DownshoreDrift

I began to see Christmas as a great materialistic romp through a humanistic fantasy. At my daughter's Christmas program last year at her school, the choir sang about the true meaning of Christmas: Getting together with family and friends. Ugh. What if your family is broken up? What if there is pain there? For many people there is. Yet, we hold out this fantasy of Christmas wishes and dreams. We have our holiday Christmas specials and pageants that just make no sense. I remember seeing Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey on their Christmas special (shortly before the divorce). Jessica sang "O Holy Night" like she was singing a song about sex with sultry looks and gyrations. I turned to my wife and told her that I thought I was going to throw up. I think I did a little in my mouth.

Well, overall, I started to become something of a Scrooge. I'd see people be happy over Christmas and I'd just assume they were misguided. Not out loud, mind you, but the thought did occur. I hated it. Why was I so miserable? Why couldn't I just enjoy it and be happy? I was happy with my kids and my family. I encouraged our church to try and recapture the spiritual meaning of the season. I decided that we, as a church, were NOT going to cancel our worship service last year on Christmas Sunday when many larger churches were doing that very thing. But, in reality, I was just ready for the whole charade to end. I wouldn't admit that to anyone, because the fastest way to get judged in America is to say that you don't like Christmas. Just ask Ebeneezer.

I think that on some level, as I have stated, I was responding to the materialism of American consumer culture. It was just getting to me. Paul Littleton has a great post from the other day about how we are the church in exile. This world is not our home, yet we take on all of it's trappings. In this context, we go along with the secular version of Christmas and try to find happiness in it. We pretend that this world is all there is and that Christmas is just about being kind and feeling good. Of course, I know that Christmas is really about the birth of Christ, but try as I might, I could not tap into that. The Home Shopping Network had hijacked it and I was fairly disgusted.

This year, I started a study on the Incarnation of Christ. Our family intentionally slowed down the Christmas decorating and celebrating. I've been reading Scripture and praying about what it means for Christ to have come into this world and into my life. I've been teaching what I have been learning. I've been asking God to reveal Himself to me and to show me what it meant for Jesus to enter this world. Breakthrough! Instead of feeling pressed back by the world's definitions, I have begun to see this season as a great opportunity to answer questions for people and point them to what they are really seeking. I've begun to pray that Christ would incarnate into my life and every situation. I've meditated on what Jesus came to do and I have asked Him to do it in me in a fresh way. I've begun to look at the season in a whole new way and joy is being restored. The pain that I have felt of broken families and loss has begun to be shouldered by the God-man who took on flesh and became our Immanuel, God with us. What a blessing! What a perspective! It is all beginning to come alive and joy is returning.

But, it is not a joy that comes from this world or the plastic that we are to ingest from our culture. Instead, I am seeing the miracle of the coming of Christ in ways that go beyond words or manger scenes. Things that I've known to be true are coming alive in my heart, not as a "Reason for the Season," as though Christ was just the underlying excuse for all the celebrating. Rather, I am seeing the world aflame with the purposes of God, as Jesus stepped into space-time to bring salvation to all the world. The words of the great carols are resounding in my soul more and more as I think upon the power of the inexpressable, uncontainable God, limiting Himself to dependent baby human flesh. What a miracle!

This might all seem elementary, and these are things I've known for all my life. But, it is amazing how much worldly expectation you can attach to spiritual things. Christmas belongs to Christians, not the world. They are going to get it wrong 100% of the time. We endanger ourselves when we give our celebrations and our hearts over to the world to redefine and destroy. We endanger our faith when the validity of our celebrations rest on the good will of a secular world in saying "Merry Christmas" or in hosting our Nativity scenes. Christ lives within us. He has come. If He has come, shouldn't we go and tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere, that Jesus Christ is born? Shouldn't we incarnate Christ into our dark world? Shouldn't we bring His peace, joy, hope, and love to a world in desperate need?

On December 26, in the midst of new toys and gadgets, America will wake up with a profound materialistic hangover, covered in wrapping paper and credit card debt. There will be a let down that is only alleviated by more shopping for after Christmas sales and the celebration of New Year's. But, we will arise with hope in our hearts and praise on our lips. Our Savior has come and He lives within us. He still wants to come further and deeper into our world and He has chosen us to bring His Kingdom. How can our Christmas be about that? How can each present we give be a representation of the gift of grace that was given to us in Christ? How can each time we light the tree, we remember and proclaim that Jesus is the light of the world?

I'm all for Christmas again. But, I'm a Christian and I celebrate it differently from the world. I celebrate the Incarnation of the Son of God onto a planet frozen in sin and death. He brought life, light, and salvation. May God be praised forever. Immanuel - God with us.