Christmas Spirit

At this point, you might be thinking to yourself, "Well, bah humbug to you, too!" Because for the past few days, we've been looking at the ways that we've lost Christmas to our culture and how we might get it back. 

Not to be, you know, more difficult here, but if you're among the bah humbug crowd about now, then you're right there in step with another good point. Essentially, what we're saying when we say bah humbug is this, "Where is your Christmas spirit?" 

My Christmas Spirit is in the baby Jesus, God-made-flesh to bring the Spirit of God into this world. Where's yours?

Quietly, this has happened, and we've so easily bought into it that we don't even notice. The world has told us that there is such a thing as the Christmas spirit and that we're supposed to find it every year. It's up to us to bring it into the world by spreading joy and giving gifts and decorating our houses and remembering how much we love this time of year.

Except we don't. The statistic we keep coming back to this week is a recent study that shows that nearly 70% of American adults would skip gift-giving, the celebration of Christmas, this year if they could get their families to agree it. 

Talk about losing your Christmas spirit. 

But it's just not joyous any more; it's tedious. It's not a celebration; it's a chore. Every year, it's the same thing - Black Friday, boxes, bows, and burnout. Lather, rinse, repeat. Yawn. There's nothing new to keep the spark alive, nothing different to make it fresh. It's the same persons around the same tree having the same arguments and playing the same games and eating the same cookies and opening the same presents and running off to the same places. And we're supposed to get excited about this? Why, exactly?

Ah, yes. Christmas "spirit."

Turn this on its head just a little, or even on its side. Instead of asking again this year, "Where is your Christmas spirit?" ask instead where is the Spirit this Christmas? What is God doing? Where is God moving? What is it about a baby boy in a manger in Bethlehem that infuses Christmas with all the Spirit that it needs?

Because babies make Christmas better. They just do. The way their eyes light up with all the things that we've grown weary of so easily. The way they're more enthralled with the packaging than with the gift. The way they smile and laugh and giggle and coo and they don't understand a thing about it; there's just a spirit there that makes it...better. 

And that's the same spirit we find in the baby Jesus tucked away in a stable. It's the way His eyes light up with all that He sees that's new in the world...and in His eyes, we see it, too. It's the way He's wrapped in flesh - God made flesh for the first time in all of history, and we can't get over it. We don't understand, in swaddling clothes, the gift that lies inside, but just look at His tender human flesh. This hasn't happened before. This is incredible. It's the way that He smiles and laughs and giggles and coos like He doesn't understand a thing, although He understands it all. From the very depth of His soul, He knows what we can't even imagine, can't even fathom. And there, among the hay and the feed and the stench and the darkness, there's just a Spirit that makes it...better. 

Because this baby make Christmas...Christmas. He just does. 

So you want to know where the Christmas spirit is this year? It's in a manger in Bethlehem, just where it's always been. That's where God's heart has come beating into the world. It's where His Spirit rejoices. It's where His Son's eyes glisten with life and light. 

Bah humbug? Really?

A Christmas Story

Still again, if we want to recapture Christmas, we have to first discover how we lost it. And one of the ways in which we have lost Christmas is by believing our culture when it tells us that Christmas is a feeling.

Most of us, some time this month, will encounter a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a loved one who will say something like this, "It just doesn't feel like Christmas this year." Or "Christmas, yeah - not feelin' it." 

And it won't be for lack of trying. We throw decorations all over everything. Our light posts are wrapped in tinsels, our porches decked out in lights. There are trees in every window, glistening through dark curtains as the sun sets early. Just about every store has Santa somewhere, a few reindeer out in the yard. Big, fake presents are wrapped with giant, perfect bows (quite unlike anything you'd ever see under any of our trees). Christmas music blares from overhead public address systems, blasting Rudolph and Santa and Frosty the Snowman into our ears. And that weird little fake frost and snow covers the windows because, gosh darnit, it has to at least look like it might be a white Christmas. 

Yet, someone will still say - it just doesn't feel like Christmas this year. 

You know what? They're right. It doesn't feel like Christmas this year, no matter how much we cover it in Christmas clothing.

Because Christmas isn't a feeling.

It's a story.

And if this Christmas "feels" a little empty to you, it's because the story's been overshadowed by the sensation of it all. If you want to get your Christmas back, you have to turn the page.

See, we've bought into this lie that our culture has told us that Christmas is that time of year that's supposed to make us feel good. But as we've seen, most persons aren't feeling good at Christmas. They're feeling stressed, burdened, burned out, and ready to skip the whole thing entirely. And who could really blame them? If the entire point of Christmas is to give us a time of year to "feel" good, then certainly, we should skip all the hubbub if skipping it is what makes us "feel" good. 

