Hello, fellow wayfarers … How to answer our anxiety this Christmas by letting our hearts get broken … Where Malcolm Guite showed up and taught us about poetry, writing, and imagination … What you can do to give us some end-of-year support … Why Marilynne Robinson thinks churches fill at Christmastime … a Desert Island Playlist from the nation’s capital … This is this week’s Moore to the Point.
Why Your Anxiety Needs an Apocalypse This Christmas
Last Sunday, I took a break from the apocalypse to focus on Christmas.
By “apocalypse,” I’m not referencing the news cycle but, literally, the actual Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, through which I’m teaching week-by-week Sundays at my church.
The problem is that we are right in the middle of the book, which consists of bowls of wrath, boils and plagues, and a woman riding a beast while drinking the blood of the martyrs. It seemed a little anxiety-inducing to go through all of that and then end with, “So Merry Christmas, everybody!”
Instead, I turned to the Gospel of Luke—to the time of baby Jesus—and found myself right back in an apocalypse.
In the text, right after the account of Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph present the infant Christ in the temple. There, they are approached by the prophet Simeon, who takes the baby in his arms.
Some of what old Simeon then says sounds Christmasy enough for our expectations. The baby is “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:32, ESV throughout).
But then he gets dark. Simeon turns to Mary and predicts, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (vv. 34–35).
The word apocalypse, of course, doesn’t hold the same meaning biblically as our pop culture gives it (“scary dystopia”). The word means “unveiling,” a showing of what’s hidden to our perception, a revealing of the way the universe really is. What Simeon saw in that bustling outer court of the temple was that Mary was headed for heartbreak—the kind of soul-tearing heartbreak that would make visible what was really true.
It’s hard to follow “A knife is headed for your heart, lady,” with “Happy Holidays and a Blessed New Year!” The foreboding nature of that word had to be unnerving, if not terrifying. The more I think of it, though, the more I’m convinced that is exactly what we need, all of us, this year.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that adolescents and young adults make up an “anxious generation,” driven by the limbic effects of smartphone and social media ecology. But he also asserts that the anxiety is not limited to any one generation. We all live and move and have our cultural being in a kind of acute anxiety.
By anxiety, here, I don’t mean the clinical, medical condition from which many people suffer. I mean instead the sort of generalized state of worry and tension that seems so heightened in the world around us and within us right now.
In his new book, Consolations II: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, poet David Whyte argues that anxiety describes the way we try to avoid conversing with the things that scare us by worrying about them instead. This kind of constant anxiety, he writes, is actually a defense mechanism for what we are afraid can hurt us.
“Anxiety is the trembling surface identity that finds the full measure of our anguish too painful to bear; constant anxiety is our way of turning away from and attempting to make a life free from the necessities of heartbreak,” he writes. “Anxiety is our greatest defense against the vulnerabilities of intimacy and a real understanding of others. Allowing our hearts to actually break might be the first step in freeing ourselves from anxiety.”
A heightened state of worry feels like doing something, but that kind of hyper-vigilance is exhausting, and it often cuts us off from those things that require vulnerability—the risk of being hurt—to exist: love, affection, compassion, wonder, awe, curiosity, courage, giving of self. Maybe Whyte is correct that what is needed for us right now is not to protect ourselves from heartbreak but to embrace it.
That’s where I realized just how similar the warm, bright Christmas story is to the dark, scary middle of the Book of Revelation. Every Sunday, I remind my church-folk (and myself) that the “scary” parts of Revelation are actually good news. God is pulling back the veil so that what’s hidden is made plain.
The kingdoms of this world are shaky and tottering. The way of Caesar, the way of the Beast, seems right now to “work.” For the first-century church, the word from Patmos is a call to overcome: not by fighting like the Devil against the ways of the Devil but by remaining faithful, enduring through suffering, and waiting on the God of Israel to make all things new.
The Apocalypse doesn’t deny that dangerous days are coming, but it makes clear that they are limited—“a time, and times, and half a time” (12:14). On the other side of the sword that cuts through Mary’s heart at the cross (or those that cut off the martyr’s heads in first-century Rome), there’s a weight of glory that cannot be described adequately with words. We can free ourselves to risk heartbrokenness because a broken heart is the beginning of the story, not the end.
Simeon’s warning is in the context of blessing. He was waiting, by the Spirit, for the “consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25). He never saw an overthrown Rome. He never saw the murderous house of Herod torn down. He never saw the promise fulfilled of the nations streaming to Mount Zion, with David’s throne occupied by David’s heir. And yet he could say that he could die in peace because he had, in fact, seen “your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples” (v. 32).
What he saw was this baby. And that was a hidden reality, except for the eyes of faith.
The people bustling through the temple courts didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe one of them heard the infant Jesus crying and said, “Somebody should tell that woman to keep that kid quiet.” They saw a normal day, filled with the anxieties of life. But Simeon saw an apocalypse—and in it, a world blinded with light.
Every life is filled with anxiety, and every age is too. Sometimes that anxiety feels more acute than at other times, and the future seems more uncertain than before. This Christmas, let’s look beyond the days and years right ahead of us. Let’s see the Light that shines out of Bethlehem, the Light that shines in the darkness, the Light the darkness cannot comprehend or overcome.
Let your heart be broken, but rejoice. All is well in heaven and will be well on earth. Remember the good tidings of great joy. And have yourself a merry little Apocalypse.
