And so this is Christmas for weak and for strong,
The rich and the poor ones, the road is so long.
So this is Christmas…what have you done?
Another Christmas is upon us. Another Santa in the mall. Another Black Friday barrage. Another Christmas
Eve shopping rush for me and fellow procrastinators. Another season of trying to convince people I don’t hate the holidays.
This is the first Christmas for me since my “deconstruction.” In case I poorly explained it before, I have spent the last 6 months-a year “deconstructing” my faith. I realized that what someone believes, or doesn’t believe, impacts every part of their existence from the cognitive awareness of who they are, until their last day on Earth. Realizing this, I set out to study, contemplate, and discover what I believed, for myself. I made a deal with myself to be open to new ideas and ways of thinking, while not losing myself in the act of searching, if that even makes sense…
Anyways, Christmas.
I have never been one to do a big Christmas, like some people do. My family and I do gifts and such, but because of the literal geographic location of my extended family, my Christmas is usually a small affair.
Each season is the same. Jesus is the reason for the season. People hate nativity scenes more and more. Keep “Christ” in Christmas.
Because of my deconstruction, I made it a point to look at the Christmas story, and really try to put myself there in the story. I wanted to understand the story in the way God intended me to understand.
The Christmas story is far from the cute Children’s play put on every year at church.
Yeah, plays serve as reminders, and they’re great for a basic outline of why we celebrate Christmas, but if you actually look at the text, Christmas is ridiculous. Not ridiculous in a negative way, but in an incredibly beautiful and amazing way.
Jesus was born through immaculate conception to a girl between the age of 10 and 14.
What?
Yeah... We often admit that Mary was young, but just think about this for a second. A 14-year-old girl is engaged to be married to a man who, depending on which school of thought you believe in, is either an equally very young man, or a much much older man.
So now we have a young teen girl pregnant by her fiancé, which has had no sexual relations with her yet.
A young girl, pregnant with not her fiancé/husbands baby.
Shortly after Jesus’ birth, King Herod issued a decree that all boys under the age of 2 be killed. So we go from a miraculously impregnated teenage girl, to essentially an infant holocaust.
This story, even taken out of its Biblical context, is historic. Secular historians have no problem accepting Jesus existed (although the method of his birth is disputed), and His birth is even such an important event in history and religion that it is even talked about in the Koran (Koran 3:43-60).
I know I’ve seemingly butchered whatever coherent thoughts I had about all this (I’m writing this at 2AM, and I’m tired), but what I essentially want to point out is that, to make Christmas about nativity scenes, and keeping “Christ” in the name, is to minimalize the impact of the event we celebrate.
We celebrate the beginning of the life of a God/Man that was part God, part man, full revolutionary. A man who went TO the oppressed, TO the poor, TO the prostitutes, TO the orphan, TO the leper, TO the sinner, TO the lost. While I don’t have a problem with our Christmas traditions, I can’t help but look at the Christmas season and wonder what God thinks about it. He sees His children argue over whether or not there was a literal virgin birth. He sees us wage a war on the “war on Christmas.” He sees us spending troves of time and money on things. He sees us throw the homeless guy a few bucks because its Christmas, and the “time for giving.” The other 11 months are for ignoring those in need, but we feel bad for ignoring the needs of others around the holidays.
I like Christmas. As messed up as we all are often times, its nice to see people be decent humans for a few weeks in the year. I just wish the Christmas spirit lasted all year round. Not the trees, gifts, egg nog (no one likes egg nog in the summer), and other little things we do, but the spirit of people at least a decent person. After Christmas is over, we too often go back to our self-indulgent ways. Me me me. What can I do for me? How can I get back the money I spent on things for others?
What if in July, we give someone a gift because we just love them?
How about we give the homeless guy some money or a meal in April. His hunger is the same then as it is now.
In my terrible way of writing and trying to fit 5,000,000 pages worth of thoughts into a few lines, I’m basically just trying to say, look at Christmas differently, and deeply. Dig down under the surface of seasonal coffee and mall santas. Dig down under the surface of being “Christian-like” for a few weeks.
If you’re still reading this, I applaud you, and apologize. Thank you for spending a few minutes to read what I semi-consciously typed out while half asleep at the Yellow Deli at 2AM. I promise the next post will be much better.
Also, if I’ve managed to trick you into continuing to read, I want to also add that I’d like to have things to talk about. Yes, I started this as a method of getting thought out, not worrying about people reading or not, but I’ve noticed that as I do these, the hardest part is narrowing a thought down. For every post, I’ve deleted 10 prior drafts. I have a hard time centering my thoughts on a particular subject. With that being said, I’d absolutely love to be given topics or questions. The best way to do that is to message me on Facebook. I absolutely love talking about this kind of stuff in an honest, safe, and open way, but people looking to engage in similar style discussion seem to be rare.
NG
