Hugh Anderson - "A New World Beginning from Today" (December 12, 1957)

Because we materialize and sentimentalize the Christmas story, we miss the deeper, spiritual heart of Advent. We must go deeper than the superficial and cynical and material stories we tell. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Key quotation: It's a new world beginning from today when Christ comes, because he who comes into history transcends history forever and ever—as the abiding present. The Christmas story is not just a lovely story of the far away and the long ago. The whole new testament bears witness to the fact that Jesus the Christ couldn’t just be pushed into the past; he couldn’t be made a memory. He became for the men of the New Testament, and all men ever since. Eternal spirit and the abiding presence.