The World and Everything in It: December 24, 2025

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

HUNTER BAKER: Good morning! This is Hunter Baker.

Each week on Washington Wednesday, we try to slow things down just enough to understand what power’s being used for—and what it’s doing to the culture around it.

As Christians, we know that all political authority ultimately derives from God’s greater rule. As Americans, we have the freedom to participate in government. That means we should exercise stewardship over our rights so as to keep our politics accountable.

Whether we are talking about shutdowns, hearings, foreign policy, or law and order, the through-line is the same: Authority matters. But so do the constitutional constraints on power. Public life generally improves only when decisions are carefully examined, and placed in proper context.

That is the kind of analysis WORLD aims to bring to these conversations each week.

But they depend on listeners who believe public life is worth understanding, not just reacting to.

During the December Giving Drive, we invite you to visit wng.org/donate and make a contribution to support the work of WORLD.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

The Department of Health and Human Services unveils changes to protect minors from transgender ideology.

RFK JR.: …Sex-rejecting procedures impose medical dangers and lasting harm on children who receive these interventions.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday. Also today, World Tour.

And later, the scripture that shaped the life and legacy of an Apollo astronaut.

LOVELL: And God called the light day and the darkness, he called night…

And WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on what it took for a holy God to dwell with His people without destroying them.

MAST: It’s Christmas Eve 2025. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: LA County storm » California officials are urging drivers to rethink Christmas travel plans as a powerful series of winter storms moves across the state.

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis:

SOLIS: An atmospheric river ex is expected to deliver up to 10 inches of rain across Los Angeles County, making it one of the wettest Christmases in recent history.

That storm will also bring strong winds and threatens flash flooding throughout the week, especially in areas where recent wildfires scarred the ground.

Solis urged residents to prepare now, stay alert to official updates, and follow evacuation orders and warnings.

LA County Sheriff Robert Luna:

LUNA: We have activated key emergency resources including search and rescue teams and Air Rescue five helicopter, which is equipped to deploy swift water rescue capabilities if needed.

Elsewhere in the state, parts of the Bay Area and Sacramento Valley remain under flood and wind warnings

And the Sierra mountain passes could see near whiteout conditions.

More Epstein docs released » The Justice Department has released another batch of documents tied to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Much of what was just made public is routine court material.

References to Donald Trump show he flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s, though there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing.

Trump this week said it’s unfortunate that many photos are now being released of other people with Epstein, from before he came under suspicion.

TRUMP: You probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago, many years ago, and they're, you know, highly respected bankers and lawyers and others.

Among the new disclosures: a fake passport Epstein used in the 1980s, listing Saudi Arabia as his residence.

One email also appears to reference a British royal, sent from Balmoral Castle in 2001 and signed only with an initial. Many believe it points to Prince Andrew, who is noted elsewhere as refusing to cooperate with investigators.

GDP growth » The U.S. economy picked up speed in the third quarter, growing at a 4.3 percent annual rate — the fastest pace in two years. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports:

KRISTEN FLAVIN: That stronger growth blew past expectations. That came largely from Americans continuing to spend, even with stubbornly elevated inflation.

The Commerce Department report was delayed due to the government shutdown.

Consumer spending rose at a pace of three-and-a-half (3.5) percent, faster than earlier in the year. That helped businesses post solid gains through the summer.

At the same time, the numbers show a widening split. Higher-income households, buoyed by investments and savings, are driving much of the spending, while many lower-income families remain squeezed by everyday costs.

Inflation cooled from earlier peaks but stayed above the Federal Reserve’s comfort zone, which could keep interest rates higher for longer.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Russian attack in Ukraine » Russia launched a massive wave of drones and missiles at Ukraine ahead of Christmas, killing at least three people — including a 4-year-old child.

Ukrainian officials say the attack hit homes and power stations across 13 regions, knocking out electricity.

Air defenses shot down most of the incoming threats, but the strikes left families without heat or light, and added new strain to an already battered power system during one of the coldest weeks of the year.

Trump on Maduro / Golden Fleet » Amid a US Navy buildup in the Caribbean, reporters asked President Trump this week about his intentions toward Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro

TRUMP:  We have a massive armada formed, the biggest we've ever had, and, uh, by far the biggest we've ever had in South America. He could do whatever he wants. It's all right. Whatever he wants to do. If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it'll be the last time he's ever able to play tough.

