A Christmas that glorifies Christ

What if we celebrated Christmas like it was all about Christ? Oh wait. It is. Then why does Christ only receive our partial attention during the holiday meant to celebrate his coming? Good question.

Christmas has become to us a part of our culture. Christians and non-Christians alike celebrate, often in ways that are far too similar. As we (followers of Christ) are to be set apart from the world every day of our lives, how much more should we be different on the day we celebrate our Savior's birth? And by different, I mean VERY different. Going to church on Christmas Eve and reading the Christmas story together does not qualify as different. These things are great ways to fix our hearts on Christ and should not be abandoned, but when our minds are on shopping and planning (even while we sit in church), our rituals are not pleasing to God. Does this mean we should totally forgo all of the typical Christmas traditions? Maybe, maybe not. There's nothing wrong with Santa and gift giving and food and decorations, but when Christ becomes merely a side note rather than the center of our Christmas celebration, we have a problem. The problem is primarily in our hearts, our motives, our attitudes.

How can we fix this problem? We need to rethink Christmas. We should look at the way we celebrate and ask ourselves if our celebration pleases the Lord. To get down to the core of the matter, we essentially need to ask ourselves how Jesus wants us to celebrate his coming. Now I have a feeling that if we were honest with ourselves, we would realize that our celebration of Christmas is totally not the way Jesus wants it to be. Take gift giving, for example. The concept of gift giving is totally appropriate for Christmas; as God gave us the gift of his Son, we give gifts at Christmastime. However, gift giving often becomes more of an obligation than a pleasure. That's not how God gave us Jesus. God sent Jesus because he loves us and not because of anything we did to deserve him. God gave this gift to people who wronged him, denied him, hated him (yes, that's us). Maybe Jesus wants us not only to give to those who love us back and can give to us in return, but to people who don't love us back or can't give anything in return. That's what he did. Think about the way most of us have at least one big Christmas meal with extended family. Fellowship is critical, and food is sustenance, but what about the people who don't have family to eat with or even food to eat? Jesus said that we can find him in the hungry, thirsty, naked, and sick, the strangers and prisoners. Maybe we could celebrate the coming of Christ by serving these people with our families. We could make some extra food for Christmas dinner and take it to hungry people. We could clean out our closets (often our old Christmas gifts!) and give clothes to people who need them. You get the idea. Christmas is about CHRIST, not about us.

Christmas edition

I like music. A lot. So when Christmas comes around and I get to bring out another whole collection of music, I get pretty pumped. However, Christmas music serves as so much more for me than a thing to be enjoyed. It reminds me of what we are celebrating at Christmas time. You see, I like Jingle Bells and Frosty, but the Christmas songs that I really love are about the coming of our Savior. So from now until Christmas, I'll be blogging about some of my favorite Christmas songs.

One song that I listened to for the first time this year is by Shane and Shane, and it's called Born to Die. The first and last verses are my favorites:

"When the babe was born.
In a manger on the hay.
God saw a veil torn.
He saw Good Friday.
He was born to die.

We came here today
to celebrate His birth.
But let us not forget
why Jesus came to earth.
He was born to die."

This song kind of reminds me of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Journey of the Magi." The end of the poem goes like this:

"This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death."

This is way deeper than I can comment on, so take from it what you will. But my point in writing about this song and this poem is to emphasize the fact that Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Christ, but it's also a time to remember why he came to earth in the first place. He was born to die. For us. The Son of God put on flesh so that we might be reconciled to God. That's pretty amazing stuff. I mean, really. If you're not blown away by the fact that the God of the universe loves you that much, you should be. So in the midst of the Christmas parties and presents and travels, remember and be thankful that the Father sent his Son to earth to live and to die, not because we deserve it, but because He loves us.

semester one [almost] done

This semester, I've come to realize more than ever the bigness of God and the smallness of me. It snowed the other day, and I got really excited, but after I had time for one snowball fight and didn't even get to make a snowman (after about a day), the snow began to melt. I moved to Union in August to begin my first semester in college, and now I'm soon to finish out the semester and head to Birmingham for Christmas break. Good stuff (and bad stuff too) eventually comes to an end. As I am coming to terms with the fact that the stuff of this world--yes, even things that are good and right--ends, I am more and more in awe of my God who has no beginning or end. He is the only eternal good. That means we should seek to invest in what is His (His kingdom, His people) because these things of God are the only things that last.


13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins. James 4:13-17.

6 A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. 7 The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:6-8