Ep. 154: Christmas Time is Here with Dr. John Neufeld

Kourtney Cromwell:
Merry Christmas everyone. On today’s episode, Ryan welcomes Dr. John Neufeld and they discuss Christmas and the importance of recognizing where our focus lies during Christmas time and how that influences us in everyday life, faith and culture.

John Neufeld:
So we know at Christmas time that the promises of God are true and if they’re true of the promises He made about the coming of the Messiah, then they’re also true that the Messiah would come again and put an end to darkness. That’s hope.

Ryan McCurdy:
Hey everyone, so good to be with you. My name is Ryan and I’m really excited about this episode as we have Canadian Bible Teacher, Dr. John Neufeld with us. Today we’re talking about Christmas and John and I take some time to discuss the true meaning behind Christmas and why we celebrate. Would love for you to take a listen.

Ryan McCurdy:
Today we have a very special guest and Bible teacher. His name is Dr. John Neufeld. Dr. John, thank you for being with us.

John Neufeld:
Delighted to be here.

Ryan McCurdy:
It’s a joy to have you. I’m excited. We’re going to talk about some Christmas stuff as we go. Baby it’s Cold Outside, the song. There’s a lot of information and a lot of data about Baby, It’s Cold Outside. People are upset about it. Why?

John Neufeld:
You know, you almost have to put the whole thing in context when it comes out. And Dean Martin, he’s a lech. He always was so he was big on being drunk most of the time and he was big on off-color humour and he was big on seducing women and it was his moniker. So it’s kinda like the old James Bond shtick that he always manages to seduce every woman that he’s with. Of course she’s shot in the end, but that’s what a real man looks like, at least at the beginning of the sexual revolution. So this gal, she should be jumping into the sexual revolution and jumping into bed with him, but she’s not so sure. So he’s trying to break down all of her resistance. He’s trying to make her like himself.
Now from a Christian worldview, we’d be saying what? We’d be saying, honey, get home to your folks. It’s now 10:00. Go home. The guys growing horns have nothing to do with them. Right, so that’s what we’d want to say. That’s the Christian morality. Sexual intimacy is reserved for marriage. It’s a gift of God, a lifetime gift to be celebrated in that way. That’s what our message has been.
Now, people like Dean Martin have laughed at us and the whole 60s and the 70s and the sexual revolution that followed. I mean all of that was simply laughing at the Christian morality. Well, here we are so far down the road and we have had rape and sexual abuse and wow, that’s all the fruit that’s grown from that. But rather than the modern world simply saying, you know what, we really took a wrong turn, rather they’re simply saying, let’s just correct the rules. I mean, let’s bring a lawyer into the room and have a proper consent form. Then we can have sex.
I mean, none of this works and you know Ryan, I’m laughing at the whole thing. I’m just laughing at it because you know six months from now the rules will change again. Thankfully God has a very different pattern that he calls us to live. Praise God for his rules.

Ryan McCurdy:
Now we’re at the time where there’s a gender revolution, the political correctness, like you’re saying, the rules change every six months. We need a lawyer in here to verify this. We need someone to back us up and make sure we’re good and there’s always this constant shift and change and now people are upset about a song that has been sung for lots of years.

John Neufeld:
Yeah, lots of years. Christians should’ve objected to it from the beginning. It wasn’t our song, it was theirs.

Ryan McCurdy:
Exactly. And so in this way we’re re-learning as a society back to some moral standards that we already have had for thousands of years.

