merry christmas.
This post is about Jesus.
Seems like Christmas was easy for me to “celebrate” as a child, then more difficult to celebrate in the traditional “American” sense and now I’ve fallen somewhere in the middle.
Christmas is important, but it’s not the only important Christian holiday.
Christmas is important, but it’s not the only time to talk or discuss Jesus. But it’s still a great time to talk about Jesus.
“So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” — Luke 2:16–20 NIV
It’s Christmas Eve and I’m on Twitter and I see this on Twitter:
I reply back with this:
I didn’t originally plan to type in any of this for a “Christmas” post, in fact I started this post with just writing “merry Christmas” and “Jesus” 5x after it.
I’ll recreate that post:
Merry Christmas.
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
This holiday is about Jesus, and his birth (yes, winter solstice, noted, I don’t think Jesus was born in December probably in the summer, yes got it thanks), but yes, it seems that people like putting in Santa rather than Jesus because our culture has allowed Santa to become a mythical figure, someone whose narrative we can more neatly control.
At the Christmas Eve service I went to we read John 3:17, the verse after the famous verse. It goes like this:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” — John 3:17
That means that Jesus wasn’t sent to create rules, but to do something. For us. Saved from evil, from brokenness, from unfairness. The world isn’t fair and God recognized that. Let’s not think Santa can do something that he’s not prepared to do.
“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” — 1 John 4:14
BTW — this piece in the NY Times this week answers a lot of common questions about Christianity in a far more refined way than I could ever do:
