Just last night, my BFG was discussing how to have a more meaningful and authentic Christmas celebration. We were discussing the sermon by Casey McCall and were looking for ways to live set-apart during the Christmas season. We talked about leading our families to dwell on the reason for these celebrations. It was an encouraging time of fellowship.

This morning I stumbled across a letter that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his parents. At the time of the writing, he was in a Nazi prison due to suspicion of his involvement in a plot against Hitler.

Bonhoeffer writes:

Viewed from a Christian perspective, Christmas in a prison cell can, of course, hardly be considered particularly problematic. Most likely many of those here in this building will celebrate a more meaningful and authentic Christmas than in places where it is celebrated in name only.

That misery, sorrow, poverty, loneliness, helplessness, and guilt mean something quite different in the eyes of God than according to human judgment; that God turns toward the very places from which humans turn away; that Christ was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn — a prisoner grasps this better than others, and for him this is truly good news.

And to the extent he believes it, he knows that he has been placed within the Christian community that goes beyond the scope of all spatial and temporal limits, and the prison walls lose their significance. . . .

With great gratitude and love,

Your Dietrich

Tony Reinke over at Desiring God has reflected wonderfully on Bonhoeffer’s perspective and I highly recommend you check his post.

He writes:

Ironically, we can miss this meaning of Christmas if our celebration is only wrapped up in comfortable warm fires and the fellowship of friends and family. We can miss the memory of our desperation that required the Son of God to suffer for us. We can miss the personal desperation met in the manger. And we can miss out on the fellowship of his sufferings.

I hope that you don’t miss the meaning of Christmas. I hope that you, like my BFG is striving for, will lead your families in pondering the meaning of our celebrations. For we were hopeless and lost. But God sent His son, Jesus. And because of Him, hope was restored in our hearts and rescue from sin and death is ours to celebrate.