Melissa Kruger The Weary World Rejoices | Word First

welcome back to another soundtruth interview i'm your host adam miller and today we have a special guest with us we're joined by melissa kruger who is uh one of the editors for the gospel coalition and has also put together an amazing book for advent with various other authors and that fits in perfectly with our theme here at song time we're called many voices one message and this message of the season is really about shining the light of the gospel in one of the darkest and the coldest seasons of the year the book title is the weary world rejoices and we're so glad to have melissa with us today to talk about the book uh these 25 readings for advent melissa thank you for being a part of the many voices for that one message thanks so much for having me i'm looking forward to our chat why don't you get us started by telling us a little bit about um this whole theme of advent this is a great place to start because i feel personally myself i have to ask the question what is the difference between advent and christmas each year because we only do it one time a year so it's hard to even frame our minds and thinking when the world is telling us christmas christmas christmas christmas but what what is advent and why is it different than christmas yeah i mean you know it it actually as we're talking about these things it's this looking forward to something and you could be thinking well hold on jesus came 2000 years ago so we're actually looking back but the reality is believers you know we know we're in this place of the in-between times so to speak we look back and celebrate that he came but we're also always looking forward that he will come again and so in some ways the biggest proof we have that he will come again is that he came and so we spend this time of advent rejoicing in the fact that he came and dwelt among us and then hooping in the fact that he will come again and take us home um and so it's really this this is this wonderful season where we can be so wrapped up in all the busyness but it's so good to have time to meditate on jesus god became man and dwelt among us that's a wonderful truth this is a season where christmas and advent they kind of bring us a lot of these memories it brings a lot of people to the the subject of remembering the christmas stories the traditions there's a whole system that's kind of uh kind of surrounding it that allows for more opportunities for us to pause and to meditate on the true meaning of christmas and you've written a book or you've you've edited this book with various other authors from the gospel coalition on daily readings that kind of guide that process that guide us and how we ought to be thinking and that's a very helpful tool and we've used advent regions before because of how essential they are to have that guide through this process because there certainly are a lot of distractions during this season there are there are so many distractions in fact i normally actually i love to sit in front of my tree and read it read you know whatever i always pick an advent devotional to do every year i just like having something in the midst of my normal bible reading that helps me really think through jesus came you know and he he came and dwelt among us and sometimes you know you're sitting and you're looking at the tree and you're thinking oh i haven't gotten this present for this person i haven't gotten you know it's hard to almost even enjoy the things of the season because it can be in such a rush of busyness or oh we're having people over i need to make sure my house looks perfect oh yeah there's just so many other burdens and it's so nice i feel like the lord invites us to have these moments of stillness with him where he says just remember just remember what it's all about and that really does give peace to our souls in the midst of kind of busy lives and busy seasons you're talking about being busy and having this season it is a season i know that it just gets chaotic i'm a pastor we work in radio so all of these things i mean this is one of our busiest seasons of the year and it's chaotic and it and you need to have those moments of pause and reflection because if you don't if you don't front load your day with something peaceful you're really off to a pretty uh downward trajectory pretty quickly aren't you yeah and i think the need for stillness and just you know with our phones and with our computers things are pinging at us all day long yeah they're coming in at rapid fire in a way that i'm not sure has been always true um and so to take the time to just be still and reflect on a verse and reflect on yeah some christmas thoughts so yeah or about this season um i think it's just so needed in the midst of um kind of a world where it's easy to get lost in all the things we should be doing to remember what christ has done for us and that's good news and just to take the time to kind of rejoice in it i think as much as we sing things like joy to the world and rejoice yeah we sometimes forget to actually do it and practice ourselves now i love the title of your book the weary world rejoices i think that uh you probably probably picked that title for a reason and i'm gonna let you explain but uh it seems that this world for the last two years has been pretty weary for various reasons yeah yeah that's right well one thing that the advent divisional has in it so it starts with reading a passage of scripture there's a reflection from other editors then there's a response like a couple of questions so someone can respond even in their heart you know to what they just read but then at the last thing there's a rejoicing section where we take a hem and just take a stanza of him and just put it in there so that we can take the time to actually rejoice and so i i couldn't think of a better line from any christmas hymn than the weary world rejoices because i think um i don't know that in my lifetime i've seen such a worldwide weariness yeah we'll often see instances of political unrest in a certain country or a certain region um or you know you'll you'll see all these different things happening around the world but to see the whole world engulfed in this global pandemic for the past year and a half it affects everyone and so um it's good to