It comes as the administration continues to target Venezuelan drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean, and the American seizure of multiple oil tankers linked to Venezuela.

The president also announced plans this week for what he’s calling the “Golden Fleet” — a proposed new class of U.S. warships he says would be the largest, fastest, and most powerful ever built.

But any new fleet would still need approval and funding from Congress, which controls defense spending.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Washington Wednesday with Hunter Baker. Plus, a famous Christmas Eve broadcast from 1968.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday, December 24th. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday!

The Department of Health and Human Services last week unveiled steps it’s taking to act on the president’s order to roll back Biden-era policies on transgenderism, and put medical providers on notice.

What makes this moment different is not just a policy reversal—but a direct challenge to who gets to define “medical consensus” in Washington.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RFK JR.: …Sex-rejecting procedures impose medical dangers and lasting harm on children who receive these interventions.

HHS did its own review of the data available, and published its findings last month.

OZ: We don't provide health care to every child, but at 53% we've got most. And we're not going to let taxpayer money go to hurt these children. And those children will no longer be hurt by this ideology.

MAST: Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

He said the agency is working on rules to prohibit doctors in the Medicare system from offering procedures to minors to attempt sex-change. CMS would also block Medicaid dollars to pay for them. That would be a sharp break from the last decade, when federal reimbursement rules reinforced these treatments as standard care.

Another policy would reverse efforts to add gender dysphoria to the definition of disability. HHS Deputy Director Jim O’Neill:

O’NEILL: At the root of the evils we face, such as the blurring of the lines between sexes and radical social agendas, is a hatred for nature as God designed it, and for life as it was meant to be lived.

EICHER: Many in attendance have been active in challenging the medical ideology of the transgender movement, and told WORLD they are encouraged to see progress.

Dr. Katherine Welch is a pediatrician from Indiana.

WELCH: Nothing terribly surprising, but it's all a step in the right direction.

Dr. Welch works with detransitioners through the Resilience Health Network.

WELCH: The problem is, is that doctors are looking to either their Academy and their Association guidelines. Doctors are really busy. They don't have time to read a lot of science, and they're just following what their respective academies are doing. And so that's not going to be talked about.

MAST: In other words, even skeptical doctors are constrained—not by law, but by professional gatekeepers.

Right now, America’s leading medical associations in fields from pediatrics to urology still say so-called gender affirming care is safe and effective. Only the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, has its doubts. Dr. Scot Glasberg, past president of the ASPS, says studies don’t back up the claims.

GLASBERG: Our statement is in that in gender affirming care for minors is the evidence is of low certainty. So our surgeon should be cautious in even considering these types of surgeries.

Dr. Glasberg told WORLD he supports steps the Administration has taken to protect minors, but he’s concerned about the decision to cut funding for research.

GLASBERG: I think that one thing that's clear as day amongst all of these surgeries, even even for adults, is that we need more evidence. We need more data.

EICHER: But that raises a deeper question: if the evidence is still thin, what kind of research would be required to improve it—and is it ethical to conduct that research at all?

Joining us to talk about it now is political scientist Hunter Baker. Good morning Hunter!

HUNTER BAKER: Good morning!

MAST: Hunter, this feels like more than a policy tweak—it’s a challenge to the medical establishment itself. Is this a durable political shift, or a moment that collapses if power changes hands?

BAKER: I think that what I would say is that I'm grateful for the pause. I'm grateful for the momentum to kind of come to a halt while there's time to reconsider. It seemed like we were on a rocket ship there for a while, with this idea of gender suddenly becoming fluid, and a willingness to do some pretty radical things with drugs and surgical interventions. Now there's time to kind of stop and breathe and think, and I think that this is the kind of thing we're talking about, radical changes to a person's body, and in particular, we're talking about radical changes to a developing person's body, a person who is still maturing and who is likely to think about things differently within a period of years, that we can be grateful that the 2024 election basically bought time. But. Basically arrested the momentum, and we're going to see what happens when the political winds next change.

EICHER: Yeah, when, not if. Well, Hunter, I do want to return to something that we raised at the end of the setup there, namely, that even supporters of the rollback say we need more evidence and we shouldn't be cutting research funding. But I'm curious about this research. What if the reason the evidence is thin is that rigorous studies would require experimenting on children, which in any other context we wouldn't allow that? Are we missing something really important here?

