Peter Witkowski Christmas, Christmas Devotionals

The Christmas Story, In 4 Parts

Below is short, narrative retelling of the Christmas story that highlights the golden thread of the gospel that is woven into the first retellings of Jesus’ birth. Designed as a Christmas Eve script, the story below will serve as an excellent devotion for you and your family this Christmas season. Read it on Christmas Eve around or on Christmas morning before you tear into the presents. Or simply tack it on your daily bible reading. I hope this recounting of the miracle of Christmas warms your soul anew this Christmas. Merry Christmas!

The Story Begins: John 1:1-5

All was quiet; all was dark that first Christmas Eve night. The shepherds scattered across the hills of Bethlehem had become accustomed to the despair. They were well acquainted with Rome’s red shields that glistened atop the walls of Jerusalem. What little dignity the Romans had left the Judean shepherds was exploited by corrupt priests who preferred philosophical discussions about the proper way to tie one’s shoe to debates about justice, love, and mercy. Indeed, the shepherds’ world was dark.

But the world had not always been this way. The shepherds had heard the stories of the great prophet Moses. He had talked of a paradise inhabited by the universe’s first couple, Adam and Eve. There, at the beginning of time, all was good. All was perfect. Moses’s first book, Genesis, reports that, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Gen 1:31a).” Every day, Adam and Eve conversed with God as they walked through the garden together. The first couple could feel, taste, and sense the love, justice, kindness, and goodness of God. They in-turn cultivated a human society defined by love, kindness, and justice. No fears, darkness, or silence could touch their hearts for they knew God. Like a child on Christmas morning, Adam and Eve rebounded with joy, praise, and glory. All was good!

But as the Shepherds knew, those days of joy had faded into the recesses of history long ago. God now resided behind a curtain in the temple. He no longer walked with humanity. Even the great prophets like Moses, Elijah, and Isaiah had become the relics of a by gone era. God was silent, hovering far above the stars. Evil, despair, and sorrow filled the void he had left.

The Darkness Explained: Luke 1:68-71

The Shepherds also knew the source of the darkness. Moses spoke of a vile snake. He had slithered into God’s paradise, promising Adam and Eve equality with God in exchange for one act of rebellion. The couple took the snake up on his offer. But instead of being elevated to the heights of Mount Olympus, the couple stumbled into the pits of Hades. The couple lost their connection to the divine experiences of love, goodness, and justice. They had attached their souls to selfishness, brokenness, and lawlessness. Sadly, Adam and Eve destroyed not only their own hearts but also the hearts of all their children.

Their son, Cain, turned worship into a provocation for murder, serving as the new exemplar of humanity. Within a few generations, the evil of humanity reached such heights that God began humanity anew, wiping out the world with a flood. He set aside Noah to serve as the new father of the human race. But the builder of the ark would fail to keep the world pure, stumbling into drunkenness. God then set aside Abraham to create a people for himself. But like Noah and Adam before him, Abraham stumbled from the heights of faith. He lied and committed adultery.

His descendants fared no better. The great prophet, Moses, whom all the Jews revered disobeyed God, striking a rock in a fit of rage. The first priest, Aaron, created a golden calf. And King David committed adultery on numerous occasions before murdering an innocent soldier. Every great prophet, priest, and king of the Jews failed to escape the effects of Adam’s first sin. As the apostle Paul had said, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned (Rom. 5:12).”
Darkness reigned. No human could overcome it.

If we are honest with ourselves, we too have known this darkness. Despite all our intentions, efforts, and promises to eat healthier, listen more, and complain less, we still find ourselves plagued by sin and lawlessness. We still get angry when a loved one interrupts our T.V. show. We still roll our eyes when Aunt Sarah gifts us another homemade sweater instead of a PlayStation. And despite all the lights, hot coco, and cheer, we still cannot find the power to forgive that one person that stabbed us in the back all those years ago. The darkness that hovered over the shepherds that first Christmas Eve still hovers over many of us.
But the darkness of that first Christmas Eve would not remain. An angel visited Zechariah while he ministered in the temple, telling the aged priest that he would have a son. Another visited a virgin in Nazareth, proclaiming that Messiah was coming! God was about to break through the darkness!

