looks soberly into the brutal facts of his own captivity to sin. Take heart, however, we do not have to be resigned to lifelong slavery of sin when we look in faith to Christ as our great, promised liberator (Luke 4:17–19). All who are drawn to acknowledge these gritty details and admit them before God in repentance will find Christmas hope in abundance through his promised Son.
Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, many in the nation of Israel, and King David all maintained faith in God’s promise. They all held a realistic hope in light of their own struggle with sin and in anticipation of promised freedom. They knew the promise is God’s and not their own and is guaranteed under his might. These ancient men and women of faith found great confidence in God’s promise over the creeping darkness of sin in their lives. Throughout Scripture we find not downtrodden saints, but those who display the joy and good cheer for which the world so desperately grasps from Christmas (Heb. 11:13).
Conclusion
We live now on the other side of the incarnation of Christ, and our hope in the promise of God’s Son should be as wide-eyed as at any time in history, recognizing the need and blessing of repentance in the midst of Christmas celebration. So, as we look upon the Christ of Christmas, let us never find ourselves enthralled with a simpleton’s hope. Let us see the full, brutal, and beautiful picture. Let us see both the babe incarnate and the suffering servant (Matt. 1:23; Isa. 53:5). Let us see the rising of many in Jesus as well as those who oppose his sign (Luke 2:34). Let us see in Christ the promised Son of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and the eschaton all at once. As we look upon him and worship him, let us recognize the darkness of our past captivity and that which remains in the world around us while we take a realistic look at what it means to have been set free. Christmas, our Christmas, rightly understood is a celebration no one can grasp but those who have tasted freedom. Ours is not a false hope still imprisoned in sin, pretending that we will soon be free. Ours is a hope that has seen the door flung wide, and we know it is Christ who has granted passage. Let us shine then with the glorious light of Christ, and may the world know that Christmas, our Christmas, Christ’s Christmas, is eternally informed with the true hope of God’s promised Son.