BAKER: I think that what has happened is we have really moved beyond the medical into the social and the political. Just speaking as somebody who is married to a physician, I can tell you that I have 30 years of looking at medical journals that come to my house, and I can tell you there's an awful lot more politics and social activism in those journals than there were 30 years ago. So we're not just talking about improving someone's health or making changes in the body that are sort of consonant with what that body needs. Instead, we're in a realm. Just to make a comparison, I think that the kinds of things we're talking about with sex changes are sort of like if a person really felt that they needed to amputate their left arm in order to be a whole functioning person, you know, if they if they just had an impulse that they needed to make that change or that they needed to have a prosthetic leg instead of the leg they have. And so really, we're getting into the psychological and the political and what kind of rights people have. And so this is way beyond questions like, can we cure a particular disease? And it gets down to what it means to be human, and the degree to which physicians should empower people, regardless of what their personal vision might be.

MAST: One other Washington development worth noting—we reported this yesterday on the program. The Heritage Foundation is losing more than a dozen staff members who’ve departed amid internal turmoil over leadership and mission.

At the same time, Advancing American Freedom, the think tank founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, has been hiring several former Heritage staffers.

So it appears less like random turnover—and more like a sorting. Interpret this for us, Hunter: when you see staff leaving Heritage and re-forming around Pence’s group, what does that tell you about where conservative institutional energy is moving right now?

BAKER: In the short term, this is an immediate reaction to the controversy over Tucker Carlson and his relationship to Kevin Roberts, who is the current president of the institution, but there's a bigger picture, and that is Donald Trump in 2016 really disrupted the conservative movement and the way it understands itself. For a long time, there was a Reagan identity for the Republican Party, and Donald Trump is a different kind of a figure with a similarly large effect, and the party has kind of been remaking itself around Trump, but there remains that kind of previous Reagan sort of identity, and so there's kind of a tension there, and working it out. And this is not unusual. It's happened before. Reagan was himself a disruptor of the conservative movement in the United States. You had, at one time, somebody like Governor Rockefeller in New York who was far more moderate relative to Reagan, or even a Richard Nixon who was actually quite moderate in various ways. And so you have had different sorts of changes in the conservative movement in American politics, and we're watching that unfold right now. So is the future of the Republican Party and or the conservative movement? Is it going to be a Trump movement going forward? Or is Trump going to reach the end of his term and then things kind of revert to the mean? That's what we're watching unfold as we see these sort of dramas, as with the Heritage Foundation and advancing American freedom

EICHER: Hunter, you mentioned different kinds of Republicans. I want to pursue this based on different kinds of Democrats, because when we talk about Ronald Reagan, you can't talk about Ronald Reagan without referring to the phenomenon known as Reagan Democrats. And there are Trump Democrats that are certainly part of this Maga coalition. Nation, but I think you had different kinds of Democrats during the Reagan years versus the kind of Democrats that have signed up with Trump. So I wonder if that's not part of this dynamic as well?

BAKER: I think that's part of the picture too. I think that there are Trump Democrats. I have no doubt in my mind that there are people who voted for Bill Clinton or even who voted for Barack Obama, who have now voted for Donald Trump and so and at the same time as the Republican Party has sort of oriented itself around Trump, you have some Republicans, not a lot, but some who have begun to take on more of a kind of a left wing identity out of their sort of revulsion or opposition to Donald Trump. So, yeah, the whole picture is is pretty fluid right now.

EICHER: Well, one final Washington note, and this one is very sad. Former senator and university president Ben Sasse announced this week that he has been diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer. In a long and candid message posted on the social media site X, Sasse writes openly about death, faith, family, and hope—especially fitting for the season of Advent.

We’ve posted the full statement in today’s program transcript. There's a link, and you can go read it for yourself. It is absolutely well worth reading.

But as a senator, Ben Sasse was known for framing political debates in moral terms and not simply partisan terms, during a Washington Wednesday conversation several years back, back in 2019 he put it this way. Listen to this.

SASSE: I believe in the long term that the pro-life movement is going to be successful, because we’re pro-baby, we’re pro-compassion, we’re pro-mom, and we’re pro-science. And the reason the pro-life movement is growing is because there’s more and more imaging technology available in the world and younger people are becoming more pro-life because they’re seeing more images of what happens in-utero.

Well, Hunter hearing that now alongside the message that he has just written, what stands out to you about the consistency of the way that Ben Sasse has thought about human dignity, both in public life and now as he faces death?