John Neufeld:
Yeah, I mean, maybe the new song is Baby, It’s Great To Be in The Guys’ Change Room Because I Feel Like A Guy This Week. However, six months from now, they’re going to sue your pants off, right? So all sorts of stuff is yet going to happen. I mean, as we continue to wander down this directionless pathway, the woundedness of people and that’s where it gets serious. I mean people who bear genuine wounds because of the scars that the sexual morality has given us, just overwhelming. So I think we ought to trumpet the sexual purity between a young man and a woman who reserve themselves for marriage and how lovely that is, how utterly lovely so that they’re not scarred in the end. They celebrate the gift of God.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, and at all points of culture we see this place of brokenness. No matter what season of culture it is, there’s always a place where society has tried to understand morals, how to live, ethics. What’s ethical view? What does it mean to pursue the best ultimate goal? What is the ultimate goal? And different people have different times and cultures will have different perspectives on that.
But I want to get to Christmas because no matter what season of life we’re in, no matter what culture we’re from, the incarnation of Christ, God becoming man changes everything. And this is the Good News of great joy that the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds with and that angels praise and say glory to God in the highest. And the shepherds went into the manger and saw for their own eyes and they returned by saying this is real glory to God in the highest. So at this point in time, like what is your thinking for this day and age? What does the birth of Christ rub up against in our culture?

John Neufeld:
Well, Christmas is a really strange phenomenon for me and I’ve been in ministry for so many years and I don’t know that I’ve ever made peace with Christmas properly. I mean, on the one hand, I love the fact that there is a greater propensity to listen to the Christian message at Christmas time than I suspect any other time of year. So I just believe that every church should utilize this as an opportunity and proclaim Christ as loudly as we can and tell everybody, invite your friends, and I mean do a Christmas extravaganza and tell people what the incarnation actually means. So I’m for that.
I also know that, that Christmas is a time in which I’m going to say it this way, that greed becomes unbridled. I mean, this is how the merchants can make up their budget because if it’s a good Christmas, meaning people are spending wildly and maxing out their credit card, I mean, it’s a good year. So Christmas interestingly enough, has become far larger even in the Christian church than Easter. Think about that. Easter is the centre point of our faith. 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, I delivered to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. First importance, not that God was incarnated into the human race. That’s not unimportant, that Christ died for our sins, would not have happened, had not God stepped into the human race and become a man identified with us and understood our weaknesses and ministered to us.
I mean, this is all such valuable lesson and yet we should always be working towards the climax that we’re waiting with bated breath. I can’t wait for Easter, but as a matter of fact, people are saying I can’t wait for Christmas. So I think this is my love-hate relationship. On one hand, I love the opportunities to Christmas. I do know that we’ve become in the church unbalanced.

Ryan McCurdy:
So here’s my question: What happens to a society, to a world, to a church body that is unbalanced? When they get their values mixed up in terms of priority? What do you see?

John Neufeld:
Well, we’ve talked about Baby It’s Cold Outside. Well you got this beautiful fire going on and you got the babe of your dreams in there. So that’s part of Christmas because we’re all now indoors, at least in the northern hemisphere we are. We’ve put lights onto our houses, which is nice. The ambiance is beautiful. From my vantage point it really is. But I think what’s happened is for us as believers, this is where difficulty lies.
First of all, let’s, let’s be honest and say we have four Gospels. Those four Gospels, two of them have a birth narrative and two do not. John’s Gospel has a theological narrative of what it means for God to step into the human race, that he who was with God and is God at the same time became enfleshed tabernacled among us at his dwelling place in the human race so that we have seen the glory of God come to us in human flesh. I mean, it’s a beautiful message. I don’t want to undervalue that message, but I don’t want to put it as of first importance because the cross is always of first importance. I think the culture has become less sin-focused. And that’s why Easter does not please us. To tell the story of Christmas rightly is that light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light. He came to his own, but his own did not receive him.
So this is the message. I mean, before we began to do the podcast, we talked a bit about Revelation 12, which is an amazing story of spiritual warfare. The dragon, that’s Satan, he is set before the woman who is about to give birth. That’s the story of Mary. And she’s about to give birth to the child and the dragon to seeking to devour the child the minute the child’s born. I mean, you go from that to Matthew’s Gospel and you hear of Herod’s rage and butchering the children in Bethlehem. I mean, what’s all this about? Light comes into the world, but darkness hates the light. Darkness fights against the light. And darkness seeks everywhere to destroy the light. And to recognize this is the cost of light coming into the world and to recommit ourselves to things like missions and things like evangelism and declaring the gospel because it is God’s will that the world does not remain in darkness, but that light begins to shine. Now that’s the message, but that’s a message that’s informed by Easter.
And so that changes the way in which we view it. Now I’m guessing that most of our culture and often in the church we forget and therefore Christmas does lose its significance and it gets replaced by celebration rather than meaning.

