What I Want for Christmas

Please listen to this song.

"And how did little Tim behave?'' asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold,'' said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.''

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

I'll go ahead and admit that I can't read that without tears springing to my eyes. I can't talk about it without getting too choked up to speak. I seriously can't even hear that line in bold spoken by Kermit the Frog without openly crying. (By the way - The Muppet Christmas Carol happens to be my favorite film adaptation of the book, hands down.)

Listen to this song, too, please.

By far, my favorite ornament on my parents' Christmas tree is the one of the Baby in the manger with Santa Claus, hat in hand, kneeling by His side in humble worship. I kinda have a soft spot for Santa Claus in the first place (which I'm sure is an earth-shattering surprise for all of you - a big jolly fat guy like me with a penchant for cookies is a fan of Santa?), but once you get the two personifications of Christmas reunited in that kind of thing, cheesy as it may be to some, I just can't help but get all sniffly.

I suppose I should let you know that I seriously cry at the drop of a hat anytime between the day after Thanksgiving and Boxing Day. "Good King Wenceslas," "O, Holy Night," well-timed renditions of the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's Messiah... The tears, they flow.

It's Christmas. Listen to some music.

Last year, it seemed like everybody was upset about Christmas becoming too Christian, what with its roots in the pagan solstice celebrations. This year, however, I'm seeing the exact opposite - I'm seeing people pitching absolute fits about how Christmas isn't Christian enough. Things like "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" and "Keep Christ in Christmas" keep popping up, as bumper stickers (on cars that cut people off in traffic and park illegally in handicapped zones), as shirts and sweaters (on people whose mouths do not in any way match their wardrobe), and as bullet points in political commentary (from people who make their living by villainizing anyone who disagrees with them).

And you know what? I'm really 110% behind the idea of keeping Christmas Christian.

I'd just like to see more folks living up to the standard that they're holding the rest of the world to.

I don't mind people getting up in arms to remind people that Christmas has traditional ties to the birth of Jesus and that we should all live more Christ-like lives because of it - I just want to see those same people do the Christ-like living part, too.

If Christians got half as mad about their own unrighteousness as they do the world's unrighteousness, we'd all be a whole lot better off.

Especially at Christmas.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say that December 25th actually is the correct date for the birth of Christ, just to make the "Reason for the Season" arguments correct.

Now, if Christmas really is a big birthday party for Jesus, which present do you think He would prefer:

1. A crowd of people loudly telling everybody else that they're messing up His party, especially when everybody else already chose not to attend in the first place?
2. A group of people coming together to focus on Him, no matter what everybody else is doing, no matter what day of the year it is?

I'm not saying we can't remind folks that the reason we, as Christians, choose to celebrate Christmas is as a remembrance of the birth of Christ. That's fine.

I just would prefer to see us do it with our lives instead of rhyming slogans on hastily designed bumper stickers.

I want to be like Tiny Tim. If people see me and they remember the birth of the One who made the deaf hear, then I'm happy.

But more than that, I want people to see me and remember the death of the One who made me righteous.

I want people to see my life and remember the resurrection of the One who transformed me from wretched, broken, dying sinner to sanctified, restored, living child of God.

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

Merry Christmas (whether you like it or not)

(If you have known me for more than one Christmas season, you've probably heard me pushing this song as one of the greatest Christmas messages of all time. I still stick by it, and I'd still heartily recommend you listen to it, especially if you want to get into some of the same headspace I was in while writing this post. The lyrics may be found here.)

It's Christmas.

In Las Vegas, Nevada, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has purchased several billboards with messages such as "Heathen's Greetings," "Reason's Greetings," and "Yes, Virginia... There Is No God." (More info on that here. Please accept my sincerest apologies - both women make me mad to no end.)

In malls across America, people are maxing out their credit cards and depleting their savings accounts in attempts to buy happiness for themselves and their loved ones.

I have absolutely no money, and even though I know my family knows that, I still feel the incredible pressure of trying to put together a gift for everybody, even though I know that they are happy just to have me around for the holidays. And yet, at the exact same time, my impatient materialistic side is still twitching nervously, wondering what I'll get this year. I've got far, far, far more than I could ever need, but I still don't have everything I want, and I somehow think that to be sufficient grounds for complaint.

And finally, perhaps most bafflingly of all, I've got atheist friends and Christian friends alike complaining about the "Christianization" of a pagan holiday, the winter solstice festival, into a supposed remembrance of the birth of Christ.

I think that to recognize that "Christmas" is not originally a Christian holiday is good, but I think that to intentionally divorce any Christian purpose from Christmas is a mistake.

Whether Christ was born on the 25th of December or not doesn't matter.

What matters is that we come together on one of the coldest, darkest days of the year and share in each other's love and presence*.

God called Abram out of Ur in Babylon, and used the systems Abram already understood from his pagan worldview (such as circumcision and sacrifices) to transform him into Abraham, a man with a new worldview, one centered on the true God. There are aspects of Babylonian culture all across early Israelite culture. The entire book of Deuteronomy is modeled after a Babylonian treaty form.

But God can still use those pagan ideas to show us something holy.

And I think that is EXACTLY what can happen with Christmas, if we let it.

If we choose to focus on the fact that our modern Christmas descends from a pagan seasonal festival, then of course it's hard to find the Baby in the manger fitting in naturally.

But if we choose to focus on the celebration of the birth of the Child, no matter what day of the year it really was, and use that celebration as a time to rekindle the flames of family and friendship, especially in the hardest, loneliest, dreariest, coldest part of the year, then it can become quite natural to see Christmas as a holy thing. And not just natural - but good.

God is not unwilling to meet us where we are. He met earlier Christians in the snowy fields of Europe, gathered around their Yule logs, and helped them tie their Winter Solstice celebrations to His Son.

And so He still can - and, if we allow Him, will - meet us, here and now, with our stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists, and He will transform us into the people we were meant to be, celebrating the birth and life of His Son all year long, but taking a special day in the middle of the cold and the dark to show the rest of the world His Face.

Merry Christmas.

* - You see what I did there? With the "presence" bit? Huh? Christmas? "Presence"? "Presents"? Yeah? Get it?