BAKER: He absolutely was a champion for life, a strong Christian. I remember him coming to speak at in my previous university, Union University, and he, he pulled out his phone and referred to it as an idol factory as he as he addressed that large audience at graduation. But I just have to reflect on him more broadly as well. He is a politician who had the opportunity to be around through the ERLC Baptist organization. And I was just so deeply impressed with this man, a true intellectual, a tremendous influence for the Christian faith in the U.S. Senate. I was sad to see him leave the Senate, and I greatly regretted him leaving the University of Florida, where he had served as president. This is a person who had tremendous gifts, and I think was faithful in the use of them. I'm sad to see him go. I know that many people will be and I pray that that God will bring others in his place who are similarly gifted.

EICHER: Hunter Baker is provost at North Greenville University. Thank you, Hunter, and Merry Christmas.

BAKER: Merry Christmas.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next, WORLD’s Global Desk Chief, Jenny Lind Schmitt with a special Christmas edition of World Tour.

SOUND: [CHEERING]

JENNY LIND SCHMITT: This week on World Tour we start where it all began, in Bethlehem! A decorated Christmas tree lights up the square in front of the Church of the Nativity for the first time since 2022. The past two years, the city held no public Christmas celebrations. Only church services marked the holiday. Local residents welcome the return to a more festive public atmosphere.

RESIDENT: It’s been a challenging two years, and it’s still challenging until now, but hopefully with this festival it will be better next year.

Bethlehem has been closed to tourists for much of the last two years. That has been hard for the local economy which relies heavily on foreign visitors.

VISITOR: It’s beautiful. After the war there was a ceasefire. You can see the town come alive again. Everyone is happy. Everyone is coming out to celebrate, no matter religion, no matter stance. Everyone is here.

SOUND: [SANTA BELL RINGING]

Next, we go to Japan, where the country’s only “official” Santa is greeting children and hearing their wishes at a shopping center south of Tokyo. Paradise Yamahoto has been playing the role of Santa for local children since 1998. That’s the year he was officially recognized by the Greenland International Santa Claus Association.

YAMAMOTO: [ON BEING SANTA]

Yamamoto says he started playing Santa because he wanted to bring happiness to many people. He continues because he likes giving back to his community. He also says he would like to see a few more Santas in Asia.

SOUND: [REACTION OF MOTHER AND SON]

This mother says that they came because her young son said he wanted to meet Santa. She hopes that by next year, he’ll be ready to give Santa a hug.

SOUND: PROTESTS

Now to Venezuela, where human rights activists staged a symbolic Christmas dinner in Caracas. They want to bring attention to the hundreds of political prisoners who will spend the holiday behind bars. Protestors denounced leader Nicolas Maduro’s repressions of his opponents with unwarranted arrests and disappearances.

In the street, protestors set up a long festive table complete with candles, glasses, and cutlery. On each plate they placed a Christmas ornament with the names of their imprisoned loved ones.

PROTESTOR ON MOTIVATION FOR THE PROTEST

This protestor says that Christmas is a time for gathering, but that for many families, someone will be missing from the table because they are unjustly detained.

Venezuela currently has 893 political prisoners, including 119 women and 4 adolescents. Authorities claim they were part of plots to destabilize the government.

And finally we go to Rome.

MICHAEL BUBLE: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas….

This advent season, singer Michael Bublé performed for Pope Leo XIV [14th] and others at the 6th annual Concert with the Poor. The Canadian singer, well-known for his renditions of traditional Christmas songs, was the headliner at the event.

MICHAEL BUBLE: May I ask you a favor tonight? Tonight I would love if I didn’t have to sing alone. I would love if you would join me.

Video cameras caught Pope Leo singing along with Bublé and the crowd. The late Pope Francis started the tradition of the Concert with the Poor in 2015. Admission is free for 3,000 needy people of Rome, and attendees also receive a hot meal and other personal necessities.

Bublé told reporters the setlist for the concert included several requests from Pope Leo.

MICHAEL BUBLE: Silent Night, Holy Night….

That’s this week’s WORLD Tour. Wishing you a Merry Christmas from Porrentruy, Switzerland, I’m Jenny Lind Schmitt.

NICK EICHER, HOST: At The Dinner Bell restaurant in McComb, Mississippi, lunch is about more than what’s on your plate. It’s about who is sitting next to you.

DAVIS: People who discovered they were related and didn’t know it. They discovered they were neighbors and didn’t know it.