Baby Jesus: The Light of the World (Luke 2:8-20)

On that first Christmas morning, the light of salvation penetrated the darkness of earth in the form of a tiny baby. God filled the night sky with angels and his glory. It was light far more magnificent than any sun or star. It possessed a purity unlike any other. As the apostle John had written, “God is light and in him is no darkness at all (1 Jn. 1:5).” The shepherds understandably trembled when they first saw the light for God was holy and they were not. Were we with them on that first Christmas morning, we too would have been “filled with great fear (Lk 2:9).”

But the message of Christmas proclaims that we no longer have to fear God. The light that shone about the angels consisted of both holiness and forgiveness. The angel tells the Shepherds (and us) to fear not, “for behold I bring you good new of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto to you is born this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord (Lk 2:10-11).” Jesus came not to judge but to save. He arrived not as some self-righteous, grumpy old man who looks cross eyed you when you walk into church 5 minutes late. He came humbly as a baby “wrapped in swaddling cloths and laying in a manger (Lk 2:12).” No pretense is required. No hoops have to be jumped through. To commune with God afresh, men and women need only to follow the shepherds to the stable and worship baby Jesus.

Though such an offer sounds outlandish, it is not. The manger was not a bait-and-switch tactic. It was a foreshadowing of Jesus’s true purpose. The baby in the manger can freely commune with sinners because he deals with their sins, dirty looks, and imperfections on the cross. As a child, teenager, and adult, Jesus perfectly fulfills the law. He faithfully worships God and never rolls his eyes or forgets to follow through on a project. He dies not for his sins but for ours. At his death, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two (Lk 23:45).” Thankfully Jesus does not stay dead; we do not commune with spirits who hide in the universe’s shadows. Our God is the God of the living. The angels at his tomb wonderfully declare, “He is not here, but has risen (Lk 24:6).” All who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus for salvation will live in eternity with him. God once again dwells “with those with whom he is pleased (Lk 2:14).”

This is the good news of great joy that the angels sing of. The light that Adam and Eve had rejected has returned to call sinners to himself. A prophet, priest, and king who never stumbled into sin has come, died, and risen again. The light has overcome the darkness.

Follow the Shepherds to Bethlehem: Luke 2:28-32

Christ the savior has come! This is the good news of great joy that shattered the darkness of that first Christmas Eve as the calendar flipped to Christmas day! As the Apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Christmas morn has dawned!

And now we must respond. We must follow the shepherds and come to the manger of the newborn king. As Christmas begins to dawn again, we should contemplate afresh the offer of salvation. If you come to the manger enveloped by the darkness of that first Christmas Eve, I invite you to repent of your sin and to trust in Christ for salvation. You need not do anything but come and worship Christ the newborn king. If you have already joined the shepherds’ song embracing the glories of salvation, I encourage you to kneel afresh at the manger. The miracle of salvation proves just as profound today as the day when you first believed. The light of revelation has come! Merry Christmas!

Peter Witkowski Christmas

How A VHS Tape Can Helps Us Recapture the Spirit of the Nativity

With your permission, I want to diverge from my normal writing and provide you with a movie review of sorts in an effort to remind our hearts that the nativity story is for those on the wrong side of the tracks.

For the sake of the innocent, I will omit the name of the 1990’s Christian kid’s special that was reintroduced to me the other day via my kids’ iPad. It’s nothing grand. The special in question was the kind of thing us nerdy, homeschool kids checked out from the church library (curb your enthusiasm). It was as G as G can be, and yet it is still worthy of discussion and reanalysis all these years later.

The special develops around a Christian middle-school student who reaches out to the bad kid in school, because said kid express little interest in the school Christmas play. Because the Christian student goes to the troubled kid’s home for the purpose of letting the bad kid know he has friends, the troubled kid decides to participate in the school play. Later that night, the now redeemed kid takes the relationship a step further and saves said Christian kid from a Christmas-Eve mugging. The special then cheerily ends with the Christian kid offering up a soliloquy on the true meaning of Christmas against a backdrop of hugs, smiles, and twinkling Christmas lights.

As I watched the special as an adult, I noticed that something was missing from the last scene. Better stated, someone was missing, the bad kid. Though extracted from the recesses of the criminal world, the bad kid never fellowships with the nice middle-class family. He’s never invited into that intimate family circle. Essentially, he is still not one of them.

