Christmas is a time for us to celebrate Immanuel: God with us. But this isn’t limited to a single event in history — because Jesus didn’t just make a one-time visit to Earth. The first Christmas also looks forward to that final day when he will come again and make all things new.
On today’s episode of the Great Stories podcast, Charles Morris returns to a Christmas special from 2018 where he spends time helping us visualize the full scope of the incarnation — God with us then, God with us now, and God with us in the time to come. He’ll also be joined by special guests Nancy Guthrie and Rosaria Butterfield to take discuss the the classic Christmas Carol Joy to the World, as well as the importance of hospitality at Christmastime.
As you prepare your heart to celebrate the Messiah this Christmas, it is our prayer that we all will take the time to meaningfully celebrate Christ’s birth while also looking forward to when Christmas comes again.
More from Haven at Christmas
Want more Christmas podcasts? Listen to Veiled in Flesh and Christmas in the Beginning for special episodes based on Old and New Testament Scriptures that treat you to the real reason for the season.
And as we approach the end of the year, find out how your partnership with Haven Ministries helps us tell the great story that’s all about Jesus when watch this video with Louise Farmer: “A Friend Like You.”
If you liked what you heard, please write a review and help new listeners discover the show!
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When we celebrate Christmas, we usually concentrate on a very specific moment in time when a young married couple traveled to Bethlehem and delivered a child in a manger. But Christmas didn’t start there. We can trace the promises and events of our Savior’s arrival all the way back to the beginning of time.
On today’s episode of the Great Stories podcast, Charles Morris returns to a Christmas special from 2017 where he traced the line from Christmas to the very beginning in Genesis with special guests Lee Strobel (The Case for Christ), Sally Lloyd-Jones (The Jesus Storybook Bible), Randall Goodgame (Sing the Bible), and Senate Chaplain Barry Black (Nothing to Fear).
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The Christmas season is here. Whether you’re planning your family get-together, buying gifts, or simply reflecting on Christ’s incarnation, there is no doubt we are in a season of anticipation. And one of the best ways to help us get in the spirit of anticipating the Messiah every year is through the music of Christmas.
This is what Charles Morris and singer-songwriter Fernando Ortega talk about in a new interview. In this episode of the Great Stories podcast, you’ll hear about the significance behind some powerful Christmas songs, what Christmas was like for Fernando growing up in New Mexico, and what it is about the advent season that so powerfully draws us nearer to Christ. You’ll also hear some segments from Fernando’s Christmas Songs album.
We pray this conversation will help you prepare your heart for the Messiah this Christmas.
For a contemplative journey through his favorite Christmas songs, we have Christmas Songs (CD) available for your gift to Haven Ministries.
Portions of this episode is currently featured on our flagship radio broadcast Haven Today this week. Follow this link to listen to the five-part series that also includes biblical messages related to classic Christmas carols.
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The holiday season is often a time for families and friends to gather around the table to give thanks and celebrate the joy of each other’s company. But how do you give thanks and celebrate joy when there’s an empty chair that would have been filled by a recently deceased loved one?
We don’t often discuss grief during the holidays, but it is certainly the time when the loss of a spouse, parent, child, or friend is especially painful. Holiday grief is also something that’s experienced more often than we might like to think.
On today’s episode of the Great Stories podcast, Charles Morris returns to a conversation he had in 2007 with Dr. Norman Wright. A Christian counselor, Dr. Wright spoke to Charles not long after losing his wife to cancer. With Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, we pray this raw conversation will be a balm and a resource for anyone facing their own empty chair this holiday season.
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Why do the gospels of Luke and Matthew include someone’s family tree? Why is it so important that Jesus come from the line of David?
Looking at the gospels as well as the prophets of old, Charles Morris seeks to answer these questions about the importance of King David’s line. The stunning answers show us that Christmas isn’t just something that happened unexpectedly — it was planned by God, foretold in the Old Testament, and fulfilled by Jesus.