Owner Andre Davis says what gets the conversations rolling is there are four big round tables, each with a giant lazy Susan stacked high with food, bringing strangers all together, family style.

DAVIS: One of the best parts about coming to eat here is you get to meet new family every time you come up.

Regular customer Wayne Dyson says that’s what keeps him coming back.

DYSON: Most people are all good people, especially if they eatin'.

Especially when they’re eating. Restaurant owner Davis considers it comfort food with a generous helping of community:

DAVIS: I’ll tell people all the time: if we had a little bit more of this, maybe we could get along a little better.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Christmas Eve, Wednesday, December 24th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: NASA launches Apollo 8 into orbit during the winter of 1968.

AUDIO: The engines are on. Four, three, two, one, zero. We have lift-off.

[EXPLOSION]

For the first time in human history, three astronauts embark on a voyage to the moon. Their mission: to orbit the planet, collect data for future missions, and return to Earth within a week.

EICHER: During a scheduled broadcast on December 24th, 19-68, the crew transmits a message of hope and humanity before flying into the unknown.

Among them is James Lovell, a seasoned astronaut who faced constant danger throughout his long career in space and overcame the odds.

After many years in retirement, he passed away this year, but is memorialized through his many contributions in the space race.

WORLD’s Emma Eicher has the story.

EMMA EICHER: It was Christmas Eve, 1968, and 17 year old Karen Hammer sat in the family living room, watching an image of Earthrise flicker on the television set.

KAREN HAMMER: And the most unexpected thing, it was kind of a shocking thing,

AUDIO BILL ANDERS: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form …

HAMMER: They began reading out of the book of Genesis.

The crackly voice of Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders filled the air.

AUDIO ANDERS: And God said, ‘Let there be light’ …

HAMMER: For the first time in my life, I was just completely transfixed.

The Apollo 8 astronauts took turns reading aloud from Genesis chapter 1 from orbit, and Hammer was one of roughly 1 billion people watching that broadcast back on Earth.

AUDIO JIM LOVELL: And God called the light day and the darkness, he called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day …

Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell took the radio responder for verses 5 through 8.

LOVELL: And let it divide the waters from the waters …

The words of scripture were familiar to James Arthur Lovell, who grew up in a Presbyterian church. Here’s Lovell in a 2017 interview for the Chicago Sun Times.

LOVELL: And of course, over the years, I had a lot of different thoughts about what I saw on Apollo 8 … the relationship between life, humans and spirituality.

Lovell was born in 1928, and as a boy his grandfather inspired him with tales of flying biplanes off aircraft carriers.

LOVELL: I built model airplanes, solid models, and trying to do flight models and things like that. And so, I really wanted to be in aviation.

So at 20 years old, Lovell joined the U.S. Naval Academy, hoping to become a pilot. Little did he know, he would fly where no man had gone before.

In 1962, NASA handpicked Lovell for the Gemini missions, a program which paved the way for the Apollo lunar expeditions of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Here’s Lovell back on Earth alongside Buzz Aldrin after the last Gemini trip to space.

LOVELL: I think Buzz and I are both happy to end the Gemini program with another success. I hope that we can continue this in the space program.

In 1968, NASA planned for Apollo 8 to be the first manned mission to orbit the moon. Lovell and his crew went through more than 200 hours of rigorous training, and Lovell’s personality seemed well-suited to the difficult job of being an astronaut.

CHARLIE DUKE: Well, he was just a very easy going guy, and easy to get to know.

Charlie Duke is a former Apollo 16 astronaut, and knew Lovell personally from their training at NASA.

DUKE: I never saw him get angry, not once. And you know, it's a lot of frustration sometime in the training, and things don't go right.

In 1970, Lovell’s calm nature was put to the test during the Apollo 13 mission to the moon. An oxygen tank explosion threatened the lives of Lovell and his two crew members only a few days into the trip:

AUDIO: [TANK EXPLOSION]

LOVELL: Houston, we’ve had a problem here.

Lovell manually commanded the ship after it lost power, while on Earth, Duke and his NASA colleagues scrambled to improvise emergency solutions to bring the crew home safely.

DUKE: So we all got together and figured out all of these figures, these procedures, and it all worked. We were very thankful, the crew did a great job.

The harrowing Apollo 13 mission inspired the 1994 nonfiction book, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13.

Lovell co-authored the book with Jeffrey Kluger, a TIME Magazine editor-at-large.