Ryan McCurdy:
And so if somebody is listening to this right now and they’re thinking I grew up in the church, I didn’t grow up in the church. And Christmas has always been, like you said, chestnuts on an open fire and the fireplace, like playing board games with family when it’s snowing outside or playing video games as a kid. This is what I grew up doing as a millennial. Playing board games with my family. Playing my Nintendo 64, okay? I’m talking old school. And let’s say somebody who’s grown up with no understanding of the true narrative of Christmas. What is Christmas all about? What would you say to them?

John Neufeld:
Well I think I would ask them that perhaps Christmas is a time that we need to go back and look at both the first testament texts and the two gospel narratives that speak about the event itself. When the first testament texts, especially places like Isaiah 8 & 9, we ought to be looking at those and examining them afresh. When Isaiah talks about the land of Naphtali dwelling and darkness it’s because the land of Naphtali was the first that was invaded by the Assyrian hordes and utterly destroyed. But it was also the place where idolatry was rampant in Israel. It was dark in every sense of the word.
But in the middle of this darkness, Isaiah he has a son the son is Maher-shalal-hash-baz. That’s quite a mouthful for a name, but it basically means doom and destruction. So that’s what Isaiah says when this child is born. But he says there’ll be another child born. To us a child is born and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. I mean we’ve moved from this deep darkness to a hope that’s in the future that one day that darkness is going to receive, but the light is going to come.
So I think, what I think about Christmas, it’s these things that we need to recount. And then when we bring it to the present world we ought not to really recount, you know there’s a story from the first World War where the German and the British side ceased on Christmas Day and shared their cookies and whatever schnapps they had that all those things that soldiers carried with them. But on the 26th, they were back to the grim business of killing. So it’s not a good Christmas story.
The really good Christmas story is to tell about that grim business that’s going on, but a hope entering into the world but the darkness does not receive so quickly and therefore Jesus comes and drives out demons and he comes in and heals those who are afflicted by the curse. And this is what’s so necessary. Because without him coming, the darkness just continues until we implode into it. And there’s nothing left. That’s a Christmas story. That’s the one that should be told.

Ryan McCurdy:
And it sounds like what you’re saying is, is you would say to somebody, hey, listen, are you aware of the darkness around you? And do you recognize the need of a light in this world? Because He has come and he’s left his Spirit with us for eternity and will you enter into a relationship with him and we spend our lives with God present and he’s with us and that is a light that, he had brought light into darkness. And then it’s like you lit little candles all over the world, so can you speak to that a little bit?

John Neufeld:
Yeah, and we need to tell people as well that when the incarnation happened, God came and dwelt among us, but he also came to us in weakness. When John the Baptist announced the coming of the Messiah, he said there’ll be a baptism of the Holy Spirit in a baptism of fire. The baptism of fire, was the anticipation of judgment. He will gather the wheat into the threshing floor, which is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. So the idea being that judgment would fall at the same time. And then almost inexplicably, at least from John’s perspective, Jesus comes and does all those good things and brings light into the world, but he doesn’t put the sword through the heart of darkness.
And that tells us that we’re living in between two ages, that the kingdom has come when Jesus arrived. All things are made new in the world can’t be the same. However, in the interim age, Christ comes, the Messiah comes and offers us mercy and forgiveness and hope, but we still live in a sin cursed world. The darkness continues to remain. So light is among us, but darkness as well. That’s the overlap of two ages that we live in today. So we live with this anticipation and expectation that one day the Messiah will come back a second time and on that occasion all darkness will be brought to an end.
So I mean all of these things I think, I mean there’s a rich history of theology that that needs to be shared at this time of the year. And sometimes I think, and I fear it’s lacking because we love the idealized Christmas where everything turns out sweet. You know, the cattle are lowing and ain’t it all wonderful, but that’s not the story. The story looks very different.

