"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:
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.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).
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.
Very Insightful!!!! I LOVE THE VERSE that you used...beautiful Job.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rai :).
ReplyDeleteThe believing Christian has more in common with the believing pagan than with the atheist, and I think we give Satan a foothold when we wage our own war against Christmas.
ReplyDeleteYou and I don't believe in Santa Claus, or any of the stop-motion-animated Christmas specials, but to a child there's not much difference between the magic of the Bible and the magic of commercialized Christmas. You can't tell a child not to believe that a fat bloke in a red suit can travel to every house in one night and then in the next breath except him to believe that a God can be in all places holding them together. You can't tell a child not to believe that a snowman can be brought to live and then in the next breath expect him to believe that God made man of clay; you can't tell them a child not to believe that same Snowman came back to life from being a puddle and then in the next breath expect him to believe that Jesus came back to life after being beaten and crucified.
Children certainly are influenced by commercial Christmas, but what happens in their homes and in their families will truly shape how they see holidays. Of course Jesus is the reason for the season, but to squelch a child's belief in fantasy risks squelching their ability to believe.
I wrote this poem on the topic about the time you were writing this blog post:
http://mathewdmeyer.blogspot.com/2014/02/messy-messy-messy.html
Hi Mat,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I am sorry it has taken me so long to respond to your comments. I do appreciate how your responses are close to as long as my blogs themselves! I enjoy conversations like these and therefore am grateful that I am finding a moment amidst my grad school papers and church work to respond!
Firstly, I agree wholeheartedly that what happens in the homes and families of children will shape how they view holidays and how they develop in their faith. It is because of this that I am so intentional about partnering with the families of the children and teenagers that I work with at church.
However, I believe there is a key problem in the church, primarily children's ministry, today when we make statements like, "squelching a child's belief in fantasy risks squelching their ability to believe." Too often in the church we limit a child's ability to truly experience God. We place them in toy ridden classrooms where Christian songs are played in the background and maybe a Bible story is read and call that Christian education. We assume that because they are younger they cannot begin their relationships with Jesus, or that we cannot expect much to be happening within their hearts and minds during the Sunday School hour. As a Family Ministries Director, I have huge problems with these assumptions. I know from experience and research that children can in fact experience God, and do not need the magical, imaginative creatures of Santa and the Easter Bunny to do so. In fact, I have see where belief in these characters has hurt a child's prospective of God, not helped it.
As a child I never believed in Santa, ever. My parents always told me he wasn't real. I knew when we watched The Year Without A Santa Clause, Santa wasn't real in the same way the Mother Nature character wasn't real. This did not hurt my imagination or my ability to believe in God. In fact, as a four year old I asked Jesus to forgive me for the bad things I had done and come live in my heart. I experienced God as a child. He was real to me, as real as my parents and it had nothing to do with my ability to believe in Santa, because as I said, I didn't, but I did believe in God.
On the flip side, when I was in high school, I nannied for a family who not only believed Santa, but fairies and other mystical creatures. One day when playing outside, they showed me a tree that they informed me the fairies had created. I attempted to tell them that no, God created that tree to which they responded, well the fairies helped. These children are now older, and I watch them wrestle in making God less of a mystical being in the sky and a personal God who desires a real relationship with each one of them. When God gets mixed together with magical beings that do not exist, he tends to remain a grandfather in the sky.
Doesn't this seem to defeat the purpose of Christmas in the first place. The incarnation is God leaving heaven and coming to earth to enter into the brokenness and darkness. It is God with us, not God above us. Instead of limiting children to only viewing God in a magical, mystical sense, let us invite them to experience him in their lives. Yes, he is mysterious, he should cause us to feel wonder and awe, but he should also cause us to feel great love and closeness.
Besides, I was not criticizing those who don't tell their children Santa isn't real. I was merely stating that Christmas should be a season of remembering to be humble, like a baby wrapped in a manger. So, here I humbly say, raise your children as you wish, but please do not limit their ability to truly experience God. You'll be amazed at what you learn from them as they do.
As a child experiencing the love of God during a time of worship said, "I love God seventy sixty million times!" Oh to experience the love of God like that!