But Christmas isn't about good feelings; it's about good news. And good news always comes in stories. 

Think about it. If you watch the news and see something that makes you feel warm and tingly all over, it is because that something is firmly rooted in a good story. It is one thing to hear that three children will be receiving new bicycles this Christmas; it is another thing entirely to hear that these three children are cancer survivors, celebrating their first Christmas in remission. The former may evoke a Christmas feeling, what with the giving of gifts and all, but the latter evokes a Christmas story. The difference between the two is immense.

And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about a Christmas that has lost its story. We're talking about a Christmas that has become too wrapped up in bows and presents and carols to remember a baby, a promise, a Christ. Something about it feels disconnected, feels disjointed. Like something essential is missing from this Christmas "feeling." In all our attempts to make sure that we have a "good" Christmas, we've forgotten that at its very heart, Christmas is good. Because it's good news. Because it's a good story. 

Not a good feeling.

So if you want to recapture Christmas this year, step out of the sensation. Get away from the Santas and the reindeer and the snowmen and the lights; turn down the music. And head toward Bethlehem, down the unbeaten path, by the light of the star that guides the way. There, unto us, a child is born.

It's a story you've just got to hear. 

Christmas Gifts

If we want to recapture Christmas, we have to first understand how we lost it. And one of the ways that we've lost it is by buying into some of the lies that our culture tells us about this holy day. 

For example, you've probably heard that Christmas is not about receiving, but giving. "It's not what you get; it's what you give." 

This is, of course, a good general principle to live by, most of the time. It is a buffer against our own selfishness and self-centeredness, a reminder that when we give, we have the opportunity to bless tremendously someone else. It keeps us humble, turns our eyes outward, and opens our hands. 

But at Christmas, it's a bald-faced lie, plain and simple. Christmas is not at all about what you give, but what you've received - the Son of God, the Lord Himself, clothed in flesh, wrapped in cloth, lying in a manger. The Light crying out in the dark of night. Life coming boldly into death. 

Because in case you've lost it in all the hubbub, Christmas...is about Christ. 

That's precisely what our culture has tried to get us to forget. They have tried to tell us that it's all about the gifts, about the gifts that we're giving. The wise men, they say, brought gifts, so be wise men; bring gifts. People will love you if you bring good gifts.

I'm pretty sure Jesus loved the wise men even if they'd come empty-handed, for their journey was not about delivering their precious gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Their emphasis was not on gift giving. There was nothing urging them, frantically telling them how important it was for them to make sure that the baby Jesus got a bunch of spices and scents and wealth that He didn't even need.

They set out for Bethlehem because their hearts were drawn to see what they had been given. They wanted to see the miracle that was done that night for them.

It's the same with the shepherds. They didn't even have gifts, but they went anyway to see what they had received on that starlit night. God beckoned them to. He said, "Come, see what I have given you."

And now, we tell our families and friends, "Come, see what I have given you." Because we have made this Christmas season all about giving, an act that, as cited yesterday, nearly 70% of us would forego if we could get each other to agree to it. 

That's not - hear me - that's not because we don't love each other or because we don't like giving good gifts. It's because obligatory gift-giving in this particular holiday season feels empty. It feels like a burden, like a bother. It feels like we're missing something important about Christmas. And we are. 

We're missing what we have received. 

Recognizing the gift of Christ, gathering around the baby in the manger, does not make us selfish or self-centered the way that we're told it might if we focused on getting rather than giving. Not at all. Properly recognizing Christ in Christmas makes us more generous, for this is the one gift we have been given that turns us outward. It is the one gift that raises our heads, that lifts our eyes, that opens our hands and positions us to give. Not to re-gift, but to give generously and to share what we have been given.

So if we want to recapture Christmas, we have to first discover how we've lost it. And one of the ways that we've lost it is by losing sight of the Christmas gift - the one we have received, by thinking that this season is all about what we give instead of what we've been given - the most precious gift of all. 

Christmas Crazy

Christmas is upon us once more, and as we wait in humble anticipation for Christ to come into our world, it's important that we recognize just how much so many among us have come to hate this season. 

Not because it's about Christ, mind you, but (I propose) because it isn't any more. 

A recent survey revealed that the majority of American adults, something around 70%, would forego giving gifts at Christmas if they could get their family and friends to agree to it. And why? Because gift-giving has become an essentially meaningless task, a chore, an expected but inconvenient expense in a world where we've been told that Christmas is about giving and getting. 

