When I realised that Christmas 2020 wouldn’t be like any other Christmas, I decided to write a study and devotional series that explains the Christmas images and stories assuming no prior knowledge. I centred around the lyrics of biblical songs and Christmas carols — I find it curious that in both biblical times and today, people sing the good news about Jesus’s birth.
The Christmas story is about joy, but it’s also infused with politics, poverty and pain. Perhaps because it is a difficult story, it is still relevant today.
About the series
Each post has a short reflection and a short Bible study, but they don’t offer neat explanations. I wanted them to be grounded and relevant; reflections from my life, but delving deep into the rich theology of the Christian tradition.
It’s designed to be accessible; I don’t assume any prior knowledge about Christianity or the Bible. The only you thing you need to know is that Christmas is when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. That’s it.
Advent calendars run from 1st December through to Christmas Eve on the 24th. But I ran this series for 40 days: from the 29th November 2020 through to the 7th January 2021. In the church’s calendar, that’s the first Sunday in advent to the day after Epiphany.
Here they all are. Though they were written for Christmas 2020, you’re be welcome to use them in other seasons.
Photo by Mariana B. on Unsplash
- Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 1: Tears
Christmas is the story of the birth of a man who lived 2,000 years ago, Jesus. He was a Jewish teacher and miracle worker who gathered a large following. So large, that we have a festival just to celebrate his birth. Christmas is also a story that begins with tears. And, as I write this… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 1: Tears - Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 2: TestimonyA couple of years ago, I heard a short talk about how Christians share personal stories about their experience of God. We often call this ‘testimony.’ The speaker highlighted how during the 80s in the UK, testimony in churches became sensational. People shared polished packages of very dramatic stories. Along the way, these stories lost… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 2: Testimony
- Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 3: EnduranceIt’s funny how stories help us bear the unbearable. In 2018, I watched a Danish crime-thriller series called ‘Department Q.’ Based on a series of books, it was about two police officers who investigate cold cases. The stories were very grim and violent! The last episode, A Conspiracy of Faith, was about a serial killer and… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 3: Endurance
- Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 4: Speech“I explained it when I danced it.” Margot Fonteyn, ballerina. Speech is possibly one of the greatest gifts we have as human beings. But not all speech is words. In May 2019, I heard Sybella Wilkes speak at the Royal Opera House in London. She was the senior communications officer at the United Nations High… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 4: Speech
- Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 5: PoliticsAt the start of this series, I said the Christmas story both begins with tears. Today, I want to look a bit more at that theme – but this time at the end of the Christmas story. Sorry, it’s not easy going. A woman once told me her account of when she’d been sexually assaulted.… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 5: Politics
- Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 6: BonesI have a strange relationship with legal codes. On the one hand, I love seeing how they interact. Geeking out on Old Testament laws is one of my pastimes. On the other hand, there is something very dead about written regulations. They are static. They always have cracks and limits. And legal documentation can be… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 6: Bones
- Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 7: Dreams“Never surrender dreams.” J Michael Straczinsky, screenwriter and author. I once read a fantasy novella called The Emperor’s Soul, by Brandon Sanderson. It was all about a magic of forgery, where you could make alternative identities for people and even objects. But for an alternative identity to stick, it had to be plausible. The more plausible… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 1, Day 7: Dreams
- Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 1: BlessingThis week, we’re looking at the song of Mary. If you ask me, it’s massively underrated. We’ll look at who Mary was in more detail on Thursday, but she was Jesus’s mother. A young Jewish woman, most likely a teenager, she totally knew the music of her culture. Growing up, I sang Mary’s song at… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 1: Blessing
- Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 2: ChildrenServants wait to be called. But children approach anyway. Christians often share their stories about how they’re living out their faith. Many of these are filled with hope and fresh ideas, fitting for our time. But there’s a phrase I’ve heard so many times in church, “I realised this was what God was calling me… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 2: Children
- Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 3: StoriesIn an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the crew of the spaceship meet an alien race that values stories. (Prime Factors, season 1, episode 10.) These aliens valued Voyager’s library of stories, and permission to tell them, as highly as their own powerful transportation technology. I found this idea thought-provoking. Personal stories can be immensely precious, but… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 3: Stories
- Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 4: Translation“God lets his children tell his story.” Peter Enns, biblical scholar Today, people tend to believe things are true when the history, facts and science stack up. As people of faith, Christians want to show that things about God are true, and sometimes they do this by showing how the facts stack up. Now, this… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 4: Translation
- Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 5: ChosenYou hear some kinds of stories multiple times. Then they become tropes. Then you get fed up of hearing them. Take the whole ‘chosen one’ plot. Something bad needs sorting, but fate or prophecy has decided who will do this. And more often than not, it’s a child. Or a baby. Or a yet-to-be-born baby.… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 5: Chosen
- Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 6: TemplePollution is incredibly unjust. It’s so indiscriminate, so harmful, and its effects can be so long-lasting. Its point of impact can be far removed from its cause. When you stop and think about it, it’s hard not get angry. I don’t just mean environmental pollution. Harmful substances, ideas and actions can pollute our bodies, minds… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 6: Temple
- Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 7: MysteryI never used to address God as ‘Father’. Instead I would just say ‘Lord’ or ‘God.’ It didn’t matter whether I was addressing Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, or… OK – I should do some explaining here. Christians hold the belief that God exists in three persons. They’re separate, but they’re also one. And therefore… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 2, Day 7: Mystery
- Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 1: PriesthoodLet’s talk about priesthood. The role of the priest resonated with me when I first fully read the Old Testament. I was filled with a sense of awe for God and an aspiration for right living. And I couldn’t get over it. My reaction was unusual. Many Christians are discomforted by the Old Testament’s animal… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 1: Priesthood
- Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 2: Judgement“I’ll give you countless amounts of outright Acceptance if you want it” Alanis Morissette. Alanis Morissette’s song ‘You Owe Me Nothing In Return’ articulates a lot of what unconditional love looks like. It refrains again and again how the person she’s speaking to owes her nothing. It’s not that what she’s giving isn’t valuable or… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 2: Judgement
- Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 3: Overwhelmed“I wonder if I have the capacity to manage something so overwhelming.” Crystal Pite, choreographer. The Royal Ballet’s production of Flight Pattern is about the experiences of refugees. Its choreographer, Crystal Pite, said the ballet was her way of coping with events happening in the world. I went to the cinema live-stream in 2019. I was determined… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 3: Overwhelmed
- Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 4: TransienceCan the things we own begin to own us? Maybe. But that’s not the whole story. Sometimes justified criticisms of consumer culture become untargeted attacks on all things material. I think this is a mistake. We are physical beings with tangible needs. Maybe we can live without some of the things we own, but that doesn’t mean… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 4: Transience
- Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 5: Humility“Remembering you were lucky is what keeps you humble.” ‘Luck’ wouldn’t be my choice of words, but the point was well made. I was listening to a man of colour speaking about what it took for him, as a BIPOC, to succeed. He had needed to work hard and persevere (more than his white peers),… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 5: Humility
- Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 6: FragranceI once took some spikenard to church. It’s a fragrant oil, sometimes called ‘nard’, from a plant that grows in the Himalayas. The oil had lost much of its pungency in the 10 years since I had bought it. And I only had a 5ml bottle. But it was still plenty strong enough. It was two… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 6: Fragrance
- Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 7: Cause“With hindsight, some could see why things had gone wrong and recognized they had been hard to work with.” Ruth H Perrin, Changing Shape, The Faith Lives of Millennials. Ruth Perrin’s book studies the experiences of emerging adults who, when they were teenagers, described themselves as Christians. Given that I’ve met a number of people who… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 3, Day 7: Cause
- Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 1: DepartureThe song we’re looking at this week is called the ‘nunc dimittis’ in Latin. And for some reason, I’ve always loved it. Growing up, it conjured the feeling of a peaceful evening. When everything is winding down and all is well with the world. As we’ll see in today’s reading, Mary and Joseph went to… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 1: Departure
- Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 2: ScandalThe Greek word ‘skandalon’ is the root of our English word ‘scandal’. It means ‘stumbling block.’ But it should mean ‘something that causes people to argue.’ The idea of ‘stumbling blocks’ recurs throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament. And it’s a bit tricky to understand. When Jesus’ warned his close friends that he would… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 2: Scandal
- Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 3: Family“Family is the first community you know.” I was listening to a British Asian woman speak about her experience of living in the UK. Her parents and grandparents had made a huge effort to settle in the UK. It hadn’t been easy and she felt a weight of responsibility not to disappoint them – especially… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 3: Family
- Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 4: GatewayIt’s funny how crime and throwaway culture go hand in hand. Take fast fashion. It’s not technically a crime, but it’s polluting, it impoverishes communities, and produces vast amounts of waste. It does these things unsustainably. And it’s largely because people see clothes as disposable. So we might say that throwaway culture is a crime of sorts. … Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 4: Gateway
- Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 5: UnexpectedI write this on Christmas Eve, 2020, in the UK where a new lockdown has been declared to manage the coronavirus pandemic. I’m not where I expected I would be nine months ago. I’m not even where I expected to be nine days ago. Mary must have had similar feelings of bewilderment. She had probably… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 5: Unexpected
- Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 6: PrincelingI’m a sucker for good princess stories. I love the idea of being special (who doesn’t?). I love royalty being bestowed upon good people who serve their kingdom. I especially love the idea of a young daughter fearlessly weighing in on matters of state, albeit seasoned with just enough decorum for what’s at stake. Of… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 6: Princeling
- Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 7: Calling“I am no longer my own, but yours.” Charles Wesley. These are the opening words of a prayer written by Charles Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church denomination. It’s prayed annually, as part of a special ‘covenant’ service where Methodists renew their commitment to God. Some Methodists find the prayer intimidating; they might even avoid… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 4, Day 7: Calling
- Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 1: KingGondor has no King, Gondor needs no King. Boromir, The Fellowship of the Ring Some days, I’m with Boromir. The quote above comes from the film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It’s an epic high fantasy, supposedly set in Earth’s distant past. And it has many plot threads. One of them concerns the… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 1: King
- Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 2: AccountabilitySome of the things Jesus said were pretty uncomfortable. One of them was this: ‘For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.’ (Matthew 25:29, see also Matthew 13:12) As a Christian, I don’t want to dilute Jesus’s… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 2: Accountability
- Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 3: Justice“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” Grantland Rice, sports commentator. There’s a day in the Bible that gets call the ‘day of judgement.’ It’s described in various ways: something long-awaited, something that vindicates, something that ends long-standing injustice. But it’s not described as joyful or even good. If… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 3: Justice
- Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 4: EmpiresLet’s talk about divisions. On the one hand, boundaries are good. We put down markers to divide one space from another, to distinguish the public from the private, to delineate ourselves from everything else. When it comes to confidences, people need ‘safe containers, not leaky vessels.’ Holding and respecting boundaries are where we find wisdom… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 4: Empires
- Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 5: IntegrityIn 2019, I read Kathy Khang’s book Raise Your Voice. She’s a Korean-American and writes about having courage to speak up and bring about change for the better. Throughout the book, she speaks about the sensitivities involved, as well as how hard it is to gain traction with people. She writes about changing structural problems,… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 5: Integrity
- Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 6: Saviour“Above all, Tolkien has a fascination with names for their own sake that will probably seem excessive to anyone whose favorite light reading is not the first book of Chronicles.” Robert M Adams. This quote comes from a 1977 review of The Silmarillion shortly after it was first published. The book prequels The Lord of the Rings. I learned… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 6: Saviour
- Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 7: GentlenessApparently, one translation of the Greek phrase ‘Kyrie eleison’ is ‘Sir, take it easy.’ Christians are more familiar with ‘Lord, have mercy.’ But ‘Sir, take it easy’ strikes home with me. It is sometimes said that mercy is not giving people bad things that they nevertheless deserve. But this can have problematic overtones. I’ve heard… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 5, Day 7: Gentleness
- Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 1: Meeting“I think we’ve found Screwtape’s opposite number.” In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis imagined the plight of an ordinary Christian man. His story is narrated through letters – written from one demon to another, both trying to ensnare the man’s damnation. His ‘opposite number’ is a character in a radio play I wrote a few years ago.… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 1: Meeting
- Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 2: GrowthPeople say that shame is the feeling you have when you believe something is inherently wrong with who you are. Guilt, on the other hand, is feeling there’s something wrong with your actions. But really, shame stems from a fear of exclusion. It’s not just about how you relate to yourself, but how you relate to other… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 2: Growth
- Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 3: WaysAs any consent activist will tell you, boundaries are crucial to your health and wellbeing. Transgressing boundaries is inherently unfaithful. It’s no accident that in traditional language, Christians ask God to forgive us our ‘trespasses.’ I’ve long believed it’s important to respect God’s boundaries. If God has set them, then they must be both ethical and important. While I… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 3: Ways
- Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 4: RevelationThe twelfth day of Christmas is also known as the ‘Feast of the Epiphany.’ This word means ‘revelation.’ In the Christian calendar, Epiphany marks the day that Jesus was revealed to the Gentiles (non-Jews) through the visit of the magi. We looked at their story in Week 5, Day 5: Integrity. There are lots of different… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 4: Revelation
- Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 5: Fire“No, Soren, you can’t fly into fire!” Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is a children’s fantasy-adventure 3D animated film made in 2010. Directed by Zac Snyder, it’s based on a series of books by Kathryn Lasky and condenses several books. Admittedly, the film has pacing and tone issues, but it is one of… Read more: Christmas 2020: Week 6, Day 5: Fire