Ryan McCurdy:
So I’d like to take a moment now and talk a little bit about and ask you about the origins of Christmas. How do we get in here? Why December 25th? Where do we, how do we land here?

John Neufeld:
Well, I can’t tell all the reasons. There’s so much different literature on that, so I’m going to assume from that, that nobody knows with absolute assuredness. We do know that the early Church did not celebrate Christmas. We know that the practice probably comes about around 350 years later. The early Church would have practiced Epiphany, which would be in the public appearance and the public ministry of Christ. When he appeared on the public stage, they would have celebrated Easter and they would have celebrated the Pentecost, that is the coming of the Holy Spirit. And those were their celebrations.
So later on down the road, Christmas appears. And there are all sorts of theories. One theory even says that there was a significant research done in which it was assumed that Christ was in fact born on the 25th. And I know there are some that would even argue for that, although the majority would not. So you have all of this. There’s one theory that suggested that because there was a Pagan Roman celebration which had to do with dying and the rebirth of the sun, the 21st and therefore Christmas was done to contest Pagan celebrations and give a Christian celebration in place of a Pagan one. Now that may be the case, however, it’s not on the 21st that we celebrate, but on the 25th. So it’s very difficult to draw straight lines.
So I’m going to remain somewhat of an agnostic as to how we got that thing. But we have it and it’s not exactly as if we’re talking about unbiblical things we’re talking about yes, indeed. God entered into the world clothed in human flesh. So is it a good thing to celebrate it? Why not?

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah. I think for many people who are maybe listening to this, I think one of the questions that comes up at this time is: Is there really hope? Is there really hope? I mean, there’s many reasons why people would ask that at any time of life, but even more so in the winter months, it’s cold, it’s bitter, it’s more harsh weather. But even more on the bigger scale things, they see a pain in the world, they see suffering. And we hear this story of a little baby boy being born 2000 years ago, this big angelic announcement that this child is the Son of God. Where’s the hope in that? What’s the hope?

John Neufeld:
The hope is that God had promised these things from very close to the beginning of the creation when the man and the woman fell into sin, God came to curse the serpent. And then he said to the serpent, I will put enmity or a perpetual state of warfare between you and the woman. We’re told right from the outset when the human race fell into darkness that God would send the seed of a woman and that he would utterly crush the head of the serpent and that he would restore all things. And you have all of these prophecies that come, that say that he will be born not just of a woman in a miraculous way, but he will come from that tribe of Judah, that he will descend from the throne of David. We are told everything about his genealogy. Micah tells us that he will be born in Bethlehem.
So there’s this expectation that God would enter into the world and bring an end to this dark world. Now those are promises, but how do we know the promises are true? Until we have this day in which Mary the virgin gave birth to a boy and God clothed in human flesh entered the human race and demonstrated that’s who he was, by healing the sick and driving out demons and by raising the dead. And ultimately by rising from the dead himself.
So we know at Christmas time that the promises of God are true. And if they’re true of the promises he made about the coming of the Messiah, then there are also true that the Messiah will come again and put an end to darkness. That’s hope. And that’s what we need to say.

Ryan McCurdy:
And the hope of Christmas is not just that Christ was born. Essentially, even earlier we were talking and you said the hope of Christmas, the joy of Christmas is not starting and ending and Christmas, there has to be, there’s the beginning, there has to be a climax event.

John Neufeld:
Christ came to deal with a biggest problem that the human race has. And it’s not wars and disease. The biggest problem that we have is our animosity with God. And it is not just our animosity with God. It’s God’s animosity towards us because of our sins. So something needs to be done to satisfy God. And that’s what Christ came to do. He came to satisfy the righteous requirements of God so that it’s even possible that God could look at us with favour. That’s why we celebrate. We’re saying that’s hope. I mean, the biggest problem, and a lot of people don’t know this, but the biggest problem you have is not that you don’t have enough cash in the bank or that you’re not getting along with the significant other in your life. The the problem you have is God who is at war with you and that’s why you’ve got all the other problems. You need a place to find peace with him. So Christmas is – wow! – it opens the doorway that the things are all true.

Ryan McCurdy:
Right. Now, Dr. John, I want to ask you a more personal question. You have children.

