Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Tis the Season to be... Discontent?

Oh my goodness, it’s finally here.  It’s Christmas time; my absolute favorite time of the year.  The family is all together, sipping cider or hot chocolate or coffee.   I and the missus are snuggled together in our warm sweaters and stockings.  Garland and tinsel are on the tree and chestnuts are roasting on the open fire while the stockings hang from the mantle. As I look out the window, I see the snow drifting down softly. Then, as if on cue, I see my neighbor walking by with his dog leash in one hand and holding his young daughter’s hand with the other.  I raise my cup of chocolate as he passes by in a gesture of greeting.  He responds with a slight tip of his hat while his daughter waves eagerly… (Insert screeching tire followed by a crashing car wreck sound effects)  

Right, whose reality is that other than Norman Rockwell or Clement Clark Moore? Have you been to WalMart or Target lately?   Have you seen the horrific look on people’s faces in the ungodly traffic?  Have you even seen your neighbor walk his dog lately?  And around here if snow is falling outside, the world is probably coming to an end.  Is there a more hectic – or stressful - time of the year than Christmas?  Plus it seems like this year everyone is hell-bent on killing each other...literally.  What on earth is the point of all this absolute insanity?

It wasn’t always like that, you know.  Normal Rockwell was inspired by something real that actually existed in our culture at one point.  There was a time when Christmas was about spending time with family and creating lifelong memories. There was a time when Christmas was first and foremost about the birth of Christ and only secondarily about all the other stuff. That just does not exist anymore.  Now Christmas is about the lights, the parties, and the shopping.
  
I can’t help but think that the guy who really had it all figured out and saw this madness coming was Charlie Brown.  A Charlie Brown Christmas has always been one of my favorite Christmas shows, but not necessarily because Charlie Brown was lamenting the commercialization of Christmas.  It's just a good, wholesome Christmas story.  As a child, though, Charlie Brown was the odd one out.  As a child, I always related more to snoopy and the rest of the gang, wanting Christmas to be bigger and better.  Well, now it is.  The irony is that even while Charlie Brown longed for a simpler Christmas, the Peanuts Christmas is still far closer to the Normal Rockwell vision than the Christmas I see today.  Hey, even in A Charley Brown Christmas they were still doing Christmas plays and going Christmas caroling.  If only…

Christmas today is more like Jingle All the Way than it is A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been Arnold Schwarzenegger (not that I am built like he is or anything – only in my Christmas dreams - but I have been the guy going all over town looking for THE gift).  We all have at some point.  I just wonder what good old Charlie Brown would say about Christmas in 2012.  Have you watched the commercials this year?  I cannot even put into words the pressure being put on us by the commercial machine to spend more and more of our money.  Half the commercials are preying on our greed and materialism.  The other half are preying on the guilt that comes with the obligation of gift giving – cheerfully and happily (read that manipulatively) encouraging us to be the better gifter. And all of them are preying on that unexplainable instinct to get the best possible deal.  For pity’s sake, Black Friday started on Thanksgiving evening this year!  Now that is just plain WRONG.  A few places even had Black Friday specials before Thanksgiving!  The worst part to me is the trend this year for the big chain stores to hijack our Christmas Carols and rewrite them as their own personal commercial jingle.  Have you heard these (shake head back in forth demonstrating shameful disdain).  

And then there is all of the going and doing.  I was so busy the first weekend in December that I literally had difficulty going to work on Monday morning because I was too exhausted and worn out.  There are parties, and band concerts, and church functions, and family gatherings, and work gatherings.  Plus, in our new found culture of altruistic thinking (because, after all, it is not about us), we all have to try and squeeze in some volunteer time at the non-profit flavor of the day.  It’s no wonder we are all so discontent.   I can’t wait for New Years, so I can get some rest and life can get back to normal!  Am I the only one that is exhausted already?  Like the gang in A Charlie Brown Christmas, we have lost sight of what Christmas is really about.

Here’s where I could be the legalistic, fundamental, self-righteous Christian.  Here’s where I could say “Jesus is the reason for the season.”  Or the latest mantra – It’s “Merry CHRISTmas, not Happy Holidays!”  Let’s all just put Christ back in Christmas, right?  The question is – who would care?  Who would listen?  I can’t brow beat you into my expectation for a Jesus-oriented Merry Christmas mood. At best it would make you feel guilty.  At worst, it would turn you off.  Of course, Jesus is the reason for the season, but that is not going to fix our discontentment or make our Christmas any less hectic.

I don’t want to make you feel guilty.  Instead, I think I would like to remind you of something a bit more basic. I would just like to take a moment and tell you a little bit about the JOY that is this thing we call Christmas.  I want to try and offer some JOY for your life – to encourage you to seek that JOY - and hope you find enough  of that JOY to help you through this insanity that we have created called the Holiday Season.

“Behold, I bring you good of great JOY that will be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

JOY to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king.”

“When [the wise men] saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great JOY.”

Lest we forget, Christmas is all about JOY.  Yes it is about the birth of Christ; and no, Jesus was not really born on December 25.  However, this is the day we have set aside to especially remember his advent and it is supposed to bring us JOY.  Why?  Aren’t we supposed to remember his advent every other day?  Absolutely.  But on the day Jesus was born, angels declared JOY TO THE WORLD.  The coming of Jesus was to bring us gladness.  The coming of Jesus was to bring us JOY.  Jesus himself said that his teachings were so that “my JOY may be in you, and that your JOY may be complete.”  I look around my house and I see at least 3 sets of JOY figurines.  Christmas is all about the JOY of the Lord.




Listen… nothing I can say can make you have JOY this Christmas.  In fact, if you do not know this Jesus and have not placed your faith in him, there is a good chance you cannot have JOY this Christmas.  Even for the rest of us, celebrating his birth will not bring JOY because the JOY is not in the birth itself, but in what he did after he was born.  It was his life and, yes, it was his death.  More importantly, it was his resurrection from the dead and what that means for us – none of which would have been possible without his birth, of course.  So we celebrate his birth with gladness and JOY - or at least that was the idea.

All I am asking is that you take a moment to STOP.  Somewhere in this busy, hectic, discontented season, let’s all just STOP - if for a moment.  Don’t get me wrong.  The Commercial Christmas is here to stay.  We are still going to be bombarded with a department-store redefinition of the holidays.  We are still going to have more to do than we can handle.  I get that.  I’m no different… I’m even trying to sell my book as a last-minute Christmas present (enter shameless plug: www.tinyurl.com/faithbeyondbelief).  All I am saying is that we take a step back, take a deep breath, and then take a moment of silence and peace to just think about the JOY of our salvation.  As it says in Habakkuk 3:18 (not your normal Christmas passage):

“Yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take JOY in the God of my salvation.”

And another, Psalm 46:10 (also not your normal Christmas passage):

“Be still, and know that I am God.”  Stillness would be nice right about now...

Merry Christmas.

Comments are welcome.

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