Redeeming the Christmas Story

This week I had a professor make quite the statement during his lecture. He looked at our class and in all seriousness said,

"I think the most Christian thing we could do is stop celebrating Christmas."

 I had been fervently nodding along with his lecture up to this point. Don't celebrate Christmas in order to be Christian? That seemed absurd, after all Christmas is a celebration of Jesus. It is a Christian holiday. Isn't it? However as I sat there and listened to him unravel what he meant, and reflected deeply on this holiday of Christmas, I realized just how secular it had become. The holiday meant to be a means of telling the story of Christ had become its own story.
No longer was the story of Christmas found in Luke 2 but in 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. It's no secret that Christmas has become commercialized. Everyone knows it. Charlie Brown and Linus have been trying to remind us of the real meaning of Christmas for years, but few are listening. Yet I still do not want to agree with my professor that we should stop celebrating Christmas. My hesitancy to agree with him is not a result of my denial that Christmas has been commercialized, nor is it a shrugging of my shoulders saying that's simply the way it's going to be and there's nothing we can do about it. I cling to Christmas because I am living into a different Christmas story, the real Christmas story.
Now if you expect me to break into Luke 2 here in good ol' Linus fashion, that wouldn't be a bad idea, but that's not what I'm going to do. See I think if we're really going to live into the story of Christmas, we need to look beyond the manger, we need to look into the heart of Christ.  The early church had one of the most beautiful ways of expressing Christmas in their hymn of Christ presented in Philippians 2. Here the story of Christmas takes form:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. -Philippians 2:5-11(emphasis mine).

Before Christmas became a story of wanting, of shopping, of stress, it was a story of humility. Jesus became nothing. Jesus became a servant. Christmas is about humility, about emptying ourselves, not for our glory, not so we can mark charitable giving off our holiday to-do lists, but that at the name of Jesus every knee may bow.
During the discussion, my professor acknowledged that maybe seeking to celebrate Christmas the right way was a better option than skipping it entirely, and he invited us to think about how we can do that. I believe the answer is as simple as it is complicated.

We choose to live into the story of Jesus.

This is more than keeping Christ in Christmas, for this far surpasses bumper stickers and an insistence on saying Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays. What is involved here is humbling ourselves, not just during the Christmas season but all throughout the year. If our focus is emptying ourselves as Christ did, when Christmas comes we can rejoice for the Lord we serve came and is coming again! We might be in a fallen world with brokenness and pain, but hope is here, for Christ has come and will come once again to restore us! This truth that pervades the Christmas story starkly contrasts the story the world has written for itself. The joy we receive by entering into the humility Christ offers presents an alternative reality to the world around us, the true reality marked by hope. However, the only way to present this truth is to enter into Christ's story of humility.  This is not easy. The same professor that suggested we skip Christmas often reminds us of how difficult the Christian life truly is, and to these statements my head nods quite a bit. Entering into the story of Jesus, one of humility and complete surrender to God takes obedience and a commitment to living holy as He is holy. It's an emptying of oneself. It's hard, but it's beautiful. It's the Christmas story at its finest. Mary, Joseph and the shepherds aren't the only characters in this story. We can all find our place beside the manger if we step into the story of humility God offers us. When we do this, we redeem the ever important Christmas story and point the world to the Savior that came and is coming again.