I sat down to write this and realized how silly it was. I mean, Facebook has pretty much made the Christmas letter obsolete. And my five real-life friends who aren’t on Facebook are here and heard me talk about this stuff all year long. Why write what happened over the past year? EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS!!! (I’m not even mailing this. It’s a blog post. The world has changed, my friends.)
So what to write about at Christmas? Well, it’s pretty simple--duh, Santa and the reindeer. (Just kidding, Mom.) What do we (edit--what SHOULD we) focus on at Christmas?
Well, “it came to pass” two thousand years ago that a teenager named Mary had to tell her fiance that she was pregnant. And oh, by the way, Joseph? The baby is the promised Messiah, the son of God. (Sure he is, Mary. Sure he is.) Angelic messengers set the record straight, and in the face of serious opposition Joseph married her anyway. They went down to Bethlehem for the census and to pay their taxes (because the government has never made anything easy for anybody) and while they were there she gave birth in a barn. And put her baby in the box the where the cattle had their food.
Smelly shepherds barged in, straight from the fields. The poor girl must have been terrified! Wise men came later bringing such strange gifts as gold, frankincense, and myrrh (which is used to anoint the dead--did they know more than they were letting on?). Joseph took his wife and child into Egypt to escape the madness of a jealous king. Finally, they arrived home safely in the little village of Nazareth. Baby Jesus had a rough start, no?
Some of my friends will say that we celebrate Christmas because 1700 years ago Christians needed a feast that would compete with Saturnalia, or the feast of the Winter Solstice. This is true, and they have a valid point. But that’s not why we celebrate Christmas. That’s just why we celebrate it on December 25.
The reason why we celebrate Christmas is that a baby was born with his eyes on the cross; Baby Jesus would grow up to die, and then to rise again, to bridge the gap between God and humanity. To seek and to save that which was lost. To bring deliverance to the captives. To return in glory with trumpets and a mighty shout.
People complain about the commercialization of Christmas. Well, it’s really always been commercial (see previous paragraph referencing Winter feasts). Let the world have its presents and reindeer and fat men in red suits breaking and entering every house on the entire planet. We celebrate our Savior alongside them, just as we always have.
Oh--watch the Hershey kisses handbells if you can. It’s still the coolest commercial ever.
Merry Christmas!