know that what looks so random out there um you know this virus that's spreading that you know it does all these things that there's a god who's over everything and we can rejoice in him even when our circumstances really aren't ideal i think everyone has lost something in the past year and a half significant because of of covid and the ramifications of it um from simple things to you know things we were hoping for to really painful losses of people um you know i think we all feel weary from it and and so but but there's still i think it's always good to know that sorrow and joy can coexist yeah to say that we rejoice doesn't mean we're not weary but both can be true at the same time i i think you're absolutely right i don't think there's anyone who's listening to us that hasn't been touched by tragedy in some way over the past year or the past year and a half and and that really kind of leads into this holiday season where everyone's rejoicing or everyone's supposed to be rejoicing and they're dealing with grief and they're they're celebrating amongst a first season whether maybe without someone that they loved this is this is really heavy and i think that there's a significance you know we know that jesus probably wasn't likely born on december 25th but we understand the significant lesson there because in the darkest of our seasons and in the coldest of our uh the weather change here at least in the northern hemisphere light breaks forth and warmth breaks for us and that's something worth rejoicing god meets us in those needs where we're often broken and weary absolutely and it also reminds us that he knows the brokenness because you know he suffered among us and he promised i'm going to prepare a place for you and i will come and you will come to where i am now and so the good news of even what we can rejoice in what we can be hopeful about is yeah this world it doesn't work how it should it this world is broken but he says i'm going to make all things new and so there's this deep hopefulness as we look at that manger to say god did become a man he did dwell among us and one day we will dwell with him and so there's in the midst of um all that we see and surrounds us that can be hard we have a hopeful vision of what will come um because he's come before amen that hope all of these trials and tribulations ultimately produce hope in us and that's what this christmas is supposed to be about i've been telling people you know when every other institution in the world is posturing doom and gloom we have the one message the world really needs right now we have a message of hope and that should be what we posture to to our loved ones our family and our community during this holiday season yeah and it's actually our greatest evangelistic tool you know when we look at the scriptures it says always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you yeah and often we spend all this time in evangelism training oh i've got to be prepared with my answers but the key thing is that people are going to see that you're such a hopeful person in the midst of a world that doesn't work like it should because everybody's life has brokenness in it and the hardships of the fall so to speak in our lives but yet we're to live such hopeful lives that the world around looks at us and says hey tell me why you're hopeful um and i'm embarrassed to admit i don't know that i get that question quite enough um but that actually other people are going to ask us why are you so hopeful and i think the christmas season is a wonderful time to invite people in and say this is why i'm so hopeful because god became man and dwelt among us i mean it's a wonderful time it's a time people are thinking is there something more out there and so it's a wonderful time to invite people in um i i was every year we do a gift for our our listeners and our supporters and uh this year i wanted to do a face mask that said ask me why i'm hopeful on it but i figured that was a little bit too on the nose pun intended um but really just trying to get people to see that this is really an opportunity as you said really an opportunity position hope to a world that is really living in darkness and they're looking to us they are seeing us we are in many ways in public life not always for the best reasons but we are in the public eye and that allows us to really uh use that platform to really shine the light of the gospel absolutely and it you know i'm i'm planning to give this to most of my neighbors because it's just a time i think when people are a little more interested in spiritual things they feel like they're supposed to feel something and and i think at the end of the day to just say i'm a hopeful person or have faith you know the it's the object of your hope and the object of your faith that is actually the substance of it and so often in this season we get these false platitudes that say be hopeful but in what like the goodness of mankind because that's not much to be hopeful about i'ma start despairing if that's my hope or if you know rejoice because we get to spend time with families well most people might say um that is not the easiest place to to find joy you know for a lot of people family gatherings are difficult but when we when we remove those kind of false narratives that the world might tell us but we say no no my hope is in god you know my joy is in jesus okay now the object can provide substance and so i think sometimes we have what we have to offer is the truth of the christian message that actually does produce real hope and real joy where the world is only gonna be able to give you so much tell us a little bit about the structure of this book because i think it's really important to see how traditionally we have looked at this advent season and how that can be a guy that really builds on top of each other pointing us to christmas day yeah we use the themes that typically go with the advent wreath you know this lit and many churches and um there are different traditions around advent reits but they they typically follow themes like love joy peace and faith and so that's what these each of these reflections follows one of those themes so just to help shift our minds to the peace that god brings the love that god provides yeah these measures of our faith that we hold so