Episode Summary:

When we think of Christmas, we picture the manger scene, shepherds in the fields, angels singing, and a star guiding the way. But what if we’ve been missing one of the most important parts of the story all along? In her new book, The Spirit of Christmas, award-winning author Cynthia Ruchti invites us to rediscover the Holy Spirit’s presence woven throughout the Christmas narrative—from Genesis in the Garden of Eden to the cry of a baby in Bethlehem. This conversation will open your eyes to the power, presence, and promise of the Spirit of God in ways that may forever change how you experience Christmas.

Quotables from the episode:

• Christmas often stirs our hearts with nostalgia—decorations, carols, and retelling the story of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. Yet, as beautiful as those traditions are, there’s more to the Christmas story than we typically notice. Before the babe was conceived, the Holy Spirit was already at work, setting the stage and preparing the hearts of the biblical characters we know and love.
• This season, let Him set the stage and prepare your heart too. In her book, The Spirit of Christmas, Cynthia Ruchti helps us uncover the often-overlooked role of the Holy Spirit in God’s plan of redemption, reminding us that the Spirit has been present from the beginning—guiding, comforting, and empowering. If you’ve ever longed to experience Christmas with fresh wonder and deeper meaning, this conversation will encourage you to see the season through new eyes.
• I have found it fascinating that over the course of my life and maybe others have been in the same boat, we might grow up understanding Jesus quite well, or, and we hear Jesus loves me from when we're newborns and aren't even aware, perhaps, of that. And then I personally had gone through some seasons of my life where I thought, "I think I understand Jesus pretty well. I'm getting a good handle on who is this Jesus. I'm not sure I'm as familiar with God the Father as I need to be." So, I had a season of my life that was in my early 20s where I dove in and thought, "I need to know you better, God, my Father," and took an approach as I looked at the Word and noticed that throughout the Old Testament, God described himself as a God of love, which I thought was a New Testament idea. I understood who he was as the majestic Creator, and I think probably it kept him a little distant from me because I saw just that. Then a relative of mine had a heart transplant and I took a fresh Bible, and I circled everywhere in the Bible where the word love or heart appeared because I wanted this person who wasn't close to the Lord at the time to know and understand that God has been talking about the subject of love for a very long time. He's all over the Bible, so page after page was filled with the circled or the little heart drawn around the word love or the word heart.
• Then there came a season in my life where I thought, "I think I better understand now. We will never fully understand, but I think I better understand. God the Father, God the Son. Do I really understand the Holy Spirit? I know he is. I believe what the Bible tells me about the Holy Spirit, but do I really understand his role or how the different roles of the Trinity make a complete God for us? So, I investigated that, and I watched for his presence, but not as deeply as I did after I was challenged to look for the Holy Spirit's presence in the Christmas story.
• There was an editor who challenged me with that at a writer's conference. I found it fascinating. I thought that would be a very interesting study. We assume, I think, in the back of our minds that maybe the Holy Spirit is that presence that comes upon Mary in that moment when she conceives Jesus, the baby Jesus, as an infant just minutes old. And then we're not sure where else he might actually show up in the Christmas story. So that was a challenge to me, and I thought it sounded fascinating, but I didn't take the invitation from that editor seriously until a couple of weeks later, when she wrote to me and said, "I want you to write that book."
• So, then I got very serious and started the deep dive research of where is he? And in some ways, it was kind of a where's Waldo of the Holy Spirit in the Christmas story. That's what began this adventure. And for me, it really did alter my view of how I approach Christmas now for many reasons. And that was one of the reasons that I wanted us to have this conversation because I don't think we're alone in that tendency to not really acknowledge the Holy Spirit as much as we acknowledge Jesus or God the Father.
• I grew up in a denomination that the only time the Holy Spirit got mentioned was when it was God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, period. So, I like that You took that editor up on the challenge to look for the Holy Spirit throughout the Christmas story.
• I wondered how far back I would have to trace to find the first evidence of the Holy Spirit and Christmas being linked together. And I realized it was in verse one. It was when the Spirit was hovering over the waters of a world that had yet to be created that was going to need a Redeemer. As we know, God has no beginning and no end, eternity past, eternity present farther than man can imagine. I realized that this in the formation with at creation, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, at creation forming a world that they knew was going to need a Redeemer and that that Redeemer was going to be thousands of years away from that moment. I saw the person of the Holy Spirit caring about what was going to happen all those centuries later, even in the creation process.
• How does that first crime connect to Christmas? There would have been no reason for Jesus to come as a human being if there were any way that we as humans could have behaved ourselves without him. And it wasn't very long into that early beginning creation story before that was so evident that without Christ present, without the Holy spirit present within us. We were never going to be able to satisfy what needed to be satisfied and keep us in a place where we could walk daily, in essence, walking by the Spirit like it talks about in the New Testament.
• When I began to put the pieces together of this incredible depth of story, this depth of even the communion of the Father and the Son and the Spirit, we saw the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament present in brief moments leading up to when Jesus would be born and then later on as we take that story even farther to his death and his resurrection and his intentional promise, “Hang in there people it's not only okay that I go back to heaven it's better for you that I do because then the Holy Spirit can come, reside inside you, and help you operate out of a place of knowing exactly my heart, knowing what God my Father,” Jesus said, “wants of you, and what will help you to live a life that will allow you to pillow your head every night in peace, no matter what's going on in the rest of your life.”
• The other thing that I really appreciate about Jesus knowing our every need is when he reminds us that he's got to send the Holy Spirit to remind us of all truth. As a neuropsychologist, that's one of the areas that I love to focus on the most because I have a short memory, and I need those reminders.  I love how the spirit of Christmas is our reminder of the gift of the spirit.
• I didn't grow up in a denomination that had an actual practice of Advent, of intentional preparation for Christmas season. I knew the word, Advent. I knew it was a good word. I knew it was a healthy word and lovely, but we just didn't have that particular practice. We oftentimes, even with Lent, that was another, it seemed like it was for a denomination that was more liturgical, let's say, in thought. But I think more and more these days, we're realizing that every heart needs to be prepared. Every heart needs to “prepare him room” as the one Christmas carol says. It’s actually for any day, but when we think about Christmas in particular, it is so easy to get caught up in all the to -dos and all the menus and all the party planning and all the some-things we're very happy to participate in, some things that just seem like one more chore. And it's kind of this wild cacophony of noise and tension, and there may be relationships that are especially challenged at Christmastime, there may be work -related things that are especially difficult at Christmastime. That is not at all what this is supposed to be about. But we early church members apparently understood that we need time to get our hearts ready for this such, such a holy, holy season. And the Holy Spirit is part of that.
• As we take a look at what was the Holy Spirit's role in the original story that began way back at creation, but was threaded throughout Scripture as He was present in speaking to Isaiah about a virgin shall conceive way back then. And it didn't say shall conceive in the next day or two. Again, thousands of years from that prophecy, but the Holy Spirit was inspiring that prophet Isaiah to speak of that. And as we look at it in the time period in which those words were spoken, there was chaos. There was political chaos. There was trouble on every hand. There was the son of a king who was now the king, and he was being a lousy king. And this interesting thing: I think he wanted to do the right thing. King Ahaz, I think, wanted to do the right thing. He heard from God, but he didn't trust that what he heard from God was enough. He needed to find other voices that he would listen to. He was getting influenced by all kinds of other people. And Isaiah was trying to bring him back to, "No, there is one God, and you can trust him." And as the Spirit was inspiring Isaiah t