Party Time
By Wayne Williams --
The theme of this third week of Advent is JOY! It’s time for Christmas celebrations to kick into high gear. I hope you’ve got some big and/or small celebratory events (Parties!) planned and that you let yourself revel in the wondrous truth that the Creator became one of us so that he could rescue us from our self-destructive ways.
But not everyone who knows why we celebrate Christmas has found it a reason for joy. Here’s a famous quote from the British playwright and cynic, George Bernard Shaw, more than one hundred years ago:
“I am sorry to have to introduce the subject of Christmas into these articles. It is an indecent subject; a cruel, gluttonous subject; a drunken, disorderly subject; a wasteful, disastrous subject; a wicked, cadging, lying, filthy, blasphemous, and demoralizing subject. Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press: on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and anyone who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of greasy sausages.”
~George Bernard Shaw
That’s one for your “Bah-Humbug” file. Shaw actually founded a society for the abolition of Christmas in 1897. His society never became popular. 50 years later, he was still its only member. So, while Shaw understood the reason Christmas is celebrated, he clearly had never experienced the joy of forgiveness and hope that Jesus came to bring, and, therefore, had no reason to celebrate Jesus’ birth.
There are very few who disdain Christmas in our culture today. Most people see it as a season for peace, good will toward others, and for expressing the value of our family and friends through cards and gifts. The marathon of Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel often focus on a “Christmas Miracle,” typically a romance that’s salvaged, renewed, or discovered. Love blossoms at Christmas.
Those are all wonderful things and are reasons for happiness and even for celebrating. For most people, however, those wonderful things are man-centered and temporary. None of them can hold a Christmas candle to the eternal joy of believing the message of the angel to the shepherds, “A Savior has been born!” Knowing that your Creator loves and forgives you, that you stand secure in his favor and care, is the foundation of joy and the very best reason for celebration.
I hope that at least some of your Christmas celebrations will be in the company of our church family this Sunday and on Christmas Eve.
See you then,
Wayne
There’s something existentially bizarre about the Christmas season when you’re profoundly depressed. When you can’t seem to linger in the second chapter of Luke because Psalm 13 is stuck on auto-replay, all of the twinkly lights and erstwhile nostalgia-inducing TV programs ring with absurd hollowness. As a Christian—who, by and large, actually wants to follow Jesus whenever possible—I am reminded that, despite my dark mood and my sincere doubts concerning the connection of Jesus’ birth and this most ancient winter solstice celebration, I would put Jesus at the center of my thinking about Christmas. The joy of Christmas doesn’t come from the holiday (and all that entails). In fact, Christian joy is maddeningly divorced from all our circumstances, and I can’t even begin to explain that from the pit I now find myself. All that to say, the one thing I am learning in all of this is just how much I actually love people, especially those with whom I share this secret knowledge.