Malcolm Guite at Our Pipe Night
A friend of mine texted me a few weeks ago and said, “I was watching a Malcolm Guite video, and am I going crazy or is that you in the background, awkwardly standing there?”
Yes, the great poet Guite came into town and visited the regular “pipe night” some friends and I have over at Andrew Peterson’s chapter house right down the road.
I am the non-pipe-smoker in the group, not because of my Baptist upbringing but because I can’t keep one lit (probably because of my Baptist upbringing). Plus, I wouldn’t even dare amateurishly attempt it while in the room with a living hobbit, puffing out literal smoke rings while reciting sonnets from memory.
Our friend Buddy Greene (cowriter of “Mary, Did You Know” and the best harmonica player on the planet) and I didn’t know we were in camera range and were trying to stand still and out of sight so as not to ruin the video. We ruined it anyway, but just for a second.
If you’ve never watched one of Guite’s classic study videos, this will introduce you to it. They are as close as one can get to having the man himself right there. He is able to talk about, as he does in this clip, Chesterton, MacDonald, Arthurian legends, and on and on.
You can watch the short video here.
While you’re at it, be sure to listen to Guite’s lecture at the Wade Center at Wheaton College marking the 200th birthday of George MacDonald. It’s brilliant and funny and informative—even for those of you who don’t know much about MacDonald. The talk hits on issues of imagination, reason, and the unnatural modern cleavage between the two. You can listen to it here.
All I Want for Christmas Is Y’all
We will take a break here from the newsletter until the first full week in January, but in the meantime, allow me to ask for a favor.
This newsletter is, as always, free. You can help us, though, to make sure that’s true throughout 2025 by supporting the work we do here at Christianity Today—that includes not just the written and audio versions of this newsletter but the podcast; The Bulletin; the relaunched, reborn CT magazine; initiatives around the world applying the kingdom of God to cultivating the next generation and a multiracial, multiethnic, global gospel Christianity; and a thousand other things.
From now until December 31, anything you give is doubled with a matching gift grant. It will help us partner together to help others seek the kingdom and find the kind of sanity and hope that comes with gospel Christianity. You can give here.
If you can’t afford to give anything, that is perfectly fine. But if you can, I would be grateful. Either way—here’s to a joyful and productive 2025!
Speaking of the Kingdom
On the podcast this week, I talk with pastor Rich Villodas about how countercultural the Sermon on the Mount is for this time—and what he’s learned trying to teach these truths in an urban, secularized context.
He talks specifically about how Christians can work to overcome resentment, anger, and lust. You can listen to it here.
Remember, You Can Listen to This Newsletter
Every Monday, an audio version of this newsletter (the first part, anyway) drops on the podcast feed over at The Russell Moore Show. You can listen to it or send it to someone in your life who prefers to absorb ideas by listening rather than by reading.
Desert island Playlist
Every other week, I share a playlist of songs one of you says you’d want to have on hand if you were stranded on a desert island. This week’s submission comes from reader Russell Woodgates in Washington, DC:
- “Real Good for Free” by Joni Mitchell: Can anything “real good” come from Nazareth?
- “Heaven Laughs” by The Hooters: I played this on the radio for my father when he died. After 34 years, it still gets me.
- The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams: These recordings have mesmerized me since boyhood.
- “Gone” by Miles Davis: The epitome of “cool jazz” for a teenaged trumpet player in the late Sixties.
- “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone: A desperate sinner’s futile flight from God’s righteous judgment. Power can’t save him.
- “This Is How It Feels to Be Free” by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir: This song nourished me after spending nine months inside a federal monastery.
- Pièces froides – Danses de travers, No. 3 by Erik Satie: One of the six melodies that haunt me from these “cold rooms.”
- “Summer, Highland Falls” by Billy Joel: Seemed like either sadness or euphoria for a twenty-something living in the Seventies.
- “From the Beginning” by Emerson, Lake & Palmer: An escapist favorite from the angst of early adulthood.
- “Genesis” by Jorma Kaukonen: A deeply felt almost-breakup song capturing the ambivalence of love commitments.
- “Man in Black” by Johnny Cash: From the Vietnam War era to today, nothing has changed the relevance of this message.
Thank you, Russell!
Readers, what do y’all think? If you were stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life and could have only one playlist or one bookshelf with you, what songs or books would you choose?
- For a Desert Island Playlist, send me a list between 5 and 12 songs, excluding hymns and worship songs. (We’ll cover those later.)
- For a Desert Island Bookshelf, send me a list of up to 12 books, along with a photo of all the books together.
Send your list (or both lists) to questions@russellmoore.com, and include as much or as little explanation of your choices as you would like, along with the city and state from which you’re writing.
Quote of the Moment
“I have a theory that the churches fill on Christmas and Easter because it is on these days that the two most startling moments in the Christian narrative can be heard again. In these two moments, narrative fractures the continuities of history. It becomes so beautiful as to acquire a unique authority, a weight of meaning history cannot approach. The stories really will be told again on these days because a parsing of the text would diminish the richness that, to borrow a phrase from the old Puritan John Robinson, shines forth from the holy Word.”
—Marilynne Robinson
Currently Reading (or Re-Reading)
- Simon Horobin, C.S. Lewis’s Oxford (Bodleian Library)
- Kenneth Whyte, Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times (Vintage)
- Peter Ames Carlin, The Name of This Band Is R.E.M.: A Biography (Doubleday)
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Russell Moore
Editor in Chief, Christianity Today
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