Ep. 205: The Coming Christmas

Kourtney Cromwell:
Welcome to the indoubt Podcast, where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s Word. For more info on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Hey, everyone, it’s Kourtney. On this week’s episode, we’re talking to Ross Breitkreuz, a pastor and author in Canada. Ross has a Christmas special called, “Chasing Christmas,” where he travels around the country sharing the Christmas story in a way that many people have never heard. In this episode, Ross shares about what “Chasing Christmas” is all about and why it’s an important and unique ministry. You’ll hear Ross and Daniel break down how Christmas doesn’t just start in the New Testament and with the birth of Jesus.
And just before we jump into this episode, I wanted to mention that Daniel, Isaac, and Joshua each have a Christmas video that’s airing over the holidays, and those are all available online. Each one focuses on a different aspect of Christmas but focuses in on the collective vision for Christmas that each of us should have during this season. So Merry Christmas, and I hope you enjoy this episode with Daniel and Ross Breitkreuz.

Daniel Markin:
Hey, welcome to the indoubt Podcast. I am Daniel Markin. Good to be with you. And I’m joined today with Ross Breitkreuz.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yes.

Daniel Markin:
Now, Ross, I nailed that, didn’t I?

Ross Breitkreuz:
You absolutely crushed it.

Daniel Markin:
And we have … maybe it was recorded in the previous show notes, but I had to practice it a few times.

Ross Breitkreuz:
That’s all right.

Daniel Markin:
But you were really gracious, and you said you don’t get offended so …

Ross Breitkreuz:
No, no, you can’t grow up with a last name like that and expect everyone to nail it.

Daniel Markin:
Well, Ross, we’re excited to have you on, but first of all, let’s just let our audience know who you are and kind of what you do and some of what your ministry is.

Ross Breitkreuz:
So I am kind of like a mixed bag when it comes to ministry. I am an accredited pastor through a denomination here in BC and that actually stretches across Canada. So, I fill in, and I do pastoral here and there, but what I primarily do for work and what takes up most of my time is I’m a touring speaker. So, kind of like musicians obviously go on tour and they tour their albums, I have a speaking event that’s called Seven Mile Story, and I spend a lot of time on the road going to churches and presenting that.

Daniel Markin:
Sweet. And then did you grow up in the church?

Ross Breitkreuz:
I did.

Daniel Markin:
Okay.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah. I actually grew up in the denomination that I’m now accredited through.

Daniel Markin:
And you’ve shared other places, but did you always know that you wanted to kind of get into this pastoral ministry, or what was the original plan?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Man, if my family and friends that I grew up with could hear you ask that question, you’d just hear laughter in the background.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah, yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah. Anyone who knew me growing up, there’s not a single person who would have pegged me to be a pastor. I still meet teachers from high school who laugh because they’re in absolute shock and disbelief. I just wanted to be a hockey player. I had a fairly successful career in hockey, ended up actually signing a pro contract in Germany and went over there, and I thought that was going to be my life.

Daniel Markin:
Cool.

Ross Breitkreuz:
But I felt God place a call on my life that was undeniable, and I gave it all up. I didn’t know for what exactly, but it turned out to be writing and speaking.
My story has been an absolute mixed bag. I wrote my book about five, six years ago. Got it accepted, got it published, and then right as everything started to take off, my mom got really sick, so I shelved everything, ran my dad’s company for a year while we took care of my mom. She ended up passing. Ran my dad’s company for another year while we kind of grieved the loss of my mom, and then I had 5,000 books sitting in his garage and no way to push them. And then I ended up taking over managing a hotel in my hometown for two more years because I had no way to make money and then actually got signed on as an artist with the Gideons International out of nowhere, and that is what kind of gave me a foundation to get back into writing and speaking again. And that’s only been the last couple of years.