When Fiction Becomes Reality

I found this little vignette from the Christian film world to be troubling because it reflects how many Christians approach ministry at the holidays. We want good for people that are not like us. We happily send gifts, deliver food, and rally to this community cause and that ministry project as our kids count down to Christmas. That is good. Truly it is better to give than to not give. But we stop at the gift. Though we may help a thousand people, we never invite one of them into our home. If those we helped at Christmas actually showed up at church, many of us would look at them funny, wondering why they came wearing those clothes. I’ve been around churches that gave large sums to gospel-focused endeavors while they simultaneously adopted policies that prevented people with certain social-economic characteristics from using this restroom and that vehicle. In other words, those institutions wanted good for everyone, but they did not want the bad kids in their homes, churches, and cars until they could achieve the correct level of niceness and sophistication whatever that maybe. Perhaps, they could come over next Christmas.

Jesus’s Approach to Christmas

Though we often keep the proverbial bad kids of the world at arms-length, Jesus embraces them. Jesus providential decreed that several pagans, a prostitute, and woman who had kids with her father-in-law would be part of his family tree. He then extends the first Christmas invitation to stinky shepherds who did not even possess the right to testify in court because their class was so derided by nice Jewish society. The second divine Christmas card went out to the Wisemen in the form of a star. Though we sing of them fondly in our day, the Jews of Jesus’s day discounted the Magi as uncircumcised, pagans with an unhealthy preoccupation with occultic practices. The original nativity scene consisted of men and women unwelcomed by nice, religious society.

But Jesus did not simply spend time with the lowly and hurting. He made them part of his eternal family. At his death, he ripped down the curtain that kept men and women from reaching God. He died on the cross so that he could clothe repentant sinners in his righteousness for the purpose of making the sorrowful outcasts of the world his glorious and joyous children. Paul describes the thrust of the Christmas message this way, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Jesus did care for practical needs. He taught sinners, gentiles, and tax collectors. He feed them and healed them. But he also welcomed them into his heart into his home, calling them his family. Where that 90’s Christmas special truer to the message of the first Christmas, the bad kid would have been the one delivering the closing speech against the backdrop of his new family.  

Yes, But, and Luther

Because we have the benefit of hindsight and the biblical text, we can be tempted to look indignantly upon those who get the Christmas story wrong. Though we may fall short of Jesus’s perfect calling, we still believe ourselves better than most. We can be tempted to say that we would have handled that 90’s Christmas morning better. For that matter, we would have handled the first Christmas night differently. We would have shared our room or hitched a ride with the wisemen. Perhaps we would have. Perhaps we would not have.

To find the answer to this fanciful historical experiment, we don’t have to time travel with Mr. Peabody and Sherman. We simply ask and answer the questions, “Do I love the bad kids?” When we sit down to Christmas dinner, do we see the faces of foster children, or the uncle the everyone hates, or the poor family down the street that quite frankly has a little body odor issue? Do we welcome the Mary’s, shepherds, and Wise men of our day into our homes and churches? As Martin Luther noted,

“Who is there on earth who is not surround be poor, miserable, ailing, erring, or sinful people…Why does he not do to them as Christ has done to him…It is a plain lie and deception for you to think you would have done a lot of good for Christ, if you do not do it for these people.”

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Sermons-Martin-Luther-Christmas/dp/B000O2QOW2/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=luther+advent&qid=1639165632&sr=8-3

Are the bad kids welcome in your home? What are we waiting for?

The End

While that 90’s Christmas special failed to fully portray the good news of great joy, we thankfully are not bound to last century’s animation techniques nor to their sweaters. We don’t have to keep rewinding and replaying an incomplete gospel Instead, we can pop-in the true message of Christmas, a message of love and adoption, from which we all can find the inspiration needed to welcome the bad kids into our homes and church. The question for us this holiday season is: will we?

Peter Witkowski Pain & Suffering

Mark’s Witkowski’s Funeral Sermon

Grief proves to be a powerful emotion. It can heal divisions, mend marriages, and inspire us to accomplish goals that previously seemed out of reach. Conversely, it can shatter relationships, uproot lives, and remove the good inhibitions that prevent us from spending our life savings on an outlandish trip to Australia or on that life-size Star Trek Enterprise model.

Our Lord and savior knew the emotion as well. Luke who wrote the gospel which bears his name famously reported that “Jesus wept” when he came to the home of his then dead friend Lazarus (11:35). The verse before Luke 11:35, reveals that Jesus intensely felt the sorrow of death. The text says Jesus, “was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled (Lk 11:34).” Even though many of us like Jesus place our hope in the resurrection from the dead, it is not wrong to grieve Mark’s death. The Puritan writer John Flavell helpfully noted,

It is much more becoming a Christian to ingeniously open his troubles than to sullenly smother them…Griefs are eased by groans and heart-pressures by utterance.

