The Workout Video

I asked for an easy, brief workout video for Christmas—something I could do in maybe 15 minutes a day without raising a sweat. I figured that, given those two requirements, Doris wouldn’t be able to find any that qualified. It was a safe request that would be impossible to fulfill. I could virtue-signal my “desire” to get in shape, without worrying about actually having to follow through with it.

My sweet wife took me seriously. Except for the “15 minute” and “without raising a sweat” parts. Those provisos she seemed to ignore. So, she actually did give me a workout video for Christmas. Ho ho ho. They say that the best gifts have layers of meaning behind them. Not sure I want to do the excavation on this one. After attempting the first round today, I’m wondering if it has something to do with my life insurance.

I should have known I was in trouble when the DVD jacket said this guy was a former Combat Controller who trains US Special Forces operators. Unfortunately the DVD didn’t come with a bell so I could ring out.

The fellow leading the workout is bald. That, by the way, is the only thing we have in common. This guy out-atlases Charles Atlas. His sculpted shoulders are the size of my cheeks, and I’m not talking about the ones on either side of my nose. He is also completely without mercy.

The DVD comes with a seven-minute warm-up video. By the time that was over, I was completely gassed. The next segment was just an evaluation workout, to see whether I should go into the level 1 beginner track, or advance to level 2 or beyond. Let’s just say I failed the evaluation video with flying colors—not only do I not qualify for level 1, I couldn’t even complete the evaluation workout. Perhaps for the next month or so, I should just do the warm-up and cool-down videos, and skip everything in between.

All the literature associated with this program trumpets the fact that you don’t need a gym or any weight equipment. His exercises simply use your own body weight. I figure if I can get my total body weight down to maybe 30 pounds, I’ll be able to do the workouts.

It’s called the 90 day challenge. I’m gonna be challenged to complete the basic evaluation workout in 90 days. Next Christmas I’m asking for Crunch Munch.

Book Review: Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ

Two things impressed me most about this book: the warmth and engaging call of the gospel in every chapter, and Keller’s skillful way of handling complex theological topics with wonderful precision. Keller’s treatment of the favorite Christmas passages is complete with God’s sovereign grace, man’s corruption and sin, the need to respond in faith, the fact that faith is something only God gives, the Lordship that salvation demands, and on and on. I’ve never seen it put so humbly, so gently, so clearly, so accurately, so concisely. But the average reader won’t even know he’s reading a theological tour de force—it’s just the Christmas story, well told, suffused with the gospel. Keller writes like a modern-day C. S. Lewis, wrapping profound theology in the language of Everyman. There is no jargon in this book.

Keller manages to get beyond the matters that divide in our current social scene and strikes right to the heart of our brokenness and sin. You can hand Hidden Christmas to the most radical leftist, or to a Constitutional conservative, and neither will be offended by anything but the presentation of the cross itself.

I’ve read a few, not all, of Keller’s books. This is the best so far, which is saying a lot since the others have been so good. In Hidden Christmas the author takes the Christmas texts from Matthew and Luke and carefully unfolds their meanings. A Liberty and Westminster grad, I’ve been preaching and teaching since 1978, and in every chapter Keller is writing about things I’ve never noticed in these passages of Scripture, and they are powerful and profound!

Hidden Christmas is the gospel presentation you’ve been waiting for. Get a copy, enjoy it yourself, and then pass it on to a loved one. Highly recommended.

A Christmas Meditation

Overhead the stars glisten in the predawn sky like diamonds set in black velvet. A chill wind sweeps off the nearby hills, seeping through the cracks and crannies of every home, carrying with it the biting cold of winter. In the pasture lands the sheep huddle together in woolly clumps seeking an escape from the piercing fingers of frost.

As the eastern sky turns from black to purple to brilliant orange, the cry of an infant intrudes upon the early morning stillness. Somewhere, in a stable in a little village nestled in the Judean hills, a young woman and her young husband cradle her first little child in their arms.

Mystery of eternal mysteries, the Divine Logos is come—Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. For the little one in his mother’s arms is the One who placed those diamond stars in that black velvet sky. In timeless ages past it was He who ordained the warmth of summer and the cold of winter. By the word of that vulnerable infant the sun burst into its brilliant blaze of glory before there were human eyes to see it. Indeed, upon the counsel of the Father it was that precious babe who molded from the bones of the earth on the third day of time a little hill someday to be called Mount Calvary.

For you see, the little One crying in that cold stable, surrounded by the love and protection of a proud young mother, is the mighty Son of the Highest, the Prince of Peace, the Alpha and Omega, Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.

O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.