dear but it helps us just to spend time reflecting upon those um so that's the overall structure and each of the reflections falls in one of those categories and then like i said before it there's a there's a bible verse to read there's a reflection given by one of the editors and then there's some response questions i actually always like to have at least one question posed my way to make me go a little bit deeper and then a little um part to rejoice and one of the nice things our team has put together um is an advent concert that will actually go with this advent devotional and that advent concert i should know the date it's going to be december 5th on a sunday evening and it will be free and provided on tgc but it will actually align with some of the very songs from the devotional and so we're trying to create this hey we can rejoice even in the midst of a weary world i love the structure of the book and i was really impressed with just what you were saying with the verses with the with the thoughtfulness of your your editors that are writing some really great pieces and and friends of people that have been on the broadcast before that have written so well and so beautifully to really structure that thought but to finish with those lines of rejoicing those songs and all those elements it really does frame a whole complete kind of diet it's a very balanced diet for a very short advent devotional yeah no i'm really hopeful for that and i think you know if you have if you're yeah if you just want to read it on your own that's fine but if you even have a family it's a great way it'd be a great devotional to read around the table in the morning that's when our family does family devotions is in the morning and it's kind of the exact length of what we can we can do in the morning before we're rushing out the door with our kids but it's a nice way to even have a response question to ask the kids hey so as you hear what's bringing you hope this this year you know some of these questions actually allowed us to ask better questions hopefully to our kids during this season um rather than what do you want for christmas what do you want for christmas what do you want for christmas you know um i hope it would allow even families to go deeper into the christmas message together and i think that's a key element tying the family together having this as a devotional it works as an individual piece it would be great for an individual to go through and ask those questions of themselves but also to kind of generate those questions amongst a family even a bible study a group of church that's meeting for a bible study this is a really great resource pretty much at any level even i would say as an outreach to invite some neighbors over on an evening to kind of go through some of these as a as a means of offering the real true meaning of christmas yeah it'd actually be a great outreach i mean because you could there are five readings for each of the topics so even if you met once a week and you said okay this week all the topics for these five days were on love and these are easy readings you know it's not it's not even like reading a whole chapter of a book and so to then discuss the concept of god's love with with your neighbors um and you could even if you wanted to make it pretty light like the advent candle you know with your bible study or with your group and yeah it's just a nice way to spend time reflecting together well i have to say this we've already talked with your publisher and these books have been flying off the shelf and uh i have to say that we did order a good quantity of them so that we could make them available to our listeners so if anyone does want to have them or even get a couple uh to have to share with the community and we want to make those available to them and uh because we really are just so excited about what this opportunity lends for us to really be a light and a weary world and really this as christians we learned that example from christ he became the light of the world but he calls us to be light in this kind of dark season as well this book is a really great resource for that yeah yeah that's encouraging to hear and opportunity that we are you know to be a light on a hill and you don't you don't hide it under a bushel you try to shine and so i think we have that opportunity particularly in this season um to share the good news like i think of how many people are walking in darkness and you know as we all know no one wants to walk in darkness yeah you want to be in the day and so so many people are living lives that they don't even know how lost they are and we have words of hope to to give them the real life um and so it's a wonderful opportunity to get to share with those around us you've already touched a little bit on how you do this with your family how you meet together and talk about that with with all of these events and everything that's going on uh how important is it for for christians to to stop to slow down and to really take in the season because there's plenty that will carry you through the season without actually stopping and pausing yeah and i think this what the answer i'm gonna give i think is true for every day not just the season i think it is like breathing i do not know how people survive without time in the word and time and prayer um and the reality is we're maybe not surviving very well um it's kind of like we feed ourselves junk food and so we're we feel full but our bodies actually eventually stop working well and i think the same is true in our with our soul when we just keep feeding ourselves spiritual junk food so to speak and don't actually spend time in the word we might be okay but we're not really thriving and so i think to have a soul that's thriving we have to be in the word and in prayer every day and and i hate even using the term half too it's kind of like i want to say no no no i'm inviting you to a feast at the table with the king why would you want to be anywhere else so it's not it's not it's not a should but it's a we have this great opportunity so why why are we walking around hungry when we have a great feast prepared for us and this is a season where you know all year long we need to be doing this as you mentioned but this is a season where there are so many distractions