What does Tribe teach about meaning of christmas?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on the meaning of Christmas starts not in Bethlehem but much earlier. Brian Hunter opens by pressing on the familiar story and locating its true beginning somewhere most people do not expect: "The story of Christmas doesn't begin in a barn in a little Judean town called Bethlehem. The story of Christmas actually begins all the way back in a garden." In that garden, God created humanity for relationship and gave mankind free will as a gift. That gift was misused. Humanity chose independence from God, and the result was sin spreading through the whole human race, showing up not only in war, murder, and injustice, but in the selfishness, pride, and envy inside every person's own heart. Brian describes the condition as terminal, ending in death and permanent separation from God.
But God already had the answer before the problem fully unfolded. In the garden itself he promised that from Adam would come one who would crush the head of evil, and from that moment forward he built a nation through whom the gift would eventually arrive. The prophets caught glimpses of it, Isaiah among them, announcing a child born for us, a son given, the mighty God, the father of eternity, the prince of peace. Then came the night in Bethlehem: Mary giving birth and laying the child in a feeding trough, shepherds in a nearby field terrified by an angel announcing that a rescuer had been born, and the armies of heaven filling the sky. Brian points out that what follows is exactly what God has always done: "God always goes one step further than what you expected." The savior was promised to Israel, but the gift was given to the whole world.
Christmas, as Brian teaches it, is the moment God entered human history as one of us, lived, died a criminal's death, and paid the price for sin, destroying the power of the curse and opening the way back into God's family. The gift is real and specific, but it has to be received. Brian raises the question plainly: "Is it really a present if somebody hands you a gift and you go and you set it down on a shelf never having opened it?" The teaching presses toward that personal response, inviting anyone hearing the story to take hold of what was actually offered on that first Christmas night.
Taught from Isaiah 9 · Luke 2 · John 3:16
“The story of Christmas doesn't begin in a barn in the little Judean village of Bethlehem. The story of Christmas actually begins all the way back in a garden.”
From The Story of Christmas Begins in a Garden
The passage taught · Isaiah 9
1 But there shall be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the latter time he has made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in the land of the shadow of death, on them the light has shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation. You have increased their joy. They rejoice before you according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the plunder.
4 For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as in the day of Midian.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- December 25, 2024 The Story of Christmas Begins in a Garden Brian Hunter traces the story of Christmas from a garden to a manger, explaining why he believes Jesus came, what he accomplished, and why it still matters.
- December 25, 2022 The Story of Christmas Begins in a Garden A Christmas Eve outdoor service in Jackson Hole where Pastor Brian Hunter traces the story of Christmas from the garden of Eden to a manger in Bethlehem.