In other words, we do not need to fear the tears on our face or the sorrows that invariably slip into our minds as we start this new season of our lives. We should both celebrate Mark’s life and grieve his death. And we should do those things in a productive and constructive manner. Were my dad here today, I think this would be his concern for us. He would want us to grieve well. He would not want his memory to burden his dear wife, children, grandchildren, extended family, or friends with excessive sorrow.

Over these last few years, my dad championed Ephesians 5:15-21 as his life verses. He wanted to live with great care for he knew the days were evil. Since death remains the most profound manifestation of evil, I believe these verses that meant so much to my dear father in life will prove meaningful to us as we grieve his death. I hope Paul’s letter will inspire us to walk carefully and to study the Scriptures. It is these two principles that best explain who Mark was. And it is these two principles that helps us grieve well.

To Walk Carefully

To grieve well, we must walk carefully.

If ever there was a planner, it was Mark Witkowski. Whether it was the purchasing of little tikes cars for track meets, the calling of U.S. senators to book his next economic speaker’s forum, or the mailing of valentine’s day cards accompanied by a five-dollar bill to all his grandkids, Mark lived life with great care and intentionality. He thrived on organizing basketball tournaments, coaching our baseball teams, and coordinating anniversary trips. If he wasn’t doing something big, he was busy selecting the right flowers for his various gardens, creating a tree house for his grandkids, or decorating the house for my mom. He never stopped planning. Even on his death bed, he constantly talked of redoing the floors in his house and of renting a store front so that he could open an extension campus of my Northern Virginia church in the St. Louis area.

He did all that he did with others in mind. He walked carefully so that his employers would thrive, so that his kids would have opportunities to succeed, and so that Joetta would be well cared for. Even as he approached death, he talked of getting his childhood train set to Little Thomas and Luke. He wanted the childhood toy that had brough him such joy to bless another generation of Witkowskis. He longed to make the best use of his days for he had experienced evil.

Though Mark saw the best in others, he remained ever aware of the days were evil. He had been wrongfully terminated from more than one job. He had developed and beaten brain cancer. And, he had walked through all the ups and downs of his kids’ and grandkids’ lives. He understood the realities of sin nature. In Ephesians 4:17-18, Paul said that the Gentiles, those who do not follow Jesus, walk “in the futility of their minds…darkened in their understanding.” Dad knew the world was broken and needed to be fixed.

The Faith of Mark Witkowski

Dad also knew that he was broken. As a young man and in his earlier years as my father, he had been dead in his trespasses and sin. He made mistakes. Some tense moments punctuated those early years of his life. But they never defined him because he found Jesus, the life and light of men. What Paul writes in Ephesians 2:4-5 proved true of my dad: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loves us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.”

Mark understood that he was made in the image of his creator and that that image had been corrupted by his father Adam and by his willful desire to do evil. He also grasped that he could not work his way to heaven through baptism or being kind. More importantly, he knew he did not have to trust in good works because Jesus, being both fully God and fully man, had lived the perfect life that God had called all of us to live. Mark knew that Jesus had freely offered to exchange his life for ours. He had died on the cross and rose again so that we could live with him forever. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” By the God’s grace, Mark had understood and responded to the gospel with repentance and faith through grace.

It was the grace of Jesus that inspired my dad to see the good in all of us. It was the grace of Jesus that motivated him to plan. It was the grace of Jesus the proved to be the source of his wisdom. It made him the man we knew, loved, and now miss. It was this grace that he hoped all his children, grandchildren, family, and friends would encounter through faith. It is this grace friends that I offer to you today. Repent and believe.

Were Mark to tell us anything today, he would tell us to place our hope in Jesus and to keep our grief in check. He would allow us to be sad for a few days. Then, he would encourage us to graciously do the next thing. He would want us to love our mom, our families, and those around us. He would encourage us to walk carefully.

Then as Paul, he would encourage us to avoid foolishness. To put it positively, we should carefully study the word of God.