John Neufeld:
I do.

Ryan McCurdy:
How many children do you have?

John Neufeld:
I have three kids.

Ryan McCurdy:
Okay. Now I assume they’re all adults now and I know one of them, so I know they’re adults, but here’s my question: When your children were young, did you allow them to believe in Santa? If yes, till what age?

John Neufeld:
I never allowed them to believe it.

Ryan McCurdy:
Nope?

John Neufeld:
Not once.

Ryan McCurdy:
Why?

John Neufeld:
Because from the very outset I thought I wasn’t going to ever get to that place to say, Oh yeah, by the way, the stuff I told you about Santa, that’s not right, but the stuff I told you about Jesus is. I wanted them to say it’s just make believe. And I told them that from the point in time that they can understand. It can be a fun make-belief, but it’s make-believe. But the story of Jesus is in a different category. I wanted them to know that from the very point in time that they get it.

Ryan McCurdy:
You wanted the consistency.

John Neufeld:
I did.

Ryan McCurdy:
You wanted the consistency of Jesus is real and Santa is not. So I’m not going to tell you one or the other is not real. So I think a lot of people ask that question. Young parents, and growing up, my parents – Christian family – they let me believe Santa was real. I remember putting out cookies and milk and come down in the morning and there’s a bite taken out and half the milk’s gone. And yeah, it’s just an interesting question when you get into belief and patterns of belief and how easily impressed we are about the rituals and the formations of our society and how they actually form us deeper than maybe we really know.

John Neufeld:
There are traditions that we have in our culture that are empty traditions that come from things that were meaningful. Saint Nicholas, the history I don’t know well, but I understand had been a significant believer who ministered to the needs of people. So I think that many of the Santa Claus stories do come from real events. But at this day and age, it’s when we talk about Santa, we’re not talking about a Christian saint who ministered to the needs of people who were desperate. So Santa Claus today visits every child throughout the world and manages to do it within a 24-hour period of time. I’ve seen a wonderful story put together by mathematicians about how much time he needs to spend it every home. And apparently the rate that his sled has to actually fly. We can create such G forces that Santa wouldn’t actually survive the journey.
But nobody cares about that. It’s just a nice little story. And I’m okay with nice little stories as long as we understand that’s what they are. It’s not wrong to tell your children once upon a time in a land far away, in the land of Hush-A-Bye there lived a beautiful young princess. Your child isn’t going to think that really happened. I want to make sure that kids know the difference between when we’re doing make believe and when we’re telling the stuff that you need to live and die on.

Ryan McCurdy:
That’s a great, great point. And so why do we love make believe?

John Neufeld:
I think all of us love to, I mean escapism doesn’t need to be wrong. It can tell us that things can be happy and it can give us this sense that perhaps is an ideal out there. Now the Gospel tells us what the ideal is, but I think it’s rooted in what it is to be in the image of God, to long for God and righteousness and the making right of all things. I think that’s a hunger human beings have and a lot of fairy tales, for instance, they’ve got really dark evil elements, but they seem to turn out well in the end and we delight in that.

Ryan McCurdy:
Well, Dr. John. There’s a lot that we’ve talked about today and a lot of good stuff and I appreciate how as a Bible teacher, you’re constantly bringing things back to scripture, constantly bringing us to a point of recognizing that Jesus is the centre point, the focal point of our faith. And so thank you for being with us. Thank you for your reminders about Christmas story and how Easter’s equally or more important in terms of values. It’s great to have you on the show.

John Neufeld:
Thank you.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Thank you for joining us on this episode of indoubt with Dr. John Neufeld. indoubt exists to bring the good news of Jesus into everyday issues of life, faith, and culture. We seek to encourage young adults and equip them to engage with the tough questions of our time in a way that honors God. If indoubt has encouraged you and you are passionate to help others grow in the truth, we want to welcome you to partner with us. As we continue to provide resources, we depend on the generosity and partnership of people like you to help communicate the Good News of Jesus to a world that needs him. Your financial partnership, whether big or small goes a long way in helping us achieve this goal.
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