I hope you're able to enjoy this festive season!
What's your favorite thing about Christmas? (Music? Traditions?)
What do you *dislike* most about Christmas? (Consumerism? Superficiality?) What is something specific you would do to help fix it, if you could?
How does knowing that God became a human being (and started out in a feeding trough!) make a difference?
Come by OSLC on Christmas Eve if you can! Traditional candlelight services at 8 & 11 p.m. — crazy family service at 5 p.m.
For me, music ranks very high on the list of favorites. I recently put a bunch of Christmas music on my MP3 player. (I also discovered that if you choose to Play All just before stepping into the shower without also selecting Shuffle, alphabetical order will dictate that you hear five different versions of “Angels We Have Heard on High” in a row!)
At first, I would probably say that traditions are not as important to me, but as I think about it, I am very big into taking pictures and video of the kids as we cut our Christmas tree out at the tree farm or open presents on Christmas morning.
When it comes to what I dislike, it’s very easy to say consumerism and materialism, but I also dislike what I would call a certain superficiality. What I mean is, why do people say, “Let’s help the needy because it’s the holidays”? Shouldn’t we be doing that year-round? If you’re only kind or generous or cheerful for one month out of the year, it strikes me as rather insincere. Still, I suppose it’s better than nothing!
But I guess that's why the birth of God in human form makes all the difference. Apart from Christ, all of the “holiday cheer” seems very empty to me — like a street of nothing but building facades constructed for a movie set. It is Jesus Christ who puts something of substance behind that facade so that we can enter into those buildings and inhabit them. Then God’s love is a way of life instead of seasonal show.
What about you? What are your thoughts?
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