Christmas time

I've had a lot of thoughts buzzing around in my head about Christmas recently. Go figure. It's really challenged me this year in a way that it hasn't before, or maybe not for a long time at least. What are we doing really? Why do we place such importance in buying and giving gifts, to the point where countless people go into dept each year for it. All in the name of Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy receiving a thoughtful gift, but it just seems that we do this on such a grandiose scale and out of obligation because it's just what we do.

And our Christmas music! Ok, again, I like Christmas music. I'm always ready to listen to it sooner than most, as some of you know well. :) But as we've listened to it at work this year I've really started to think about some of the songs as I've heard them for the umpteenth time. There's one that's something about a merry cherry Christmas or something ridiculous; it never makes sense. There's also the one about here comes Santa Claus and part of one of the verses says something like: Santa knows we're all God's children, that makes everything right, so let's give thanks to the Lord above cause Santa Claus comes tonight. What?!! That line makes me sick. Why are we thanking the Lord above because a mythical creature is coming to give us lots of stuff we don't really need? I mean really. Our holiday, at least most of it, is more about the stuff we get than anything else. It's about shopping, and getting the perfect gift, or just lots of gifts because one really thoughtful one wouldn't be enough.

And we buy into it as Christians. Let's just be honest with ourselves, we do. I have, I do. I go shopping, I feel the need to buy stuff, and there's something in me that fights against the thought that maybe it doesn't have to be like this. I mean, kids need to get lots of presents on Christmas in order to be happy right? Which means that some people will have a good Christmas and for others it will just be a painful reminder that our society sees them as the havenots, as not as valuable because they do not have...what? It's true though. We feel bad for people who won't get a big Christmas, and it stirs up some kind of guilt in us sometimes that we will. Or we feel that they need to get all kinds of stuff to be happy. I know that may not be what we truly believe, but we act as if it is so maybe...

Movies have been stirring things in me recently. We watched a Christmas Carol the other night and other than some of the characters being so creepy I needed to close my eyes, it really made me think. I don't want to hold back. I want to be generous and give, but that movie was still coming out of our culture that depicts having more as being more happy. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. Blessed are the poor. Selling all you have for a treasure. It was the rich that Jesus warned. It was the stuff the rich man had and wasn't willing to give up that kept him from following Jesus. So why don't we show another way at Christmas time? We give toys so that others can have something at Christmas time, and that's nice and all. Sure, it will make them happy for a night, or maybe even a week (how long do your kids really pay attention to their new toys?) but they'll eventually break. It all goes back to dust. Maybe it'll bring a little hope, but is it hope that lasts? Or is it a bandaid on a wound that we're unwilling to enter into the pain to really heal?

We went and saw Avatar last night. Great movie, by the way. That really hit me in a lot of ways too. We are those people. We take what we want because we're the powerful ones. People in general, the west, we have a history of this. If that planet and technology existed, we would totally do what the humans in the movie do. And for what? Stuff. Money. The almighty dollar. Mammon. Is it enough to give it away so that others can have toys or knick knacks? Does that really break its power? How can we give in a way that truly lasts? We are blessed to be a blessing, but I feel that doesn't look like how we've made it out to be.

I wish I had the answers. I wish I had this figured out so that I felt like my life truly reflects Jesus in every area. I want to be Jesus and not Santa Claus. I want to offer living water like He did. I want to give my life. But right now I feel I'm stuck in the in between; unsure of how to be different but not content with how things are. It's an uncomfortable place to be, but it's resting in this place that we truly change. It's in the discomfort, that we often avoid, that we discover truth and healing. Let's sit in it until we get revelation of how to make Christmas something that would really honor Christ.