I wrote a blog a couple of days ago about the difference between Christmas and Christmas Time. How they are both wonderful things but really quite different. Since I wrote this blog God has not let me stop thinking about it. I get the feeling He has more for me to learn and remember. There are three things I would like to share with you about this topic, one is an excerpt from someone else's blog, one is a short quote from the Pope, and another is the gist of an Old Life talk that I gave many, many years ago.
THE BLOG EXCERPT:
What is Christmas? It is the celebration of the Incarnation, God’s becoming flesh — human — and entering into history in the form of a vulnerable baby born to a poor, teenage mother in a dirty animal stall. Simply amazing. That Mary was homeless at the time, a member of a people oppressed by the imperial power of an occupied country whose local political leader, Herod, was so threatened by the baby’s birth that he killed countless children in a vain attempt to destroy the Christ child, all adds compelling historical and political context to the Advent season.
The theological claim that sets Christianity apart from any other faith tradition is the Incarnation. God has come into the world to save us. God became like us to bring us back to God and show us what it means to be truly human.
That is the meaning of the Incarnation. That is the reason for the season.
In Jesus Christ, God hits the streets.
It is theologically and spiritually significant that the Incarnation came to our poorest streets. That Jesus was born poor, later announces his mission at Nazareth as “bringing good news to the poor,” and finally tells us that how we treat “the least of these” is his measure of how we treat him and how he will judge us as the Son of God, radically defines the social context and meaning of the Incarnation of God in Christ. And it clearly reveals the real meaning of Christmas.
The other explicit message of the Incarnation is that Jesus the Christ’s arrival will mean “peace on earth, good will toward men.” He is “the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.” Jesus later calls on his disciples to turn the other cheek, practice humility, walk the extra mile, put away their swords, love their neighbors — and even their enemies — and says that in his kingdom, it is the peacemakers who will be called the children of God. Christ will end our warring ways, bringing reconciliation to God and to one another.
A QUOTE FROM THE POPE:
In his homily, Pope Benedict lamented that Christmas has become an increasingly commercial celebration that obscures the simplicity of the message of Christ's birth.
"Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light," he said
AN OLD, OLD LIFE TALK
Someone made a terrible mistake when they created two national holidays; Thanksgiving and Christmas. They got the words all mixed up. I propose we make some small changes to our two holidays.
First off, and most important, we need a time to give thanks for the coming of Christ. Scholars are not real sure when that exact date really was so let's not get hung up about time and take the late November days to do what should be done first and that is to thank God for bringing Christ into our world. For simplicity's sake, we could take the Thanks from Thanksgiving and the Christ from Christmas and call this the "Thanks Christ" holiday season. Our slogan could be, "Don't put Christ back into Christmas, put him into Thanksgiving."
That leaves the idea of "giving" left over from Thanksgiving and the idea of "mas" left over from Christmas. Actually, I've learned that in the Hausa language of Niger "mas" means "must" so if we combine the two we get a perfect name for the December holiday time, the "Must Give" season. Now does that ring true or what? By separating the two holidays we put the emphasis on one idea at a time instead of trying to do all things all together.
Write your congressman and see if we can't correct this mistake. If not, maybe you can make the change in your own heart 'cause that's where it counts most anyway.
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