Hey folks, my name is Johnny Artivannis and this is dial-in. In this episode, we continue in our study

of Mary's Magnificat, which is her Psalm of Praise in Luke 1. And in this Psalm, we are examining five

hallmarks of the Christmas spirit. Let's dial in. Today, the Christmas spirit, as we have come to know it, is often disconnected from the Christ of Christmas.

There is obviously nothing wrong with candy canes or Christmas cards or Christmas carols and gifts,

decor, traditions, and hallmark movies.

Well, maybe something wrong with those.

But in the hullabaloo of it all, Christ is so often pushed to the peripheral corner of the day

in which we celebrate his birth.

And in order to examine the spirit of Christmas, we must turn again to God's Word, and in our previous

episode we examined two hallmarks of the Christmas Spirit and Mary's Psalm of praise, known

as Mary's Magnificat and Luke 1.

And as we come to Luke chapter 1, we come to the story of a teenage girl whom the angel

of the Lord had just told would be the mother of the Messiah. In Matthew's

gospel, the angel tells Mary, you shall call him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sin.

His name was to be Jesus. Shakespeare once asked the question, what's in a name? Because he wanted

to draw the reader's attention to the arbitrary nature of names, meaning that you could be a good guy named John or you could be a very bad guy named John.

Names are titles and they are not representative of our character and identity.

However, Jesus' name is not random. It's intentional.

It was determined before time began because it represents the

mission for which he came. Jesus' name comes from the Hebrew word, Yeshua, which means the Lord

is salvation. The Heidelberg Catechism is a series of questions which answers really the fundamental

questions about the Christian faith and was written with the

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