Daniel Markin:
So you speak, is it kind of in tandem with your book?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah. So, everything that I want to do in ministry is I want to help people experience the Bible as one seamless story. I don’t want them to approach it like, “Oh, that’s Old Testament, that’s New Testament.” I want them to see that, from the very beginning, from the words in the beginning to the words “It is finished,” there is a seamless, unbroken narrative throughout the entire book, and I want people to encounter it that way.
So I started writing that way and then, as my passion for that grew and as I started to discuss it more with people inside and outside of the church, I realized how unaware people are of the piercing narrative in scripture. So, I designed this speaking event where, in a single evening, I take people through the entire Bible, showing them the intimate connection of all of the prophets, all of the historical letters, even the Psalms, everything.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah. A lot of people in the church nowadays, our understanding of the Bible isn’t as strong as it probably was in past generations. And you could blame a lot of different reasons for that, but one of the things that I’ve been fascinated with recently is this idea of a Christian memory and that, in Canada, I don’t think we can assume anymore that people, that they have any idea of what the Bible even really teaches, so most people, maybe they’re just very secular and not to just like … because we can, as Christians, be like, “The secular’s so bad, the secular’s so bad.” I think, for most people, they just have no idea what the Bible is. They think it’s like, “Oh, it’s an old book, and my grandpa and grandma, they went to church, but I didn’t grow up going to church.” So, you tell them, you ask them who Moses is, and they’re like, “I don’t know.” Or like Adam and Eve, they have a vague idea. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, it’s with an apple or something, right?”

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
Or they see like, “Oh, yeah, Kanye believes in Jesus.” You know what I mean? But in fairness to them, they just really have no idea. So, I think what you’re getting at with story is so big because we go watch movies because we like stories, right?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
Everyone does that. And so, I think you’re on to something with storytelling, and I think that’s sweet. And so right now, you’re traveling, speaking on the Christmas story, and that’s kind of where I wanted to go today and also just hear kind of how you explain it and what you share when you tell the Christmas story.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah. I think one of the biggest things for me is I’ve been doing the very best that I can, every time I read the Bible, to go to every single verse in the context of the larger narrative and realizing that, when we come to the Christmas story, when we come to even the earliest parts of the Christmas story, the beginning of the New Testament is with the angel coming to Mary and telling her that she will be with child. And a lot of people think that’s the Christmas story, but they don’t realize that that story lands like three-quarters of the way through the larger narrative. And one of the questions that I kind of frame my entire Christmas speaking event around is: Why? Why did the angels come and celebrate the arrival of that baby? Why? And a lot of people will just answer, “Well, because it was Jesus.”

Daniel Markin:
It’s the newborn King. It’s what you do for a King.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Exactly. But I’m like, yeah, it was Jesus, but we only know that after. In the moment, those angels were singing, what had He done other than just been born a little baby? What were they celebrating? And if you don’t know the whole story, you don’t understand that those angels were celebrating the fact that He was representing the fulfillment of a promise that was over 2000 years old on the day of His birth. And the weight that you lose in that story when you don’t understand, and you don’t even take a minute to taste what the Israelite people had been through, everything that God had endured in order to fulfill the promise that He made, that goes all the way back to Genesis 3:15. Short of that, I think we’re always going to fall short of truly comprehending the weight of what Christmas is.
And that’s why I call my events “Chasing Christmas” because it has been God’s relentless pursuit and chase of the promise that He made to give us a Saviour. So, Christmas, even though it wasn’t given the title until years later, Christmas has been in the works since in the beginning. And so, I’m very passionate about helping people think about it that way. And I think it’s a really easy … when we start approaching it that way, it becomes a really easy in for us as Christians to share the full gospel.

Daniel Markin:
No, you’re right, to share the full story of God. So, you mentioned Genesis 3:15.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
But that’s kind of the Adam and Eve story. So can you explain how that kicks off Christmas then?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah, because it’s in Genesis 3:15, where, in the response to the fall of mankind, God speaks, and it’s His response to what had just happened, and He makes the promise then, that day, He’s going to send, a child is going to come, most translations say, “the seed of woman.” But a child is going to come, and it’s going to be that child who the serpent’s going to strike at His heel, but He is going to crush the serpent’s skull.
Now, biblical scholars for centuries have referred to that as the Protoevangelium. That’s the first gospel. That is when God said, “I am going to send One,” essentially in my translation, you could call it, “I promise to send One in my time who is going to be the answer and the solution for what you just did, the answer and solution for Satan’s sin and death. In my time, He’s coming.” So that’s where this begins.

Daniel Markin:
So it begins right in Genesis, Protoevangelium, the first pronouncement of the promise.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yes.

Daniel Markin:
Right? So then where do you take your audience from there? Is that kind of where you start as far as the story as you’re sharing it?

