What Christmas REALLY Is About

Well, hard to believe it is December 11 today. Only two more weeks until Christmas Day. Over the years, I have seen Christmas, and by extension, the Christmas holidays, transformed into a remarkably secular event on the calendar, punctuated by feel-good emotions and people being nice to one another (which is good in and of itself, but by golly, how about extend these warm fuzzies year-round?). Of course, all this emotional goodwill towards your fellow man all the sudden gets turned off like a switch on Boxing Day, as people flock to the malls to celebrate their greed and their need to consume and lavish themselves with bargains galore. I'm sure you have all heard of the crazy things done in shopping mall parking lots on Boxing Day, not the least of which involves all types of road rage, and flipping the finger to your fellow man as you vie for the closest parking spot to the big box store of your choice.

I guess I am not surprised that people are like this. Over time, I've found humanity in North American culture to be fairly self-absorbed with their own creature comforts and the need to feed its own continuous desire to have stuff. This is pretty obvious by the well-intentioned, but inherently questionable practice of parents encouraging their kids to write a letter to a fictitious elderly overweight character who has supplanted Jesus as the focus of Christmas, detailing the kids of things that they want, and justifying the request by the logic that they have been good all year round. I have never really understood this seemingly cultural need to lie to your kids - people frown at me when I confess that I not only steer clear of the Santa Claus topic with my child, but I distinctly tell him that Christmas is not about gifts or Santa Claus. Now, this may not put me in good stead with fellow parents at my child's school, or even amongst family and friends who think there is no issue with this - I am not here to pass judgment on their practices - simply state what I choose to do with my own child. But I think that as a believer and follower of Christ, it is important to pass along the truth to my child, no matter how seemingly strange it may come across, given the prevalent culture of everything goes and everything should be tolerable. I have come to realize, over the almost five years that I have been a parent, that my goal is to honour Jesus Christ in my actions and words (I will be the first to admit that I am not always successful in doing either), and I believe part of that is how I raise my child, and showing them through my words and actions ways in which we honour God and Christ in what we do everyday, not just at certain times of the year.

I also find it errily strange how many people come out of the woodwork to go to church on Christmas Day and the surrounding holidays. I think this tends to be more prominent in Roman Catholic churches, where unfortunately, a flawed works-based faith continues to be taught in their teachings, though by no means are the Catholics the sole proprietor of such theology - many Protestant churches seem to have a groundswell of bums on pews during the next few weeks - perhaps people who somehow feel compelled or obligated to attend these services to somehow self-satisfy their theology of "going to church = good person = going to heaven". No doubt this is related to the similarly misunderstood theological concept that if being nice to people = a plus in God's books. I am certainly amazed how how many people, even regular church-going Christians seem to continue to grasp onto this popular concept, despite being dispelled by Jesus and the apostles thousands of years ago. No doubt, the Bible does teach love towards others; however, that is not the way one will become saved; never has been that way, never will be.

So this all leads me to today's posting about what Christmas is really about. No doubt many people will associate the birth of Christ as being part of Christmas - even non-Christians know that. But why is that important? That is quite I will quickly explore today.

The Old Testament is way too rich of an account for me to do any justice in condensing it into a few morsels of summarizing sentences, but I'll attempt to do so for brevity and so that I don't get bogged down in too technical of a theological discussion. Essentially, the Bible starts with God creating the world, and people. God gave the first inhabitants some pretty easy instructions (all things considered). However, people being the curious and self-directed/self-absorbed people that they are, decided to go against God's directions and as a result, sin entered the world. Now, sin is one of those things which people seemingly equate with its symptoms or manifestations. Sure, lying, stealing, worshiping false gods and such are all sinful behavioiur and are the end-result of sin. However, if you break it down, what is sin really? Sin, I believe, is the desire to do what you want to do instead of what God wants you to do. In other words, following your own path (which is why I sometimes chuckle when I hear Christians singing secular songs with lyrics like "follow your own heart..." If you look at any end-result of sin, you'll see that it is comprised of people wanting a self-focus instead of an other-focus or a God-focus. Anyhow, sin creeps into the world. Well, guess what? God is sinless, and cannot co-exist with sin. So there is the first problem. Humans are now separated from God. However, God, being His generous and gracious Self, decides to give people a second chance. Now, I will be the first one to admit that I don't quite understand why the Old Testament seems to prescribe a works-based path to holiness - it is certainly evident in the old Jewish and Levitical law. Nonetheless, while these "rules" were made for people to follow, people, being the selfish people that they are, decided to not follow these rules. Problem with this is that humanity at this point still has a problem. Without reconciling the sinful nature to God's holiness, we are, for a lack of a better term, screwed. No heaven for us. No eternal life with God for us. Logically and theologically, it is consistent with God's nature and our sinful nature.

Thankfully, that's not where the story ends. God, in His infinite mercy (and I cannot think of a better word to describe this) sends His own Son to the earth in human form to walk amongst us, but at the same time, giving us another second chance. The requirements for this second chance are even easier than the Old Testament requirements. Now, all we need to do is not just believe that Jesus is God's Son, but accept Jesus as our personal Saviour. Now, what is all this about? What is He saving us from? Recall that we are eterntally separated from God due to our sin. Well, in due time (about 33 years after his birth), Jesus will be dying a death that will take away all of our sin, and wash us clean. Remember, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are separate, but one and the same. So God essentially came to humanity, as rotten as it was (and continues to be) and offers up Himself in the form of Jesus so that He can absorb all of our past/present/future sins and make us right before God. Think of it as a person taking a bullet for another person and you'll sort of see what I'm getting at. Jesus lived a perfect life, yet amongst these humans they did not like Him, since He really challenged their root belief systems in that works = holiness and eternal life (there's some theological questions here, which I don't have the answers to). People decided to give him the most brutal of deaths, but the Good News is, that because of Jesus' decision to go to the cross and die on our behalf (remember, He did not have to, and there is evidence that He wrestled and was anxious with what would happen), taking away our sins, all we need to do is to say "Yes, Jesus, I not only believe that you did this for me, but I accept your free gift of salvation, and will live my life according to how you want me to." That's it. No mumble jumble about rubbing beads, doing good deeds, praying for dead people, etc. The gospel message is such a simple message, yet people continue to scorn it and scoff at it, because once again, they want to go their own way. This is nothing new, as history would tell us.

So given all of this, Jesus' birth is a real celebration. Now, there are Christians out there who will not celebrate Christmas because Christmas is not exactly the end of the story. That is true - Christmas would not be worth celebrating, had Jesus not gone to the cross, died, and rose again, clearing demonstrating that He is truly God's own Son. I can understand these sentiments, but the fact of the matter is, we DO have the entire story, and so I really do see Jesus' birth as a cause for celebration since it is the first step in God giving us another chance that is so easy to grasp. It is really, a gift. Now, Jesus' birth was not without its complications (Herod was king at the time and viewed Jesus' birth as a threat to his earthly kingship, not to mention Caesar's). But through God's continuous protection, Jesus and His parents managed to elude a potentially dangerous situation and Jesus grew up and made the supreme sacrifice for humanity. The gift is there for everyone to take. The question is, will you accept it?

Based on all this, you can sort of see why I find it a shame that the world has once again shunned God and Christ, replacement Him with figments of this world and reducing Christmas to a bunch of holidays with feel-good emotions. True, Christmas is a time to celebrate, but not for reasons of simply being kind to others and buying one another gifts (attaching gift receipts to the same) and compiling your own wish list. The true celebration of Christmas is in the fact that God gave us a second chance thousands of years ago, and that should really be the only gift that truly matters.