For many, Christmas entails hearty laughs with loved ones, hot cocoa around a crackling fire, and most importantly, a rich gratitude for the wonder of the incarnation. But in 1777, Christmas was very different for seventeen-year-old Joseph Plumb Martin. A private in the Continental army, Joseph arrived at Valley Forge a few days before Christmas with scraps for clothing, an empty stomach, and a disheartened spirit.
Joseph was not alone in his suffering on that Christmas. Thousands of other Continental troops spent the last days of 1777 battered, hungry, and shivering. General Washington was deeply concerned. Fresh off defeats at Brandywine, Paoli, and Germantown, Pennsylvania, Washington’s army was at a breaking point. And General Washington knew it. Without more supplies, Washington wrote, “this Army must dissolve.” Liberty hung in balance.
But hope remained. In their moments of desperation, many of the soldiers turned to divine providence for strength. Joseph was one of these men. Reflecting on the army’s lack of material provision during that Christmas season, Joseph wrote that “a kind and more holy Providence took more notice and better care of us than did the country whose service we were wearing away our lives by piecemeal.”
We may not be spending our Christmas camped outside in the freezing temperatures of southeastern Pennsylvania. But this Christmas, we would do well to reflect on the ultimate manifestation of God’s providential care in the provision of His Son Jesus. May we remind ourselves of the miracle of the incarnation, that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4–5).
As we look forward to the 250th anniversary commemoration of the birth of America in 2026, let us also be sure to remember, appreciate, and celebrate the most important birth in the history of the world in Bethlehem more than two thousand years ago.
Luke Brooker is a research assistant at First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy and a senior at Dallas Baptist University studying politics, philosophy, and economics.