Ross Breitkreuz:
I start with the words “in the beginning” because if we don’t understand the context of the story, right, we’re not going to understand the weight of that promise that God made or the weight of how dark the fall was, how devastating that moment actually is and what it fully represents for life moving forward. And I always tell people, even if you’re a non-Christian, I truly believe with all my heart, even if you’re a non-Christian, everybody should read the Bible.

Daniel Markin:
Why would you say that?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Because, one, it’s the best-selling book of all time. No text or piece of literature, if you want to just refer to it as that, has impacted the world like the Bible has. It has formed and shaped more cultures than any other text. And beyond those things, I think, once you start to see the Bible as one seamless story and once you can taste that and you see that it’s actually true, I’m not making a statement that’s based off of my faith, that’s actually a thing, and then you understand how the Bible was composed and brought together, I think there’s aspects there that would make anyone think, “I’d be crazy not to read this story.”
Because you tell me about a book that has been written by over 30 different people who use three different languages and were separated by not just hundreds of kilometers of distance, but like 1500 years gap, and then all of their writings and works were brought together, and it writes one seamless, piercing novel that builds off of itself and fulfills what had been previously written, not to mention the fact that some of them didn’t even know that other people were writing at the same time and didn’t know what they were writing. And now all their work comes together and it’s one seamless story. Tell me which piece of literature today has been composed that way.

Daniel Markin:
Totally. I couldn’t name one.

Ross Breitkreuz:
It’s compelling.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah, it is really compelling. And I think also, another reason people, even just maybe people who aren’t Christians would read it, they enjoy the story. Maybe they pick it up for the Christmas story, but I think we do, inside of all of us, want to learn and grow in wisdom. And so even just picking up the Bible, you’re like, “Well, there’s like …” We would describe it as Christians as wisdom literature.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
But they can read through some of the Proverbs and be like, “That’s good advice.” You read through some of these stories and some of the heroes of the faith, you’re like, “Well, if I can model my life after this, this could go well for me.”

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
And that’s at a very surface level for someone who doesn’t even know the story of God.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah. So then tell me more then about how does this all move in towards Christmas then?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Starting with Genesis, I build because I truly believe that’s obviously the climax of the story, right? This family has been waiting, and what I talk about a lot throughout the event is the patience that God had with the people. I’ll often say, if you were reading the Bible, as I’m doing an event, I’ll often challenge the audience. I’ll say, “Let’s pretend, even if you know where the story’s going, and you know what’s about to happen, let’s pretend that you’re getting this story one chapter at a time, and you don’t know how God’s going to respond during certain pauses.” I’m telling you, there are points in the story where I’m like, if I stopped and then I open up the book the next day, and I realize it’s the last chapter because God finally said, “I’m done with these people, I’m washing My hands of them, and I’m walking away.”

Daniel Markin:
Yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
There is multiple points where no one could blame Him for doing that. But He’s always in this relentless pursuit of us and the promise that He made. So, I build it so that people can truly, I hope, taste and start to understand the weight of what Jesus’ birth would have meant, the electric shock that would have went through their society at that time. And it’s like, dang, those people would have been in shock thinking like, “Is this really Him?” I firmly believe that, until you understand the context of where the story, the whole biblical narrative is, until you understand where and at what point in that story Jesus comes onto the scene, you’ll never fully properly understand why cities emptied at the sound of His name and why people walked for miles to be near Him and skipped meals just to stay beside Him. And I used to … I grew up in the church. I used to ignorantly think it was because he was pulling off miracles.

Daniel Markin:
Right.

Ross Breitkreuz:
But it wasn’t that. It was because, in the context of the story, and these people knew their story. They were taught it. Some kids were going to school in the synagogues from the ages of five to 20, having the Torah memorized by the time they’re 10 years old. They knew that they had a Messiah who was promised to come. So they were flocking and flooding to see Jesus because you would have had to see with your own eyes, could He really be the one?

Daniel Markin:
And then I guess when news spreads in their oral tradition.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yep.

