I remember, as a kid, that my father had some interesting sayings and retorts to all kinds of statements. He had a whole list of them. When he told me to hurry up and do something, or to get ready to go somewhere, and he was impatiently waiting on me, or someone else, and we replied, “I’m coming!”, he’d say, “So’s Christmas!” Or, to me he’d say, “So’s Christmas, sunshine!”
Well, Christmas is coming up on us all very quickly! By the time you’re reading this Christmas will be two weeks away. Are you ready?
I don’t know about you but “Christmas” is a very different thing in our neck of the woods than it was twenty or thirty years ago. It looks different. It feels very different. Many of the traditional-cultural ways we have known, appreciated and experienced the Christmas season in Melbourne’s north, have come under various pressures. Some of these have even disappeared from view altogether as political correctness policies and cultural over-sensitivity have been imposed upon us by the various powers that be. Local councils, schools, kindergartens and so on have, for some years, banned any kind of Christmas celebration – decorations, carol singing etc. – whilst, at the same time, enjoying the public holidays the Christmas season provides. These have not been banned, of course. Perhaps not quite hypocritical, but definitely ironic.
Christmas, as some of us more senior citizens have previously known it, has forever changed. Whenever I hear those real Christmas carols being played (not the jingle bells variety, the real carols) strong nostalgias are evoked. In Box Hill, where I grew up, each Christmas morning the (real) bells of St Andrews Presbyterian Church rang out across the suburb. We could clearly see the bell tower from our loungeroom window 4 kms away – and the bells were clearly heard … “Joy to the world” … “The first Noel” … great memories.
In commercial, retail terms Christmas has become another themed selling-buying season where the focus is on ever-increasing consumption, overspending and, dare I say it, greed.
But I have not lost hope about how I will journey through Christmas again this year. Yes, we’ll all worship on Christmas Day – I love that! We’ll exchange gifts and cards. We’ll share food, and so on. And all that is great, and special. But, Christmas as we have known it from the broader cultural perspective with all the bureaucratic impositions and limitations now placed upon its celebration - and all the secular disregard and disrespect for what it means - is no more.
I will not lament this too much, though, because whilst “Christmas” as we’ve known it has changed – the story has not!
The story remains the same. God sent His Son, into the world because He loved the world so much …
John 3:16 (NIV)
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
God never imposed “Christmas” upon the world. He made Himself vulnerable … the Word became flesh … and tabernacled amongst us … lived with us, full of grace and truth. In a very real sense, God came to earth incognito – almost secretly. In the same way, we must not seek to rescue “Christmas” from the machinations and manipulations of our secular culture. Yes, of course, let’s celebrate and re-hear and retell the real story that never changes, and bear witness to it with the way we live for Him who is our Saviour. This often means being vulnerable as we “tabernacle” here …
John 1:4-5 (NIV)
“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
The ever-evolving commercial pageantry of secular Christmas portrayals can never change the true Advent story. The light of Jesus’ coming will never be extinguished no matter how thick the darkness becomes. That light is in the people of God, and we must let it shine before men and women – and never hide it, nor impose it. Let the light do the talking …
Isaiah 60:1-2 (NIV)
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. 2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and His glory appears over you.”
Think on these things.
Happy Christmas.
Ps Milton