Christmas. Decorating the tree. Buying and wrapping gifts. Spending time with friends and family. Singing cheesy Christmas carols with 91.9.
Normally I love Christmas, but this year I just can't get excited and in the holiday spirit. I know Christmas should make me feel happy, but I sure don't feel happy. I don't want to get within a 5 mile radius of a shopping mall. I'm not excited about buying gifts for my friends and family. I'm not in the mood to get dressed up and go to big Christmas parties and make small talk with random acquaintances. I'm not excited about serving or purchasing gifts for needy families. The 24/7 Christmas carols on 91.9 have become like nails on a chalkboard.
For my self-prescribed attitude adjustment, I turned to Linus, the great preacher of the gospel in A Charlie Brown Christmas. I think the issue with Christmas is that we all, like Charlie Brown, forget what Christmas is really all about.
Christmas isn't about getting gifts or decorating trees, but about our salvation and redemption. The holiday isn't about the manger as much as pointing the world to the Cross. The star not only points out the birthplace of Jesus, but prepares the world to rock and roll in 30 some years at Calvary.
During my deep thoughts while running this weekend, I realized that my salvation, my redemption, and my worship of God are not feelings. They are facts, just like the good news of Christmas Linus tells Charlie Brown. To place my feelings on the facts of Christmas and redemption make me re-write God's amazing story to fit my personal, temporary view of the world.
Our feeling cannot change the facts of Jesus. That excites me, and hopefully you as well. I am also encouraged by the father in Mark 9:24. After Jesus heals his son of a horrible sickness, the man confesses his belief and unbelief in the same breath. Unbelief, like doubt, bah-humbugness, and spiritual crankiness and fatigue, do not change the saving power and grace of Christ, epitomized in Christmas.
So if Christmas is a fact and not a feeling, what comes next? What other facts am I ignoring to feed my feelings and ego?
I'd say I'm missing the fact of the way Jesus lived and calls us to live.
To be generous when my heart doesn't want to be generous.
To be loving when I don't want to love.
To serve others when I don't want to serve anyone except myself.
To sing and worship at the top of my lungs when I don't want to worship.
Aren't those all the things that Christmas is really about? Besides, it's His birthday anyways...I reckon a good birthday gift would be to pray to live more like Him.
And that's a gift I would love to give.
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