It is Christmas time! We are shopping, spending, decorating,
party planning, baking, cooking, crafting and stressing. We check our lists and
we check them twice. We make sure our children will all have the latest gadgets
and way more than they need. We wrap them all up and we place them under a
tree. We tell them lies about a man in a red suit just to add even more chaos
and false excitement, and all of this for one day of complete gluttony and self-indulgence.
And then somewhere hidden among all the chaos someone with good intentions
puts a billboard out that says “remember the reason for the season”. So we say
oh yeah and we put up a nativity scene and we tell our children that it is
Jesus’s birthday. And we tell them that
we do all this craziness for Jesus and that we give gifts because the wise men
gave Jesus gifts and Jesus is our gift from God and so therefore our gluttonous
overspending somehow makes since. We even come up with far-fetched symbolism
for how an evergreen tree and a candy cane mean something about Jesus. We punch people in the face for a Barbie doll.
We attend awkward family gatherings in our brand new outfits and put on fake
smiles then remember why we only get together for the Holidays. And after all
of this we can’t even see straight to know there is another way. Do you know
that there is no reason for this season? There is absolutely no reason for this season!
Even if we trace back the history, Christmas originated from a bunch of non-biblical
festivals, the winter solstice, worshiping the sun god, St Nicholas’s day, and
tree worship. Then some argue that Jesus
was born around this time, which by the way is a pointless argument because
even if we knew the exact date of His birth He has never commanded us to
celebrate such a thing. How easy would it have been for Him to tell us the date
of his birth and command us to celebrate it? He could have put it right there with
all the other commandments we so diligently break, so then we wouldn't need a
reason for the season because no one would celebrate it anyway. If you really
want to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ then think of
his birth everyday as you sin and humble yourself and then find that peace and
joy you were looking for from social gatherings, ham, and pecan pie and know
that true peace, joy, and hope comes from God who sent his Son to be born in
this miserable flesh, take on all of our sin, and die the death we deserve. I
like how John puts it “and the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of
grace and truth”(1:14) John didn't waste time on the birth story and all the
details he just went straight to the
life of Jesus. But if you must focus on the birth of Jesus then let’s go to
Matthew or Luke, I do love a good birth story! So picture this, nine months
pregnant riding on a donkey headed to the next town to pay your taxes. You
begin to have contractions so you and your husband search every inn just to
find a place to deliver your baby and rest. But guess what the town is busy
full of people, no vacancy. But you’re in luck the barn is empty and nobody
else wants to sleep in a barn so it is all yours. You deliver a baby boy, just
you and your husband, no monitors, no pain medicine, no special equipment. You hold your baby skin to skin, and while he
is breastfeeding you stare at him and know he is one special boy. Now he is sleeping peacefully. To keep him
warm you wrap him in some extra cloth you have. Nothing fancy, no Velcro tabs
to keep it swaddled, no cute little boy colors, just the same old cloth you
would use to wrap the dead in preparation for burial. Now you need a safe place
to lay him so you can get some rest. Wait where is the bassinet with all the
ruffles and soft mattress? You see a wooden box used to feed the animals and
you place some hay in the bottom and lay your baby there. You catch a little nap until you have some
visitors. No it’s not all the people enjoying their comfortable beds in the inn
or the inn keeper or the wise men. The shepherds came running from their fields
to tell you what the angels have just told them about your baby, a savior which
is Christ the Lord. You think back to when the angel appeared to you and you
hold these thoughts in your heart because you know this child is not yours but
is Gods and one day you will watch him die so you can be saved. Many years
later we will all go crazy buying things we don’t need, buying things for other
people that they don’t need and plan elaborate dinners with more food then we
should eat in a day and we will do all this to celebrate the day our Lord and Savior
came humbly into this world to save us from our own miserable selves. How absurd,
I no longer see it the same. I can no longer go along with this foolishness and
I will not pass this tradition on to my children. So call me a Grinch and laugh
at my stubbornness but I searched for a reason for the season and all I found was
self-indulgence, ungratefulness, materialism, greed, entitlement, idolatry, and
borderline tree worship. Go ahead have your gatherings, buy your gifts,
decorate your houses, but if you are trying to keep Christ in Christmas let him
out, he never asked to be there anyway.
Okay now that I got that out please if it sounds like I am
yelling at you. I am not. I am mad at myself. I am mad that I ever got caught
up in such a tradition and then began to pass it on to my children. I write
this for those of you also feeling this way and think you are alone. You are
not. A tradition is a habit and habits are hard to break but the easiest way is
cold turkey. So this December me and mine will be going cold turkey and on
December 25th and every day after we will always think of the birth
of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ because through his birth there was made a
way for his death and through his death our sins were covered and with our sins
covered we have eternal life which lends to hope and joy and peace. Now that’s something
to celebrate! But let’s not get carried away, Okay?