Carefully Study the Word

My father loved to watch old T.V. shows and movies with my mom including the Bob Newhart show. In an episode of that show, Newhart plays a psychologist who blurts out “Stop it” as he become annoyed with his patient. The patient starts again, and Newhart says, “I know but am telling you all you have to do is stop it. Two words, stop it. No, you are not hearing me, stop it.” In Ephesians 5:17, Paul is telling us to “Stop it.” The idolatry, the greed, the selfishness, the anger, the pride, the sexual immorality, the drunkenness, he says, “stop it.”  To grieve well, we must avoid foolishness. “Stop it,” as Newhart says.

Thankfully, Paul does not end where Newhart ends. He goes forward to positive instruction, telling us that the Word of God can cure foolishness. “Understand what the will of the Lord is.” As Psalm 119:9 reminds us, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.” God’s Word cures foolishness.

It reminds us that death is the result of sin and that Jesus is the antidote to death. The Bible also reveals that baby Jesus is coming again. Jesus will one day install a new and perfect world free of sorrow. In other words, we grieve the loss of relationship brought about by death, but we grieve in hope for we know a day is coming when as the prophet Isaiah says,

No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days (65:20).

The will of the Lord proved to be grandpa Wit’s source of wisdom. Though my dad was committed to getting us to every baseball, basketball, and dance recital he could, he never let anything interfere with church. Even when on vacation, all seven of us would stumble into some unsuspecting church. Even as he grew weak, he continued to share how the Psalms he read shaped his understanding of life. He ever and always wanted to know the will of God.

If we understand God’s will for our lives, alcohol and all other addictive behaviors will lose their appeal. We will have no need of liquid courage for we will have spiritual courage. If we grieve with the spirit, our sorrow will lead not to depression but to singing, thanksgiving, and service.

Singing

Mark Witkowski loved to sing. At his insistence, us guys would all sing “We Three Kings” with him every December. As our family grew, he would have us all sing the “Twelve days of Christmas.” He took great joy in belting out “5 Golden rings.” When the calendar finally flipped to Christmas, he insisted that the family sing all the Christmas carols on the song sheet he had printed off before moving on to presents. When he tucked us in at night, he would make up songs that ended with him saying, we were his bundles of joy. He would sing loudly at church and delighted in hearing my mom sing.  There was always a melody in his heart when he made us his sausage casserole, worked in the yard, or washed mom’s Christmas dishes. Even when he was down, music proved to be one of his favorite remedies. When the Cubs lost in the playoffs, he would lock himself in his office and play Christmas carols. Were he hear today, I think he would us to channel our grief into the singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual song.

Thankfulness

Secondly, my dad was always thankful. There were many moments at the dinner table when the five of us would sit there staring at those whole wheat noodles wondering if this was the moment of revolution. My dad would then sit down at the head of the table and begin to go on and on about how he loved my mom’s spaghetti or latest casserole. Once he gave thanks, we knew the gig was up and begrudging settled into to eat our food.

 According to my dad, my mom was the best cook, teacher, mother, wife, actor, and musician in all the world. Though such verbose language many times proves disingenuous, Dad genuinely believed my mom had hung the moon. Even as he muscles gave way, he talked of getting well because he wanted to care for the woman of his dreams. Though mom was the primary focus of his gratitude, he remained thankful for everyone he meets. He delighted in my sister’s ballet recitals, Thomas’s commissioning service, James’s tap-dance performance, and Andrew’s baseball career. We knew he was thankful for all of us for he seized every opportunity to pray for us, publicly voicing his gratitude to God for us.

Service

Lastly, Mark was submissive. He put the needs of others first. If a homeless guy needed a ride, lunch, or even a job my dad would provide it for him. He regularly took time out his schedule to tutor his college students and to disciple his kids. He always and forever put the needs of the family before his own. His first earthly passion was my mom. He worked hard often holding down two jobs to ensure she had a nice home and could fulfill her passion of teaching and discipling her children. If any of us encountered a hardship, we knew we could ask dad for help, and he would be there. No matter how foolish we had been our dad was already ready to forgive us and to help us afresh. He loved serving others. May our remembrance of Mark end in us singing, giving thanks, and serving others.

Final Thoughts

Mark Witkowski was a special man for he lived out the truths in Ephesians 5:17-21. He walked carefully and understood the Scriptures. May we honor his memory by doing the same. May we grieve well intentionally doing the next thing and studying afresh the word of God. My way faithful honor the legacy of Mark Witkowski.