Christmas and the Christian

Christmas provides a unique opportunity for Christ’s followers to bear witness to the radical difference He makes in our lives.  In an episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza’s father Frank decides to create his own holiday called “Festivus.”  It has several unique features: “the Festivus meal, the unadorned aluminum Festivus pole, airing of grievances, feats of strength, and the labeling of easily explainable events as Festivus miracles.”  Of course, it ends up being a disaster.  Fortunately we do not need a cheesy substitute for Christmas.  We have the real thing!  Here are some important features of Christmas that are attractive enough to keep us from creating an alternative holiday.

Christmas is Fun – Christmas is a platform to share the greatness of the Christmas message: namely, joy!  “Joy to the world,” we sing, “the Lord has come!”  G.K. Chesterton wrote, "Joy, which was the small publicity of the Pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian." It shouldn’t be a secret.  My life was terrible before Christ, now it is livable, and yes, often joyful.  That is what the message of the angels conveys.  Jesus is the key to surpassing joy.  “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).  If Christians can’t corner the market on holiday fun, I’d say we have maybe missed our assignment and ought to listen more closely to our own message.

Christmas is Festive – The songwriter William Harold Neidlinger said it well:

Alleluia! O how the angels sang
Alleluia! How it rang!
And the sky was bright
With God’s holy light
‘Twas the birthday of a King.

This explains the red, green, snow-white, silver and gold of Christmas.  It explains my family’s (and maybe yours) tendency to go a little overboard with knick knacks and stockings and garland and tinsel.  It explains all the baking.  It explains the Hallmark specials and Grinch cartoons.  Some of these things go wide of the mark, but they are really our grasping at a great truth: God came here in the flesh of a man and that is cause for high celebration!  When we “deck the halls,” we do so with good cause.  The hassle of decorating, shopping, wrapping and baking is worth it if our spirits are lifted and our lives are directed toward God’s indescribable gift for us (2 Corinthians 9:15).

Christmas is Freeing – “When Jesus heard that John had been delivered into the hands of the authorities, he withdrew into Galilee. He left Galilee and came and made his home in Capernaum, which is on the lake-side, in the districts of Zebulun and Naphtali. This was done that there might be fulfilled that which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, when he said, ‘Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and a light has risen for those who sat in the land and in the shadow of death’” (Matthew 4:12-17).  God in Christ brought the possibility of reconciliation and the seeds of change and hope.  God entered this world, as Max Lucado said, “in sheep manure and sweat.”  Consequently we can be Christmas enthusiasts rather than Christmas cynics.  We can model for the world what hope looks like in a real person’s life.