A white-knuckled Christmas

by Robert Mohns

Within the area I serve there are numerous driving challenges, like sudden snow squalls. Dramatic drops in temperature during the winter months can make driving a white-knuckled affair. Drivers do well to take this into account and ensure that they are properly equipped with cold weather clothing, food, and water.

White-knuckled driving can also be the experience of many Christians as they journey through this life. Thankfully, the Lord has given us sufficient provisions for the journey. Our battle is not with winter elements, but with Satan and all the forces of evil who come at us suddenly and with force far greater than a sudden snow squall.

St. Paul reminds us of the Lord’s provision of suitable clothing: “Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm” (Ephesians 6:13).

The Lord in His divine mercy has provided us with spiritual food to eat and drink, as well. He gives us His Holy Supper—His own precious body and blood—and by it we receive all that we need to fortify us for this white-knuckled life. Luther’s Small Catechism teaches us that the chief benefit of the sacrament is forgiveness, and through this also flows the benefits of life and salvation.

Knowing that we are sinners subject to sin and death and devil and flesh, subject to tribulations, and subject to crashing and burning along our earthly pilgrimage, the Lord has provided His robe of righteousness that covers over all our sins and guilt so that we might not die eternally.

In the reading for All Saints’ Day we hear the ultimate result of the Lord clothing us in His robes. In St. John’s vision of the faithful gathered before the presence of God in heaven we hear the voice of the elder testifying: “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14).

Finally, God in His grace and mercy has given us white-knuckled Christians His own Son. Jesus, our Saviour, takes white-knuckled hold of us throughout the days of our earthly pilgrimage, not wanting anyone to perish.

While traversing a mountain pass, a very big truck suddenly sped around me, kicking up a huge cloud of snow which enveloped my car. It was so thick I could not see a thing. In that instant I glanced down at my whiteknuckled hands, clenching the steering wheel with all my might, and thought: “Like that’s going to do anything.” The steering wheel, which I was clutching for dear life, could not save me. For a for moment, I felt a sinking sense of hopelessness and helplessness.

Thankfully, when we are blindsided by the tribulations of life, we are not left helpless or hopeless. Help and hope are in Christ, our rock and redeemer. The psalmist puts it beautifully: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Psalm 18).

It is Christ’s white-knuckled hands that have laid hold of us. St. Paul, in Romans 5, tells us: “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

While our hands are weak, His are strong. Peter, physically, felt the white-knuckled Jesus grasp him out of the stormed seas to save him. Whether we realize it or not, He has done the same for us.

Martin Luther in his devotional writings notes: “Our entire care is completely in God’s hand alone and that only rarely are we left to our own care. But now and then God permits even the latter to make us aware of His goodness that we might see the difference between His care and ours.” I certainly became aware of that!

Luther concludes: “Why, then, are we so anxious about a single peril or evil, instead of leaving the caring to Him, when our whole life witnesses that he Has rescued and delivered us from so many evils without any effort on our part?”

The festival season—beginning with Christmas and continuing on to Holy Week and our Lord’s Passion, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension—all of it proclaims the entire work of Jesus to save us and to deliver us. From the tear-stained face of the Saviour in the manger, having endured the blood and water and the birthing pains of His incarnation, holding on to the blessed Virgin, to that beautiful picture of the Good Shepherd in Revelation 7 in the midst of the great coronation scene, bending down to wipe away the last small teardrop of one of his little ones as He brings them home: all of it bears witness that Jesus has us now and for eternity in His whiteknuckled grasp.

Better than wishing for a white Christmas is the sure and certain hope of the whiteknuckled Saviour bringing us from death to life, day after day, and bringing us through the dark days of our tribulation to the bright shores of our eternal homeland.

The hymn writer, Edward Hopper, penned these words for the final stanza of his hymn, “Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me” (LSB 696): “When at last I near the shore And the fearful breakers roar Twixt me and the peaceful rest, then while leaning on Thy breast, May I hear Thee say to me, ‘Fear not, I pilot thee.’”

‘Tis a fitting prayer for us white-knuckled Christians standing on the precipice of another new year! God grant us ears to hear.

Rev. Robert Mohns is Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC)'s West Regional Pastor.