that would cause us to even if we had a daily devotion to all of a sudden sacrifice that sake of everything else and assume that the holiday season the christmas season would just automatically supply those things without intentionality we need to be very careful and guard this season because of how easily those elements are lost that's exactly right i mean i i hope we don't look just like the world like has the world influenced us more than actually our bible says have influenced us and so um i think to be off able to offer that real joy and that real hope we have to be drinking it in ourselves and then we're going to be able to overflow to others with that that very thing um and so it's it's a just a wonderful opportunity to be still and and what i have found i have never found in my life that taking the time to be in the word in prayer has made me lack in other areas it has actually empowered me to do more than i thought i could do so sometimes we think oh i don't have time i don't have time and i would say then it's even more necessary for you to spend time with the word and prayer and in stillness and then that will fuel everything else the lord has called you to do i i love the concept of rejoicing in the in the face of weariness because weariness is a really pressing issue and a lot of the themes in the various articles deal with the kind of weight and the heaviness the the darkness of the season the weariness and the structures of of how can you have peace and how can you have joy in the midst of what's happening in the world it's really all of those things are the things that are in front of our eyes every single day you can't even avoid them if you wanted to avoid them and the solution as we've been talking about is to put something else in front of our eyes that gives us a lens to see everything else in the world yeah i think it can be tempting to think i'm just not going to read the news i'm just going to bury my head in the sand and i'm not going to read twitter and see what's happening in the world because i don't want to deal with the realities well the reality is the world is dark so the best thing we can do yeah i think we often think uh we're gonna be healthier by subtraction like taking something away i'm a big believer and we actually become healthy by addition and so it's by putting what is good in front of us that we will be able to actually interpret what is hard so it's not just by trying to pretend like the heart doesn't exist it's by looking the hard straight and straight in the face so to speak but saying there's better news than the bad news um and so that that does fuel our joy well for all of our listeners who have been hearing this talk about the title of your book the where the world rejoices and their minds are racing i know that line i know where that comes from but what is the song uh it's from oh holy night correct so this is a song that is very common a little hard to sing during the holiday season but very common we all know the christmas carol um this is a a really rich song that song that happened you know if the history of the song happened right before the civil war and it really struck the american people because it was a really dark and weary time then and that's why it spread so quickly but i think that this resonates with us even now because we get that we get the sense from that song that this is a holy night and it's the night when our savior comes to us in the night uh the original title is uh midnight christian right the french version so you know that that's and i didn't know that about it coming right before in the 1800s right before the civil war i didn't know that so that's fascinating yeah yeah so it was translated into english right before the civil war and that the reason it got such a uh a pull into the history of this because that one little line in the third verse the slave is our brother and that's what kind of resonated with the people that uh this was a really tense time in dealing with the subject the gospel clarity gave a lot of perspective on that so people are probably going to look to the song hopefully with new meaning but that's really the that's really the focus of your book in this advent reading is to draw people to look to the light in the midst of the darkness and that's i think really crucial during this season isn't it yeah absolutely i just love that background i i had not heard that so i just i love that i've sung this song every christmas and never heard the story behind it so that's a beautiful thing and the words right before this a thrill of hope um the weary world rejoices and it it is this notion that in the midst of um so many difficulties we you know we can be people who are rejoicing whether it's war whether it's death whether it's loss in some other way um the lord in his goodness to us has given us something that can never be taken away and that's his presence he said you know and and all all the time through all of scripture when people were fearful um he god doesn't ever say things aren't hard or things aren't fearful he says i'm with you and so the incarnation is his supreme display of i am with you um and so whatever we're facing this christmas the thrill of hope is he he is with us and i love the history and all this too not just the history of oh holy night or the weary world rejoices but the history of when we look back over christians who have been through dark periods and we're going through a dark period now but there have been dark periods in the past what they claimed clung to what they what they held to during that season what brought them through it uh really was leading them to hope and that's what the christmas season as we've been talking about that's what this season is all about getting our eyes fixed on jesus and not on the things of the world because there are so many things that will offer discouragement but the gospel if this is what i love about the gospel coalition holding that gospel before our eyes every single day offers us that reassurance of hope and advent as you said it kind of looks back to the past like jesus came 2000 years ago but it's also a promise of the future and that is the hope of advent that we need to hold before us as we say on the broadcast all the time we need to preach the gospel to ourselves