Some people say Christmas season doesn't start until after Thanksgiving. Others say it starts after Halloween. Personally, I start feeling a little festive October 25th, the Two Months Before Christmas Day... day. I may or may not have been part of a four person effort that decorated a few trees and light posts on campus with paper made Christmas ornaments last year. These ornaments may or may not have been in the shape of Christmas Dinosaurs, (because everyone knows that Dinosaurs are awesome, and I bet that if you asked a Dinosaur what his or her favorite holiday was, it would be Christmas).
The other day at work, a friend and co-worker mentioned putting on some Christmas tunes in the kitchen where we were busy making some hot toasted sandwiches. You see, when Josh Groban starts singing O Holy Night, I get jacked up and my productivity increases tenfold. Same goes for Mariah Carey's rendition of All I Want for Christmas is You.
But then an unspeakable horror occurred. (Well not really unspeakable because I'm going to talk about it right here). Another co-worker mentioned how she hated Christmas music and how she "quit" Christmas years ago. SHE QUIT CHRISTMAS! You can't do that! It's not like smoking or drinking, a bad habit something that you can just quit!
In all fairness, she was not digging any of the commercialism and has young kids who probably bug the crap out of her when December rolls around. So she isn't the biggest Grinch around. And she said something to the effect of "It's Christmas everyday." And I'm pretty sure I understood what she meant.
Or maybe I didn't understand at all what she was thinking, but this is what I thought about.
The idea of Christmas is something that is integral to my daily life. It's a key component of the Gospel. I'm not talking about any our silly traditions that revolve around Santa (or if you switch the letters around, Satan! Oh my!) cutting down trees and exchanging of gifts of course. But what Christmas celebrates is an incredible thing. The birth of Jesus, the realization of years of Jewish prophecy in the Old Testament, the beginning of sin's ultimate demise, begins the most important story of all time.
I believe that Christmas can be summed up in John 1:14 which says:
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
God came to dwell among us! This wasn't the first time God decided to dwell with man. In the past God's presence dwelt among the nation of Israel as they wondered the desert and His presence was made known by a tremendous sight as Exodus 40:38 says "For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys"
But this dwelling among men is different in Jesus. I imagine that a giant pillar of fire is real intimidating and scary. Something so powerful, so holy, so perfect cannot be approached by man. Remember that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark (I love Harrison Ford! Han Solo, Indiana Jones, what a guy!) when those creepy Nazi guys open of the Ark of the Covenant and power inside the Ark, melts their faces? Yeah, I'd say that's actually an accurate picture of how we can't grasp and even stand to be in the presence of a perfect God, or that a just and righteous God can't stand to be in the presence of sinful people.
But in Jesus, God became man. He became an approachable baby in a manger in Roman occupied Israel, a far less terrifying sight than a tornado of fire leading a nation that would conquer the Holy Land. Through him, we have access to the father, to eternal life. We don't have to cower in fear before God. God came down to meet with us.
The holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas are inseparable in my mind. Because the thing I am most thankful for is that "...Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:5-11.
Also, I think Easter is sweet too, but we can talk about Easter at the appropriate time, which is obviously, New Years, or maybe Presidents day?
Happy Thanksgiving everyone
No comments:
Post a Comment