JEFFREY KLUGER: When we first met, I must say, we talked on the phone first, and this was in the early days of cell phones, of car phones …

Sitting in his home office next to a bubbling fish tank, Kluger remembers when he first collaborated with Lovell for the book 30 years ago.

KLUGER: So he had a phone in his car with, you know, pretty crackly reception, and I recognized his voice immediately from the Apollo 8 transmission from the moon. It sounded exactly like he was phoning from the moon!

Kluger says writing Lost Moon with Lovell was a breeze …

KLUGER: I mean, here's a man who went to the moon twice, who flew twice in the Gemini Program, who was, at one time, the most experienced astronaut or a cosmonaut anywhere in the world. And yet, he was a family man. A father of four, and a grandfather and a homeowner …

Lovell retired in 1973 with almost 713 hours in space. Looking back on his career, Lovell said his most transformative memory was Christmas Eve from the moon.

LOVELL: My values and my thoughts after Apollo 8 changed drastically as to really what our position in life is.

Lovell died this year on August 7th at the age of 97, but his legacy lives on. During the Apollo 8 mission, one in four people on Earth heard the Genesis scripture reading.

HAMMER: You got to witness a cosmological moment, and I've been thinking about it for years afterwards …

FRANK BORMAN: And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters, called he Seas …

The reading was only two minutes long, as Commander Frank Borman ended with verses 9 through 10. For Karen Hammer, those moments have lasted a lifetime.

HAMMER: It brought me right into that moment. We were right in that capsule, we were going over the moon just with them, but it was more than that. It was like, Okay, now I understand what it meant. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth …

AUDIO BORMAN: And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night. Good luck. A Merry Christmas. And God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: God’s first coming inspired fear; His second brought peace. The difference explains both the limits of the law and the necessity of the cross. Here’s WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney:

JANIE B. CHEANEY : He warned them. He told them he was coming, and his demands aligned with that of any self-respecting deity of that time: Wash your clothes, keep your distance, abstain from sex.

For three days they followed instructions with increasing anticipation. All the great nations of the world had national gods; now this body of shepherds and slaves was to meet theirs. If the signs and wonders that accomplished their deliverance from Egypt were a preview, Israel could expect a deeply satisfying religious experience.

Thunder and lightning began early on the third day, followed by the peal of trumpets, louder and louder until the air rang with it. The mountain writhed in smoke and flame. Then they heard Yahweh’s voice, and trembled with the true and terrible dimensions of “God with us.”

This was the first advent: God coming to his people. And though his presence provoked reverence and fear, he was not offering a "religious experience." He was offering himself.

He came with a warning: Do not let the people come near "lest I break out against them." The threat implies infinite power held forcefully in check - the creator and sustainer of the universe crowded into limited space; eternity squeezed into linear time. Solomon would later declare: "The heavens themselves cannot contain you," - how much less this mountain, this nation, this world. He was more than his people could bear. The people cried: “Let not the Lord speak with us, lest we die."

Perhaps they instinctively understood that Holiness cannot dwell with corrupted flesh. The violence of his appearing was the clamor of a gulf not easily breached, the roar of conflict between perfect righteousness and human depravity.

So no one was prepared when he came again, even though he warned them. The prophets foretold and the psalmists looked forward in hope to the time when, as Psalm 85 anticipated, "mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed." But could anyone imagine what it might take for righteousness and peace to kiss?

After centuries of failure and reform, exile and return, breaking and refocusing and fine-tuning the law, God’s people still didn’t understand that they dealt with a God who could not, in justice, deal with them. The blood of bulls and goats kept his righteousness from "breaking out," but making peace required a better sacrifice.

Thus the second advent: no thunder, lightning, or trumpet, just a handful of excited shepherds and the weak cry of a newborn in the middle of an overcrowded city. God himself molded to human flesh and confined in a very small space.

They were looking for a conqueror to defeat their enemies, not expecting he would take on the ultimate enemy. They were looking for Messiah to solve their problems, not understanding that he must first become their problem. The apostle Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:23: "[God] made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him."

No fire and smoke on the mountain, but a "breaking out" on a hill called Calvary. Grace and justice, mercy and truth met together to make peace at last, and the place where they met forms a cross.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow, the National Christmas Tree and why it still matters. And, the conclusion of our Advent series from author and pastor Peter Mead. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.” —Micah 7:18

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.