Christmas 2009 is rolling around soon, and it seems like for the second year in a row, it feels like it shouldn't be Christmas yet. It seems like there's no way that it's already December, and that I'm already through 3 rows of my advent calendar. It doesn't seem like Christmas could possibly be in one week from today! Despite having all my Christmas shopping done, all the presents wrapped, and the praise team at church practicing Christmas music, it still doesn't seem possible. What follows is my semi-late-night ramblings on why that might be, at least in my case.
Our society puts out messages about what Christmas is about - the "true meaning" of Christmas. Depending on the TV station, this could be any number of things... love, family, charity, new beginnings. Or, in between 10 minute sections of our favorite Christmas movies, rampant materialism.
As a Christian, I know intellectually what the "true meaning" of Christmas is - it's a celebration of the birth of Jesus. So, because I know better than what all the messages are telling me, I don't get sucked into the rest of it... So why is it still so hard for me to get into a Christmas mood this year? Well, I think I know the answer for me, but it's not something I'd have ever considered if someone had suggested this in previous years. The realization I came to is that it's because my relationship with God is pretty crappy right now.
From what I can tell, to celebrate something, we have to be happy about it. To celebrate somebody's birthday, we have to care about that person. To celebrate a holiday, we have to care about it. To celebrate the birth of Christ, we have to care about Him. If our relationship with God isn't right, we can't truly celebrate. We're either gonna buy into the "inspirational" meaning of Christmas put forth by the movies on the Hallmark channel, or the materialistic meaning put forth by anybody who has a product to sell - or end up with a case of holiday depression.
Christmas can thus be used as a kind of measuring stick for our relationship with God. If we find it easy to focus on Christ during the Christmas season, and to truly celebrate, we're doing something right. But if it's not, it means that maybe we're not as close to God as we should be. And I don't know about you, but this provides me with something to work on this Christmas season.
Blog related note: I'm hopefully gonna actually update this now.
So true. It's so easy to know that Christmas is about the birth of Christ. But we've heard the Christmas story so many times that it losses it's excitment. Yet I still get excited about celebrating my friend's birthdays, so, I should be just as excited, if not more so, about God's birthday.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the food for thought.
i know what ur talking about when u sed that x-mas snuck up on us
ReplyDeletealso, i used to b a good catholic/christian, whatever i was, i'd go to church every sunday, and all that fun stuff, then about 8th grade i was like "to hell with religion, it's stupid" and i went to church cause my parents made me go, but then in 2001 i went on this retreat for a boyscout religious thing, and i found god again, i started goingto church cause i wanted to again, it was pretty nice, then shortly there after i developed my own religion based alot on whatever religion i was b4, cause thas all i had ever known, but i putmy own spin on it, like i made my views more general and added values that alot of ppl dont seem to have anymore, like respect, and honor, can compassion
anyway, ya, i'm rambling.. i'll end my comment :)
mhmm, same here.. that's pretty much how i do things... do what's right, help those who need it, stand up for the "good" and denounce/defend against the "evil" as perceived by what the "heart" and/or God (same thing really, the "heart" in this context is guided by God and/or events controlled by God) tells me... duality is present, but when the "beholder" that defines both sides of the circle is guided by God, it's no longer a "pointless" concept to understand....
ReplyDeleteand bro.. what makes you feel like your relationship with God is so "crappy" recently? i'm fairly certain you're not some "evil devil-warshiper" or anything like that....