Teaching Students to Long for Christ Through Zechariah’s Song
For students grappling with increased awareness of the brokenness of the world, an always-Christmas-never-Advent Christianity can seem like a childish solution to an irrelevant problem.
For students grappling with increased awareness of the brokenness of the world, an always-Christmas-never-Advent Christianity can seem like a childish solution to an irrelevant problem.
As if things weren’t complicated enough in a normal December, this year we have rising COVID numbers, shorter days, and falling temperatures to add hurdles to our usual Christmas parties.
Youth need to learn that while they were still sinners, Christ died for them. They need to hear that God so loved them that he gave his Son—who died voluntarily in their place to cancel the debt of their sins.
Christmas isn’t the Hallmark movie of the Bible. The triumph of God and his Messiah over evil is a story we are involved in.
Romance isn’t the highest form of love. Christ’s full giving of himself to redeem those who were dead in their sins and trespasses, receiving nothing in return, is the highest form of love. Every form of love, even romantic love, is to find its source in that truth.
When we are confronted with needs around us, Christmas frees us from asking, “What will this cost me?” so that we can begin to ask, “How will this serve someone else?”
If we over-fondly remember pre-pandemic “normal” as some kind of Eden we’ve been kicked out of, we risk sounding like the Israelites yearning for slavery in Egypt as they faced the privations of the desert.
Each devotional centers around Messianic prophecies – promises – from the Old Testament, and the wonder that each one came to be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
Here’s to the youth ministers who faithfully teach the Word, plan events, spend time with teenagers, and point them to the gospel week by week!