i have followers! i feel like a cult-leader saying that. You guys want to move to some small foreign country with me? Yes, yes you do.
i hope that you all are having a wonderful Christmas week, but i am sorry break it to you that i am a bit of a Scrooge. Well, not too sorry. That's right, i don't love Christmas. Just thought i would warn you before you read the rest of this post...
This is a relatively recent development because Christmas used to be my favorite time of the year, it is so festive, and fun, and heck, who doesn't love getting presents?
Here is what i think happened to me:
This time two years ago, i was in one of the world's poorest countries, it was hot and majority Islamic. It was hard to spend December and Christmas in a place that didn't feel like Christmas at all. There was no frantic shopping, no snow, no Christmas music blaring. And i loved it. i woke up Christmas morning, walked to church, and worshiped Jesus. No gimmicks, no materialism, just Jesus.
After spending a year in Tanzania i found that (except for one restaurant freak-out) i didn't really experience much culture shock. That is, until Christmas came around the next year. i found myself struggling to be joyful, excited, and in the "Christmas Spirit." (Just what kind of spirit is this Christmas Spirit anyways?)
i definitely don't feel more cheerful when on Thanksgiving day the radio stations are promising to play nothing but Christmas music through Christmas day. i mean, if you really want to play Christmas music, why don't you play worship songs about Jesus and not songs about Santa, and Rudolph, and presents?
OK, i am done ranting, i promise. i think that all this originated from seeing what Christmas could be like if we really did make it a season of worship. i am pretty resigned now to the idea of this secular holiday, i am just asking God to help me worship, but how do I separate the things i enjoy from my frustrations? i almost want to pretend like Christmas is equivalent to Labor day or the Fourth of July. Have fun with your family, exchange gifts, eat a lot of food, get through an awkward Christmas Eve Service where you see people that you haven't seen since last Christmas Eve...
Maybe i should just schedule mission trips over Christmas from now on. At least i am getting a new pair of running shoes out of the deal.
OH COME, OH COME EMMANUEL!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
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Good word, Alyssa. Good word. I don't feel like you're being Scrooge-y at all. I also feel totally conflicted with just enjoying the holiday for all its secularness (which I totally do) but also trying to reconcile that with what's more important...eesh. I don't know. There are a lot more profound thoughts in my head right now but I can't articulate them. :) I'll try later. Love you.
ReplyDeleteI understand the scroogy-ness. Christmas was my least favorite holiday for a long time. A lot of it being rooted in pagan traditions, the consumerism, the selfishness....
ReplyDeleteI actually thought that I wouldn't celebrate Christmas with my future family in a typical way. James and I even talked about not doing it at all. I was very scroogey.
Sometime in the course of being married and now anticipating motherhood...my heart has taken a complete turn-around.
Mainly because there are some really gross things about the Christmas season but there are some really beautiful things too. Its a time when people who don't even know or care about Jesus celebrate things that are true and are of the Kingdom...joy, hope, giving, family, love, thankfullness, remembering the poor...etc. Yes, there is a frenzy of consumerism but people also GIVE more to those in need at Christmas than any other time of the year.
In this life, the world will always turn the things of God into something that is not about God...but about themselves. There will always be darkness, even in things that are supposed to be "christian." But really? How else do we expect a secular people to celebrate Christmas? How can they celebrate someone they don't know? But oh how God loves to redeem. Just as I can go into a poor war-torn country and I look past the darkness to see the beauty...I too, can live in America in all its crippling wealth, look past the darkness of an American secularized Christmas and see the beauty there-in.
So in my family...we will decorate our pagan tree(redeeming it!)...I will anticipate the joy on my children's faces as the receive gifts (isn't that the Father's heart?), and I will even tell them about Santa(the true story)...He was a revivalist that was persecuted for his faith in Jesus and gave up all he had for the poor. Did you know he even healed the sick?
We will drink hot cocoa and listen to Christmas music, even the songs just about Rudolph cause they are FUN, we remember the poor, and most importantly we will worship the Creator of it all.
Merry Christmas my sweet friend. Worship and ENJOY the day the Lord has made! Maybe even the "secular" things we enjoy about the holiday aren't that separate from Jesus after all? The being with family, eating-the breaking of bread together, giving each other gifts, the fun, the festivity, the party of it... I consider everything we ENJOY(from a pure place) to be a gift, no matter how unspiritual it seems. After all doesn't every good and perfect gift come down from our Father of Heavenly Lights with whom there is no shadow of turning? I
wow that was super long. sorry!
ReplyDeleteThat is good Stine, I guess all of that is in my heart, but it is hard to express and balance it all. I just always want everything to be black and white, good or bad.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy being with family and doing fun things, but it is hard for me to say that I am worshiping Jesus when I am not really thinking about the Lord at all.
I just need to look at it in a different way, change my perspective I guess ;)