Last year I watched the Peanuts Christmas special for the first time since being a kid. I had little interest, but my daughter was finally old enough to care, so we watched it together. The show is about Charlie Brown's struggle to get the "true meaning of Christmas." All his friends argue for the hoopla, and it really gets him stressed and depressed. When Charlie's frustration reaches its peak, Linus stands up to tell everyone the "true meaning of Christmas". He quotes from Luke 2. I jumped out of my chair and pumped my fists in the air. "YES!" I loved it. Thank you Charles Schultz, and thank God for you.
Awesome, but I'd like to take you a slightly different direction. Let's go with the technically true meaning of "Christmas":
The results of Messiah.
Christos is Greek for Messiah, the one God promised to send to save Israel and the world. Mas is a suffix that we see in other words like charisma, diploma, enigma, and Alabama (okay, not that last one). The suffix means "the results of" or "in relation to".
So, everything that results form Jesus is, technically speaking, the true meaning of Christmas.
I no longer stand condemned. Merry Christmas! I am connected to the loving family of God. Merry Christmas! I am a part of ushering in the Kingdom of God to redeem the world. Merry Christmas!
As I think this through, one of the "Christmas-es" (the results of his coming) is this ornate over-the-top festival at the end of December. If the church did not pump this hol(y)day up as the birth of Jesus, it would have never become this big.
Along with a lot of silliness associated with Christmas is the beauty of gift-giving and family fellowship and giving to charity. All over the world people feel the merry results of his coming.
Okay, since this is really about the results of Jesus, what ought to be the defining features of how we celebrate Christmas?
1 comment:
Sorry it has taken me a while to respond. Busyness. Whatever. Anyway, I think the marks of celebrating Jesus' birth should be giving gifts to Jesus, as opposed to one another. How you say? I think Matthew 25 lays out a pretty good model - by giving to those in need. WHen we serve the needy, we serve Jesus. When we give sacrifically to those who are hurting, it is to Jesus we really give.
No more thinking of all the junk we don't need that others don't need to buy for us. No more beating one another down just to get some deal on something. No more selfishness. No more worry about Wal-mart taking the Christ out of Christmas because they aren't very much involved in the real celebration anyway.
That's how I would define an appropriate celebration of the coming of the Christ child.
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