Daniel Markin:
People around that time would know, and, of course, they’re going to go and see. I just imagine, I remembered the woman at the well, after Jesus tells all these things about the woman at the well. And then He basically has this moment with her, and then she goes away. She tells everyone else, and she says, “Could this be the Messiah?” You encounter God, and it’s undeniable. That’s amazing.
And I was just … what you were saying earlier, I was reading Deuteronomy this morning, where basically it’s the recounting. He gives the 10 Commandments, but then He’s also recounting and saying the fact that like, “I was so angry with you on top of the mountain. You guys were too afraid to come up and face Me on the mountain. So only Moses went.” But you had the whole golden calf incident where you see humanity just rebel against God again.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
And I think you’re onto something about tying that into the Christmas story because maybe we feel like it’s too long, but it’s important to be reminded of the entire story of God.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Of course. How applicable all these moments in that story. Here’s the thing: Is there more technology today than there was back then? Absolutely. But the human heart hasn’t changed. We’re still struggling with the same things that caused the Israelites to make the mistakes that they did throughout the context of their story. Yet we have this generational snobbery. Every generation thinks they’re so much better than the one before them, just because of some advances in technology, and we don’t sit back and go, “Oh, but we still have the same sinful heart.”

Daniel Markin:
Yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
There’s so much in the Bible, and I don’t care if they were riding donkeys and not Tesla’s.

Daniel Markin:
Right.

Ross Breitkreuz:
The heart was still the same.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah. And Tesla’s will look stupid in 100 years. You know what I mean?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Right.

Daniel Markin:
They’ll look down on them in the next generation then.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah. And so …

Daniel Markin:
Yeah. I did a history degree, and that’s one of the patterns I noticed was you just see humans make the same mistakes over and over again. It just looks different.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
But you’re so right. And again, that goes back to the fall of Adam and Eve. It’s just the human condition.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yep.

Daniel Markin:
And so I guess, yeah, you trace it through, you see it through the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible, right? God’s people, He rescues them out of Pharaoh’s hands. With an outstretched arm, God rips them out of Pharaoh’s grip, right, and humiliates Pharaoh. And then you’re like, “Wow, they should now worship Him,” and they don’t. And idols get in the way. And how many modern idols are there these days, eh?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah, yeah. We might not refer to them as that. Back then, it was maybe more blatant, but oh, yeah, there’s idols everywhere, and there’s still the same ones of money, sex, power, whatever it is. Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
All of that is seen as like this is the stuff you should pursue in our current culture and our current day, right?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
And I just even think about, we were talking about people who just never grew up in church, they don’t know that they are slaves to those idols. You know what I mean? They have no idea.
So the story continues, right? We’re moving through the Old Testament Torah. Where do you see the story? How does the Christmas story play in with like King David? Because here’s another big character, right? How would you explain to someone that King David’s actually part of the Christmas story?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Well, it was God’s promise to King David while he was King. He said that the child, that promised child, is going to come through David’s throne. He’s in David’s lineage. That’s how Matthew opens up. It opens up with the family tree of Jesus and who’s on there but King David? Despite his flaws, God made a promise to him and said, “Your kingdom will be forever because I’m going to send the King of Kings to rule and reign on the throne of David.” So, it’s like he’s part of the promise.
That’s how the entire story is connected seamlessly. It’s by the promise that God made in Genesis 3:15 combined with … I always highlight the four primary promises that he would then make to Abraham, that would then pass on to Isaac and Jacob, the 12 tribes of Israel, and stick with that family throughout the rest of the story.

Daniel Markin:
What are the four promises you’re referring to?

Ross Breitkreuz:
So the four primary promises that God would go and make to Abraham would be that he would have descendants like the sands of the seas and the stars of the sky, that he would have his own son from him and his wife, and that they would inherit their own land, that they had received the promised land. And in the context of the story, when these promises are all made, they’re just impossible. They’re impossibilities.

Daniel Markin:
Well, Abraham’s old.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
He’s an old guy. He’s like, “I can’t have kids.”

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
“I’m like 90 or something.”

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah. He’s like, “That’s impossible. And my wife’s barren. So, it’s like this has never been a thing. Now you’re telling me not only am I going to have a kid, that’s going to springboard into a family of people, of descendants that’s more numerous than the sands of the sea. Okay. Then he’s going to have his own land, which at this point, him and his predecessors had all just been living as aliens in foreign land.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
So that’s unthinkable. And then he makes the greatest promise of all. God says, “Through you, the entire world is going to be blessed.” And in that promise, what God is doing is He’s taking the story back to Genesis 3:15. He’s saying, “Abraham, that promised seed that I said I was going to send to the world, I’m sending Him through your family line.” It’s hard for us to comprehend, but it would almost be like if God came to one of us and said, “One day, one of your descendants is going to cure every known cancer on the planet.” So, imagine walking with that promise, not knowing when, but walking with that promise for like generations.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah. Yeah, that would be kind of unnerving because you’re like, “Whoa, who am I to do that?”

