It’s over.
Another Christmas has come and gone, and I for one am exhausted.
I got caught up in a frenzy this holiday season, but not the usual frenzy of shopping and consuming (although I did a bit of both, I must admit). No, I allowed myself to get caught up in the Christian frenzy that begins every December 1st. Something happens to Christians at Christmas time. Bibles come out, Jesus becomes an all-consuming focus, and Santa Claus and materialism turn into the sole contributors for America’s moral decay.
Seems to me like Santa Claus is given more credit than he’s due.
Meanwhile, parents desperately attempt to counter Santa Claus’ power by inundating their kids with the true meaning of Christmas. As long as our kids know the answer to that one vital question, we’ve succeeded, right? If they can tell their grandparents, teachers, or preferably a random passerby whose birthday we will celebrate on December 25th, we pat ourselves on the back and deem the season a success.
I did everything I was supposed to do this Christmas. It just never went as planned. Maybe my kids aren’t as spiritual as they should be, but they didn’t sit on the edge of their seats when we did the Jesse tree. In fact, they did everything but sit still and listen. At least one of us was crying by the end of our time together each evening. Not exactly how I saw it going in my head. I tried really hard to give them special memories to last their lifetimes, but they just didn’t seem to appreciate all the important things I was trying to do for them. Making sugar cookies, for instance…I hate making sugar cookies (Gasp!!). Don’t deny that you hate getting them from little kids too. You know they are full of boogers and drool. Well, I did the good mom thing, but it resulted in a different child in time out for the entire experience.
Yes, memories to last a lifetime. That’s what we made…
What surprises me most, though, is how many blogs, sermons, and articles are written about how to keep Christ in Christmas as if this is somehow a radical idea. Don’t get me wrong. I think there is something very holy and beautiful about Christmas. But keeping Christ in Christmas isn’t radical. Jesus is everywhere at Christmas. Walmart plays songs about him during the same month we frantically tell our kids about his birth. Many of the real-life influential leaders in our country’s moral decay suddenly proclaim Christ’s birth through our stereos. We give to the poor. We take a stand against materialism. For one month, we are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
And then it’s over, and everything goes back to the way it was. The Bibles go back on the shelves, traditions melt into normalcy, our passionate pursuit of the Messiah in the manger dissipates into complacency, and all our efforts to live radically leave us unchanged on January 2nd. We can’t keep our resolutions because we haven’t been transformed by the One who came to turn our lives upside down.
A REAL encounter with the Messiah doesn’t leave us unchanged.
What if we pursued the God-incarnate miracle of Jesus as passionately in February as we do in December?
What if God’s Holy Word actually became our daily bread instead of an annual feast?
What if we were as worried about teaching our kids the true meaning of life as we are about teaching them the true meaning of Christmas?
What if we changed the way we live so that giving to the poor becomes a way of life instead of a special occasion?
What if we realized that our own complacency is a greater threat to our children’s faith than Santa Claus ever will be?
Now THAT would be radical!
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