Dr. Geoffrey Chang created Advent Devotionals from Charles Spugeon sermons!

 

Charles H. Spurgeon was considered by many to be the greatest preacher of his generation and lived during the nineteenth-century revival of the celebration of Christmas in America and England. He loved Christmas and welcomed the holiday season as an opportunity for rest and being reunited with friends and family.

 

In A Wondrous Mystery: Daily Advent Devotionals (New Growth Press), Geoffrey Chang, curator of the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has complied thirty daily devotions from the sermons of Spurgeon to help readers keep their hearts focused on Christ during the busy holiday season. Readers will be filled with the wonder of Christmas as the words of Spurgeon remind them of the incarnation to be marveled at all year round.

 

Chang writes, “Spurgeon loved Christmas! Preaching in London in 1855, he declared, ‘I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year; for there is work enough in the world, and a little more rest would not hurt laboring people. Christmas-day is really a boon to us, particularly as it enables us to assemble round the family hearth and meet our friends once more.’ On Christmas day, he would not only spend time with his family, but he would visit his orphanages and distribute gifts to the children.”

 

How can Christians properly celebrate Christmas today? Certainly, Christmas trees, gift-giving, family reunions, and many other customs can all be joyful traditions of the season. But Spurgeon would say that the primary way to celebrate Christmas is by faith in the incarnate, crucified, and risen Savior. That’s why A Wondrous Mystery exists: amid a busy holiday season, it is meant to be a daily reminder of why we celebrate.

 

In the words of Spurgeon, “And now wonder, you angels, the Infinite has become an infant; he, upon whose shoulders the universe hangs, hangs at his mother’s breast; he who created all things, and bears up the pillars of creation, has now become so weak, that he must be carried by a woman! And oh, wonder, you that knew him in his riches, while you admire his poverty! Where sleeps the newborn king? Had he the best room in Caesar’s palace? Has a cradle of gold been prepared for him, and pillows of down, on which to rest his head? No, where the ox fed, in the dilapidated stable, in the manger, there the Savior lies, swathed in the swaddling bands of the children of poverty!”

A Wondrous Mystery is the first book in the Old Made New series, making the teaching of theologians and pastors who have left us a rich heritage of faith accessible for modern-day readers.