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah, right?

Daniel Markin:
I’m no one special.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
So then, to have that promise, that weight of that, which you got to wonder, do people doubt the promise? Even in Jesus’ own line, right? They’re like, hey, by the way, you’re at school, kids are like, “Hey, you’re in the line of David, right?”

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
You know the seed is supposed to go through you. You can just imagine that they’re like, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m like you.”

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
Right?

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
My life’s a disaster just like yours.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
And none of us are perfect in that sense.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Well, of course, they doubted, right down to Jesus himself. There’s this story where it says, and I can’t remember exactly the chapter and verse, but where Jesus is speaking, and it says His mother and siblings come.

Daniel Markin:
Oh, yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
And they’re basically … the wording is they’re basically like, “You’re crazy.”

Daniel Markin:
Yeah, tone it down, Jesus.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Come with us right now because you’re loco.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah, yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
And then it wasn’t until after He’s resurrected that His brother’s like, “Well, I’m going to head up the church here in Jerusalem now because now I believe.”

Daniel Markin:
Totally.

Ross Breitkreuz:
And that’s the thing, once again, you go back to the story. That’s why I got to read it because I do too, right? And I’m not saying I’ve had like a burning bush moment, but I felt things in my life. Maybe you’ve heard this classic saying, “Don’t forget in the dark what was revealed to you in the light.”

Daniel Markin:
Right.

Ross Breitkreuz:
And I think we all have that, whether it was a specific promise that God was going to do something for us, or even just a general promise that He has good things in store for us and that He’s always there. We always tend to forget these things.

Daniel Markin:
Every one of us has a story, and that’s a good thing. But then we tend to view our story as the most important story. But when you become a Christian, and maybe we forget that, but when we’re reminded that, actually, we’re part of God’s story, part of the entire story that’s at the beginning and then leading up to Christmas and then beyond.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
Right? That entire story, we have an opportunity now to enter into his story. So, our story has significance because it’s now tied into His big story. And so like the work you’re doing now, and the work, every single one of us, as we go to our workplace, as Christians, is that same idea that our story is reflecting the grand story, and we now participate in the story in helping people remember that and bringing people back to the story.
One of the things I think about and one of the reasons I also am a Christian is I look at the legacy of that, and I’m like … and you kind of touched on this, this changed the world. It completely changed the world. And so that’s worthy of my attention. So, I would even say, yeah, to people who aren’t Christians, the Bible deeply has transformed the world because of this continuing story that God has been moving. Interact with that and think deeply about that. It’s okay to think deeply about significant things.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah, and to not be scared. I find that so many people get so … like their walls come up right away when someone starts talking about the Bible. And what I really try to do through my Christmas events, because I’m fully aware that there’s going to be non-Christians there.

Daniel Markin:
People love to bring their friends to Christmas events.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yes, and people love … like it’s a tradition. You hear about a Christmas outreach or you hear about a Christmas event, and there’s going to be music and whatever, you want to go, you want to hang out, you want to mingle, it helps you get into the Christmas spirit, helps you feel good. So, I’m aware that there’s going to be these people there who may not go to church on a regular basis. And I find that so often these people, they’ll just put up walls right away, and they won’t even really listen to what’s being shared.
And so I always challenge them at the beginning of almost every time I speak, I always just say, “Are you brave enough to just let the story tell itself?” And that’s all I tell them because that’s all I’m doing really. All I’m doing is sharing a story. And I say, “Are you brave enough to just let this story tell itself?” And then I can see that people don’t really understand what I’m saying, and I just say, “Well, let me put it this way: If we were to read Romeo and Juliet, and I was to be up here sharing onstage Romeo and Juliet,” and everyone’s usually semi-familiar with the story. I said, “If I get to the point in the story where I mention that the Montagues and the Capulets are two families that hate one another,” I said, “you couldn’t sit there and go, ‘Oh, I’m just going to leave that part out because I don’t like the thought of two families fighting.'” The second you take that out of the story, you drain the story of its passion.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
You drain the rest of the context of the story of what it fully means, and the depth of it starts to be lessened, and the forbiddenness of their love starts to be lost as soon as you start doing that. You can’t do that with the Bible either. Be brave enough to just let this story tell itself. So, if the story says that God created the heavens and the earth, He created you out of love for love, for an intimate relationship with him, and you’ve fallen away from that, and now He’s chasing after you to restore that.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Can you, just for tonight, let that actually be the story?