Christmas has become quite a pragmatic holiday, at least for adults. Each year, we give each other a list of things that we need or want, things that we don't want to buy for ourselves, and then we rush around to a bunch of different stores to find the best deals on the things that our friends and family don't want to buy for themselves, and we call it a gift.

The children in our lives are no better off. Sometime around mid-November, we shove catalogs of the latest and greatest toys under their noses and ask them to tell us what they want. Spoiler alert: they want everything. I asked one of my nephews just yesterday what he wanted for Christmas, and he said, plainly, "There's not a lot in the toy catalog that I don't want." 

Alright then.

And then there was some kind of debate about one of the things he said that he really wanted because his dad didn't even recognize this as an actual thing and started to ask him if he was making it up and if it was something he was going to invent, and my nephew said plainly no. The whole matter trickled off, but this morning, I searched the interwebs for it and...it's an actual thing.

But that's just it - we don't even know what we're giving each other any more. It's a what? Okay, whatever. We're giving things we've never heard of to persons we'd rather not give presents to anyway because, you know, who has the time or the money or the energy for Christmas? 

Ho, ho, ho.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. You get that, right? This is not what Christmas was supposed to be about. It wasn't supposed to be about stress and resentment. It wasn't supposed to get to the point where we despise the whole season. It wasn't supposed to make us think of one another as burdens. That's not Christmas. 

I don't know what it is, but it's not Christmas. 

So let's talk about Christmas a little bit this week. Can we? Can we talk about what this is really supposed to be, what God intended this season to be about? Can we acknowledge that so many of us are burned out on Christmas because we've lost our sense of what Christmas even is? Can we cut through some of the cultural hullabaloo and get back to the heart of it all?

Can we recapture what it is about Christmas that sets our hearts right...before we all lose our minds? 

Please?

Nothing Doing

So, then, where does this leave us? Because the truth is that the only reason we have come to the conclusion that God works His miracles in quiet ways through men is because most of us have not seen the kind of water-into-wine, death-into-life miracles that were so common in the Gospels. It is our desperation to know that God is still at work that has driven us to accept less of Him.

For we would rather have a God too simple than a God too quiet.

Fair enough, perhaps, but the problem is not really with our God; the problem is with our expectation.

Today's Christians just expect a miracle. We expect God to do the things that we ask Him to do, whether or not they require miraculous intervention or something less. We expect that when we pray and tell Him to heal someone, He will. That when we pray and expect Him to deliver, He does. But a prayer with such expectation is no prayer at all. 

The men and women who cried out to Jesus in the Gospels cried out with humble expectation. They knew that He could heal them, but they understood that it would take an act of the God of Creation - a miraculous act. 

We cry out with indignant demand. We know that God can heal us, and we expect Him just to do so because that's what God does. That's the way that God works. The God that we hold in our minds and our hearts heals us; why is He not healing us? 

It is a far different heart that stands on the side of the road and cries out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!" than the one that stands on the sidewalk and screams, "Lord of my bumper sticker, where in the world are you?" 

You see, we are men and women today who seek God out for our own sake, holding on to all that we believe He has promised to us. But the men and women of the Gospels are those who sought God for His own sake, holding on to all that He promised about Himself. 

It is no wonder we are not seeing miracles these days; we have come too simply to expect them, and we have forgotten what it requires - a reworking, a re-ordering of Creation itself - to make them happen. It doesn't occur to us what God is doing or why He has the power and authority to do it; we simply expect it of Him. 

No wonder we are not seeing miracles.

The truth is that God has not lied to us. The God who says He is the same yesterday, today, and forever is the God who truly is, and He is still working miracles. He is still reworking, re-ordering, re-creating Creation in ways that, if we were really paying attention, would absolutely blow our minds. He is still stepping in, bearing mercy, breathing new life into this world with every single holy breath that He breathes, and most of us are missing it.

We're missing it because we live in expectation, not anticipation. Because we live in indignation, not humility. Because we hold on more to our crosses of fine gold and silver than onto the cross of wood and splinter that actually bore the body of our Christ. 

Listen...we're on the edge right now of a season of miracles. We're there. For the next four weeks, the world will hold its breath, waiting on the birth of the Promised King. We are entering today the season of Advent, and there is no better time than this to recapture what we have lost of our miraculous God. 

For He is about to do an incredible thing, an incredible thing indeed. The God of all Creation is about to re-order it once more, coming into it Himself as a man. As the same flesh and blood in which He created us. You want to see a miracle? It's coming. 

...in swaddling clothes. 

And we who wait, we who hope, we who long for this miracle must wait, hope, and long not with self-righteous expectation, but humble anticipation...

Come, miraculous Lord Jesus. Come.