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Hundreds of years before the Messiah arrived in Bethlehem, Isaiah prophesied about him many times. And when modern readers turn to this Old Testament prophet, passages related to Christmas can’t help but leap from the page. Prophesies about a great light, a child born, someone named Immanuel, a suffering servant, the lamb of God, and, of course, the prince of peace.
To help unpack this book of Christmas prophecies, Charles Morris speaks to Ray Ortlund Jr., Old Testament scholar and son of Haven’s third Speaker. If you are a longtime listener to Haven, his voice will be immediately recognizable. A pastor to pastors, Ray is the perfect person to help you reflect on the powerful themes of Christmas and the cross in the book of Isaiah.
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Jesus said that all of Scripture points to Him. One of the best places to verify this is in the writings of the Old Testament prophets. In fact, though the book of Zechariah is often neglected by casual readers, it is quoted no fewer than 67 times in the New Testament.
On today’s episode of the Great Stories Podcast, Dr. Iain Duguid, currently professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, sheds some light on this minor prophet. Here he discusses what the book of Zechariah has to teach us about living out our faith in a difficult world, while also examining some of the book’s most prominent prophecies about the Christ of Christmas.
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One of the best ways for kids to learn is through play. Kristin Vazquez and Hannah Santi believe that the Advent and Christmas seasons create a perfect opportunity for them to learn about Jesus in a fun, interactive way through the children’s book and traveling nativity set called The Manger Mission.
In this conversation, executive producer Troy Lamberth steps in for Charles Morris to discuss what is at the heart of this new book and activity created by Kristin and Hannah. They also discuss how our family Christmas traditions are important opportunities for the whole family to anticipate and encounter the living Christ in meaningful and memorable ways.
If you liked what you heard, please write a review and help new listeners discover the show!
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The Manger Mission: A Family Christmas Tradition
After reading the accompanying story, children choose a place for the three Wise Men to begin their journey through their home, every day moving them closer to the nativity where they can once again see baby Jesus. On Christmas morning, children return the Wise Men to the nativity to complete this Christmas tradition.
Created by Kristin Vazquez and Hannah Santi, this set includes the following:
1 hardback children’s book that combines the story of the Wise Men with the story of The Manger Mission tradition and includes beautiful painterly and sketched color illustrations with beautifully-lined black and white illustrations
1 Nativity Set that includes 12 Characters and 1 Stable of shaped blocks of wood with painted characters that coordinates with the story’s illustrations, sized to fit a child’s hand.
It was October 1843. Charles Dickens stepped out of his brick-and-stone home near Regent’s Park in London to go for a walk. He was normally a buoyant, optimistic person, but on that particular evening he had a heavy heart.
At 31, he’d been at the peak of his writing career. Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickleby—they all sold well. But his newest novel—Martin Chuzzlewit—was a flop. And just a few months earlier his publisher told Dickens that his advances were about to be reduced … by a lot.
The news had stunned him. Supporting a large, extended family, his expenses were nearly more than he could handle. His father and brothers were pleading for loans. His wife, Kate, was expecting their fifth child.
All summer long, he’d worried about his mounting bills, especially the large mortgage he owed on his house. Dickens knew he needed an idea that would earn him a lot of money fast. But his depression was giving him writer’s block.
As he went on his nightly walk on that October evening, he was hoping for a breakthrough. He wandered through London’s better neighborhoods, but, as he got closer to the Thames River, things changed. There were tenement houses, open sewers, and litter strewn everywhere. It reminded him of a nightmare he’d been having most of his life of a 12-year-old boy sitting at a worktable. There he’d work twelve hours a day, six days a week, attaching labels on an endless stream of shoe polish pots to earn the six shillings that will keep him alive. With his father in debtors’ prison, this boy’s only schooling was the one-hour lesson he would get during his dinner break at the warehouse.
The scary part was that this dream didn’t come out of Dickens’ imagination. It was a replay of his early life. He was that boy working twelve hours a day—until his father inherited some money, paid off his debts, and got out of prison.
It was on this night that the fear of destitution rose up in Dickens again. But as he headed home, he had a flash of inspiration. What about writing a Christmas story about a destitute family? But Christmas was less than three months away. The book would have to be short. It would have to be finished by the end of November to be printed in time for Christmas sales.
