What Christmas Means to Me

      Some people… dream of Christmases past, when toys were wooden and trees were real. They long for the simple joy that they experienced. or at least the joy that the want to recall. But Christmas has never been a thing of the past. Nor has it ever been a sentimental thing. Indeed, it is anything but sentimental. What is sentimental about walking to Bethlehem, with a pregnant fiancée in her middle teens? What is sentimental about not finding a room, or lying a newborn baby down in a feeding trough?

      Some people… think that Christmas should fit snugly into the ways of the world. They insist that it be every bit as commercial & grandiose as our holiday parades and TV specials are. But the first Christmas was unimaginably modest, and it didn’t fit into the ways of the world at all! Indeed, the good news was first proclaimed to lowly shepherds, who hadn’t heard good news in years, and then it was seen by some astrologers in Iran, who were wise enough to go and worship, and finally, as if the good news was working it way from the bottom up, it reached the ears of King Herod, who didn’t think it was good news at all!

Herod was mad as a hatter. He was crazier than a loon. He was a deceiver and a murderer, who killed his own family… and all the toddlers in Bethlehem. He was a fool, but even he knew that Christmas is neither a sentimental journey nor a moment of escape from the real world. Even he knew that a new King would be the end of him. If we were all wise enough worship and serve the King of Kings, it would be a sad day for the gods of money, pleasure, power…and it would spell the end of the “Baby king within,” (who demands that we worship ourselves and the things we think of, create, and desire). Herod was as mad as a hatter, but he was sane enough to take Christmas seriously, and he knew that unless it was squashed entirely, he and all other petty tyrants, would be dragged from their thrones- just as Mother Mary had prophesied.

      Christmas is the beginning of a new world order! It is not a pacifier for the status quo, but rather, a moment that changed our world forever. Christmas was the first step to Calvary; the first step toward Easter; the first step toward Pentecost; and it beckons each one of us to take our first step of discipleship. Christmas invites us to accept the Christ-child, to dream new dreams, to see our neighbors and ourselves in new ways, and to join the throng of believers who no longer march to the world’s drum beat. I love Christmas! I love its energy, I love its joy, I love to see the little ones in line for Santa, I love to see families gather, people being a bit kinder, people dropping in the Salvation Army kettles… and fruitcakes.
      I love Christmas, but I do NOT believe for a second- not for a single second- that Christmas is a sentimental moment, or a commercial orgy, or that it’s all about families, or kids, or make-believe, or even giving. Christmas is all about Christ! It is all about God Incarnate… and that is mind-boggling! If God was born in Bethlehem, our world can never be the same… because God came to turn things upside down! If you like things as they are, Christmas may not be for you…but if you long for a day when… every two-bit despot is disposed, and all of the so-called “little people” stand tall, and all of those who are lost and broken… are healed and saved…and when smiles break out in the most unexpected places…if you long for this day… if you’re tickled by the thought of it… and you’re excited about embracing it…then I must say, “Merry Christmas!” Merry Christmas indeed!