Dec
22
Written by:
Dennis Atwood
12/22/2009 11:14 AM
Most people celebrate at least two Christmases—Christmas with immediate family and Christmas with extended family. It may even be as many as four Christmases if you’ve had divorced parents and step-parents added to the mix—hence the movie by the same name. As for me, I’ll be celebrating Christmas with my wife and children, followed by a long trip to Mississippi where we will make the Christmas circuit through my parents and in-laws homes. So that makes three Christmases for me.
What’s been on my mind this Advent season is the stark fact that we are all confronted with two Christmases whether we realize it or not. There’s the cultural Christmas experience complete with Santa, reindeer, snow, warm fuzzy Christmas songs, and most importantly the giving and receiving of gifts.
Then there’s the Christian Christmas experience as told through the Gospels of Luke and Matthew of God sending God’s own son in the form of a baby in the most unconventional, unpredictable way imaginable. Nobody expected it to happen this way. Messiah was to come, everyone thought, amidst royalty and privilege and power. Of course, according to the Christian tradition, it didn’t happen that way at all. God came from way beyond left field. It took the intervention of angels to convince folks that it was really true.
The thing is, for us today, the cultural Christmas and the Christian Christmas have become so enmeshed that we may need the intervention of angels again in order to set the story right.
Now, I have absolutely no desire to wage war between the cultural Christmas and the Christian Christmas. It’s a dumb idea for Christians to compel pagans to say “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays.” That's like expecting apples to come from a pear tree.
Rather than waging a battle between culture and Christianity, why not just let them exist independent of each other. Throwing a Christian cloak over cultural Christmas practices actually domesticates and tames the incredibly wild story of God becoming flesh.
Go ahead and dream of a white Christmas. Let it snow. Warn grandma about those reindeer crossings. Let Santa Claus come to town. Let’s just make sure that we followers of the Christ-child are able to distinguish between the two Christmases.
Let’s not lose the mystery and wonder of the very Word of God taking on human flesh and dwelling among us; of God’s own son being born to a peasant teenage unwed mother; of the unconventional, shocking twist in the story of God’s redemption of fallen humanity.
Otherwise, God may have to call out the angels again. And remember, the emotions evoked by those Christmas angels upon the people who encountered them were not of sweet adoration, but of terrible fear.
So, regardless of how many Christmases you and your family celebrate this year, take a holy moment on Christmas Eve and bow down in awe of the significance of the coming of God in Jesus Christ. Have yourself a merry incarnation…