Daniel Markin:
Totally. Yeah, I’m not here to convert you. I’m just wanting to tell the story.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
Just consider that.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Just consider that this is actually what’s in the book, right? And this is a level of reading comprehension we’ve embraced since kindergarten, right?

Daniel Markin:
Oh, yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
When the Berenstain Bears said there’s Mama and Papa Bear, I don’t go, “There’s no Mama Bear.”

Daniel Markin:
Yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Then none of the books makes sense.

Daniel Markin:
Totally.

Ross Breitkreuz:
But we do that to the Bible.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
So I just want people to come and be like the Christmas story, okay, just hear it, even if it’s one time. Are you brave enough to hear it one time, how it actually is beginning to end?

Daniel Markin:
I love that. So then let me ask you this then because I think we’re kind of coming to the close of our time. Every Christmas, I tend to … often I’ll hone in on one aspect of the Christmas story that like … it changes for me. One year I’m like, “Man, He’s the King.” And I just keep remembering that. Other times, it’s Him being … this is the baby who comes and is so lowly and humble.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
This year, for me, it’s been, and I want to ask what it is for you this year, just kind of what you’ve been reflecting on Christmas, but I was doing a study last night. We were doing Hebrews and learning about that Jesus is the High Priest who comes and that in chapter 5, verse 2 talks about the high priest being the high priest who … because He’ll point to Christ, but He’s saying the people who are acting as the high priests had to deal gently with those who are going astray, right? And that showed that they had compassion for their people, that the most genuine high priests of the Old Testament had genuine compassion for their people, knowing that we do go astray. So they had to confess their own sins before they went into the temple as well because they also know, “I’m just like them.”

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
Then you have Jesus, the Great High Priest, who also is like, “I understand that you guys … we’re all … everyone’s disasters.” Obviously, Jesus never gives into sin, but He’s very aware. He can sympathize with the weakness there. But then you have … the thing I just keep thinking about this Christmas is the idea of gentle, where other Kings do the most violent things to bring peace. They’ll do violent things to other people. Jesus, He has the most violent thing done to Him so that there can be peace, and He shows this gentleness. His whole life is humble and gentle. And yet, He tosses the temple tables, but it all builds to this point where He gets killed because He’s claimed He’s God, but the way He went about it was the most gentle way. And Christmas is the beginning of His life that displays that.
So that’s what I’ve been thinking about a lot this Christmas. What is that for you this year that you’ve just been running around in your mind? Or maybe it’s a few things.

Ross Breitkreuz:
One thing, and honestly, I got to tell you this just lands every single Christmas for me, hasn’t not made me tear up for the last five to six years, but there’s one line in “O Holy Night” that just wrecks me.

Daniel Markin:
Is it “fall on your knees”?

Ross Breitkreuz:
No.

Daniel Markin:
That one kills me. Go ahead.

Ross Breitkreuz:
“Long lay the world in sin and error pining until He appears, and the soul felt its worth.” I think that is a one-to-two sentence encapsulation of the entire story. I absolutely love that line, and I think about it every Christmas season. Can’t get over it.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Can’t sing it without crying.

Daniel Markin:
That’s one of the most moving songs.

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
“O Holy Night.”

Ross Breitkreuz:
Yeah.

Daniel Markin:
Yeah. I feel like we entered into that Christmas story and just pulled so much out, and I love what you’re doing. I’m just so excited that you get to go share that because there’s so many layers to it, and yeah, you’re right, we do forget the great story. So, I appreciate you coming on, Ross, and being here. Merry Christmas.

Ross Breitkreuz:
And Happy New Year.

Kourtney Cromwell:
I’m really glad that Ross was able to join us and that we could spend some time discussing the whole story of the Bible and of Christmas. It really is a great time of year to reflect on the importance that Christmas has when it comes to our faith.
If you’d like more information on Ross’s ministry or his book, you can go to www.q830.com to find out more or follow him on Instagram. And we’ll have all of that up on the episode page online as well.
I hope you join us next week for a new episode with Isaac and guest Alexandra Kuykendall, taking some more time to talk about the holidays season and her book, Loving My Actual Christmas.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes and Spotify or visit us online at indoubt.ca or indoubt.com. We’re also on social media, so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.