He began to write. The manuscript grew, page by page. He wrote about the kind of Christmas he loved—one of joyous family parties with clusters of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling, delicious feasts of roast goose, plum pudding, fresh breads, all enjoyed in front of a blazing Yule log. But then he wrote about a destitute family who couldn’t afford that kind of Christmas, and about the stingy Scrooge who could have helped but only cared about himself.
At last, on December 2, he finished the manuscript and sent it to the printers. On December 17, it went on sale and the first edition of 6,000 copies were sold out by Christmas Eve. Dickens’ financial situation was reversed and the world got a great story.
If you’ve been listening to the program this December, you know we’ve been talking a lot about Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and what happens to old Ebenezer Scrooge. After retiring alone to his cold, barren apartment on Christmas Eve he gets a visit from the spirit of his dead partner, Jacob Marley. Doomed by his greed, Marley’s ghost wanders the world in chains. He warns Scrooge that he must change, or suffer the same fate. The ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come appear and show Scrooge scenes from his life.
In this way, Dickens does a masterful job of describing how Scrooge is brought to repentance. Scrooge can barely stand to see his sin revealed and yet it works this wonderful change in him. It shows him the consequences of his actions. It gives him a foretaste of the great regret he’s going to have one day. It humbles him and instills compassion in his hard heart for Tiny Tim and his family. And the best part is the relief he has when he realizes it’s not too late to change.
It’s a great story, but there’s one thing missing—Jesus. In Dickens’ story, Scrooge goes from being a villain to a savior, seemingly without ever turning in faith to the real Savior Jesus Christ.
If taken at face value, we might lose sight of Scrooge’s true need of a savior. The most profound repentance in the world isn’t enough without Jesus. It’s natural to think that we can redeem our past by doing better in the future, but it’s not true. Nothing we can do can ever pay for what we’ve done and not done—only the atoning death of Jesus on the cross can pay for our past.
No one knew this better than the apostle Peter. There was a before and after in Peter’s life but Peter didn’t change himself—it was Jesus who changed him. Peter bragged about his bravery and denied the Lord out of fear before finally running away. He’d learned the hard way how all the best intentions in the world couldn’t make him into a different person. But then Jesus sought him out—this Jesus who had paid the price for his sin on the cross. He came to him and called him into a new life.
The change you see in Scrooge can really only happen through the living Word of the gospel. Ultimately, Charles Dickens’ shows us what transformation looks like in the life of Ebenezer Scrooge. When those church bells ring at the end of the story, he is truly a changed man. But let us never forget that this impossible change can only be made wholly possible through the help of a loving, forgiving Savior.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
1 Peter 1:3
About the Author
As the leader of the Haven Ministries, Charles Morris is always thinking of ways to lead Christians and non-Christians to Christ—hence the familiar slogan, “Telling the great story … it’s all about Jesus.” A former secular journalist, Charles has worked for United Press International, and as a press secretary for two former U.S. senators. He and his wife, Janet, have authored several books, including Missing Jesus. Charles’ latest book is Fleeing ISIS, Finding Jesus: The Real Story of God At Work.
Most of the thoughts above are taken from broadcasts of Haven Today. Corum Hughes serves as the editor of this blog and coordinator for Haven’s social media content. A graduate of Moody Bible Institute, Corum lives in Boise, ID with his wife Molly.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is a Christmas classic. But it’s so much more than a heartwarming story to be read at Christmastime. This tale of Tiny Tim and Ebenezer Scrooge can point us to the truth about ourselves and, more importantly, the true, good news about Jesus.
To find out more about why this story has made such an impact throughout the ages, we sat down with Mark Dickens, who is the great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens. In this short video he explains why A Christmas Carol is still loved today and gives some interesting insight into the faith of its well-known author.
A Christmas Carol (Audio Drama)
Experience Charles Dickens’s beloved story of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, and the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future in a 90-minute full-cast drama production. Since 1996, Focus on the Family Radio Theatre has produced innovative audio entertainment for families and individuals. These dramas feature cinema-quality sound design and original music scores.