and this is what we need to be reminding ourselves of during the season absolutely there's no better message and there's nothing that can fuel our joy like like the reality jesus came and dwelt among us to rescue us to take us to him so he came so that we might be with him and that's the good news another thing that i love about this advent devotional is that it's not simply going through you know the gospel of luke and it's uh kind of advent season or or even john or even matthew it's dealing with portions of scripture from all over from all over the old testament in the new testament that offer the same message and what a concise message that christians need during this season that this is not a simple time in history but this is the whole point of what the bible is about yeah i think that is so missed when we're sometimes digging around in the old testament i've been reading the bible in a year again this year so now it's november i'm in ezekiel right now but what's interesting when you do that process you start to see that what happens in genesis the whole story is just unfolding when's the seed going to come when's the promised one going to come when is redemption gonna come and so you know it starts out and it's like they're waiting with each birth that happens is this the one is this the one and then you get to the people of israel and it even starts to make sense um how when their worship when they started following pagan practices like sacrificing children yeah i was really thinking about i mean that's such an awful concept anyway period but it's actually such an act of unbelief because god says no it's through the seed of abraham through your offspring will all the world be blessed and yeah so when we see all these stories in the old testament you start to say oh they're all dealing with this promise that happened in genesis and this waiting and then this waiting and this waiting through all this darkness and you see israel make all these mistakes and go into exile and all these different things and then light breaks forth in the midst of the darkness and the seed finally appears and i and i i feel like one day when the lord returns it will be like oh all this darkness all this waiting because that's what the whole testament is the heaviness of this waiting and then the promise breaks through and so one day we'll be sitting in that promise of he came and he he he came to rescue us again to take us home and so i think sometimes we think the old testament is is just maybe irrelevant but wow it really brings in the beauty of a people who have waited before and so we can find a lot of strength by looking at at their waiting as we continue to wait for redemption to happen and with waiting we often come weary that's we just kind of go hand in hand and so any of our listeners who are feeling that weight of weariness they feel like they've been waiting for longer than than they anticipated longer than they expected what kind of encouragement do you have during this during this advent season for them to refocus that worriedness towards good yeah the waiting is always difficult as you can see with any little child who might be waiting for christmas morning yeah they're waiting all all month and they feel the anticipation you know one thing i think about a child like waiting though is it's full of a lot of joy like they're excited they're actually hopeful something will change i know in my own heart sometimes my waiting becomes full of unbelief and distrust and that's when the waiting actually becomes the weariest is when my waiting is full of the unbelief that can god redeem this and so i think what can if what can happen in our waiting is actual excitement how will god unfold this because he has promised that everything must work for my good to become more like jesus so so what if we had more anticipation in our waiting rather than just weariness in it you know like the hopefulness of a child on a christmas morning it's it's the waiting of joy and i'd like to become more that way rather than just weary in my waiting yeah we're also trying to grow up and be mature and be adults about all this but we can learn so much from the kids uh the faith of a child right and to have you know with all of the busyness that we have to do to make christmas the the excitement that it needs to be for the kids we need to just stop and look at the kids and learn from them as jesus taught us um with to that end would you actually pray that um that our listeners and your readers would would be filled with that joy of and rejoicing during this season yeah yeah i'd be glad to father and we thank you that um you are god who keeps his promises that you gave promises in genesis that you fulfilled over and over and over again and ultimately um you fulfilled by jesus coming and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory so lord we pray that you would fill us with the joy joy of waiting the deep anticipation that goodness must come because you have promised that you will come again so lord we pray that you would give us hearts that wait with joy not because the world is not weary because often it is but that you would give us joy that you are making all things new and we can look forward in hope to what you will do when you return lord we pray that you would allow us to sit still before you this this advent season we pray that the word would be a bomb to our busy souls and joy to our hearts let us be people who do receive the question tell me about the hope that you have let us be prepared to give an answer to all who ask will we pray that we would be lights shining in the darkness telling others about who you are it's in your name we pray amen amen we've been talking with melissa krueger who as the editor of this new advent devotional the weary world rejoices with various submissions from all of your favorite editors from the gospel coalition if you want to find out more information about the book please give us a call it's 508-362-7070 or you can head over to our website at songtime.com melissa thank you so much for this book for putting them together and getting all of the various editors together to write this book but also for taking the time to talk with us and encouraging us to rejoice in these weary times thanks so much for having me you