Welcome to the Femina Podcast. This is Nancy Wilson. Thanks so much for joining me today.

We are on part two of four on the wonderful book by Martin Lloyd-Jones. My Soul magnifies the Lord,

Meditations on the meaning of Christmas.

Today we're going to cover chapter two, the wisdom of God.

First, I'm going to read the part of the Magnificat we will cover today.

And Mary said, he has shown strength with his arm.

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away

empty. So the real meaning of Christmas is the first part of this. When I was growing up,

Santa Claus was a very big deal. But we also celebrated Jesus' birth.

At some point, we found out Santa Claus was a fairy tale. I don't really remember when. It was not

traumatic. So I must have suspected all along. But it was just part of the right of growing up

to find out the truth. Today, the myth is more about

a vague general feeling of goodwill and feasting and friendliness, decorating our homes with lights

and greenery. But just like Santa, this is entirely and completely false. It's not what Christmas is.

We should be thinking soberly about the birth of the

son of God. Lloyd Jones points out that the devil is always at work and trying to get us to change

a subject away from the birth of the Lord Jesus. But the real message of Christmas is, first of all,

the proclamation of good news. Our author

calls it a mighty proclamation. Christmas is exclusively God's doing. It is not a call for us to do

something. It is an announcement of what God has done is doing and will do. We often get this

wrong. We are asked to just look and pay attention.

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