Christmas is…both overwhelmingly broad and at least a little about Jesus
Every Christmas, one of the repeating truths that strike me about this season is how broad and comprehensive Christmas is. Christmas is accepting in a masterful, unconscious, way. It's worth a moment to marvel at.
When you stop and think about it, it is pretty amazing the way Christmas seems to seamlessly combine the piety of a crèche and the revelry of a holiday party, the greed of a kid in a toy store and the generosity of a Salvation Army pot. Christmas is an endlessly dazzling mix of light lights on a dark background and the blend of both Pagan and Christian myths. When you stop to think about it, Christmas has found a way to evolve into an umbrella of so many contrasting things that it is its own dare I say it Christmas miracle. I just love all that Christmas has become.
Christmas is…the mark in history that reset the calendars to the birth of an eternally important baby, which was set at the time of the year because it was the time of year our pre-historical ancestors noted the sun began its return. How cool a mash up is that?
It is about getting stupid at a holiday party, as much as it is about the now awkwardly cute, animated Rudolph and Charlie Brown specials.
Christmas is about disconnected and mobile families trying to be together, just like it is about the wonder we see in kids’ eyes who still believe in Santa.
The holiday is about the season that saves the bacon of all retail businesses, and an earnest pause in one of your favorite hymns in beautifully dim candlelight. I’m as good with Santa being rebooted in yet another new movie, as I am driving around and enjoying the pretty lights people put up.
Christmas is the most consumer-centric moment on the calendar, and it is also the most generous. That is frankly, pretty cool.
I have no real beef with the fact that this is a season to be generous, prompted by the deadline of tax deductions. And Christmas is a model of that.
Life always has to weave together the most sacred and profane instincts and needs, and Christmas might just be the best example of that.
I love that the noble hero who arrives on Christmas to save us from sin, comes in the unlikely form of an infant. An infant who is a stand in for the ever so regrowing sun in the sky.
I had a moment in my teens when I was a little bit persnickety in a Christian sense about Christmas being a religious holiday about Jesus. It was brief. I have let that feeling go.
Just let it be. We need Christmas, or something like it.
I want every kid in the world to get everything they want for Christmas, and I want you to get as much out of it too.
However, and here is where this simple article takes a little turn. Without being a zealot, I invite you to take a pause to remember that the baby we talk about on Christmas Eve is revered because his legacy as an adult was such an impressive example of what it looks like to live with passion, kindness, and bravery.
It saddens me that we are approaching the time in our culture when, so few people go to church that the average person is as likely to learn about Christmas from a “YouTube” video or a special on A&E. Given that, I pray and invite you to remember that among all that in part- we celebrate Christmas because Jesus was ahead of his time in calling for society to transform itself into a kingdom of love and justice.
Let’s not lose that in all the tinsel and wrapping paper that Jesus called for a radical transformation of the world to be one of grace and peace.
I love the irony of the fact that the guy who painfully died on a tree, probably believing that he failed to reform and liberate his own religion, likely has no idea that he started the world’s largest religion and in doing became the most famous human of all time.
I’m not a purist. I understand that Jesus is an amalgam of stories and fictions. I get that Christmas is now permanently part of a capitalist marketing machine, I know that most of what we call Christmas was freely and unapologetically stolen from the Pagan traditions. I get it.
So, go shop, eat, drink, be merry. But don’t forget that the cute baby we talk about came to know that the earth is only healed when we put down the guns, share the wealth, turn the other cheek, rebel against what is wrong, and tell ourselves that our potential is nearly limitless.
Christmas may not be all about Jesus, and shouldn’t be, but Jesus makes Christmas better, and I encourage you not to forget that.
Steve
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