I love most of the things we do at Christmas time.
- the lighting of the Advent wreath
- candlelight Christmas Eve service
- familiar Christmas songs
- familiar Christmas scriptures
But I want to make sure that we don't fall into simple sentimentalism here. Christmas should be meaningful! I mean this is the celebration of Jesus' Birth - and given our theology, that's a BIG deal!
Remember who we Christians say Jesus is? Yeah...he's God in human flesh. The first Christmas was a universe-shaking event, it literally changed everything. This is the day that God became human - for us, for all creation. God became a living, breathing, cooing, drooling, pooping baby boy named Jesus.
That's pretty meaningful. Christmas says so much to us about a God - OUR God - who loves his creatures so much that He was willing to become one of us. This isn't a God that stays remote up in heaven, not caring, not involved - our God became one of US.
So to commemorate this...we buy crap.
Seriously, we (and I include myself here) buy stuff we don't need, that really has no use but to satisfy our own lust for material possessions.
And I know - a pastor ranting against materialism at this point is old news. Churches have been seeking to combat what Christmas has become in our secular culture with what Christmas should be about for like...ever. But t-shirts saying "Jesus is the reason for the season" doesn't do much. And it seems that the Church's activity has only become a part of this big meaningless Christmas. All the candles and decorations and music points to Jesus Christ - but we've sentimentalized it all.
How can we have a MEANINGFUL CHRISTMAS that truly truly celebrates the coming of Jesus - that reflects the love of our God who came to US as one of us to save us?
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