I've written a bunch of rough drafts of this Christmas post that were focused on what Christmas is not. I wrote one on why Christmas isn't working. But as I scroll through Facebook I realize that people don't need to be reminded of that. Hell, some one in my own family posted that she wished the Mayan's were right so she didn't have to go through another Christmas.
With hopes and dreams like that I think its safe to say that the "warm holiday feeling" alone gives the same long term affect as a "warm I just shat my pants feeling."
At Christmas time our ability to have that warm and fuzzy feeling is directly related to the size of our billfolds. Apart from Jesus the "Holiday's" are really all about money and buying a certain feeling. If we don't have the money then you can't buy the feeling. Worse yet, if we don't have the money then somebody uses us to buy that feeling for themselves.
Think about it, if all we are celebrating is good feelings, merriment, and giving then there has to be a receiver and a giver. There is a lot of pressure on both sides but if you are just the receiver then you feel really low really quickly. You might be excited that that stranger filled up your gas tank for you with their American Express Black card, but soon that excitement is replaced by shame that you can't seem to hold down a job or make ends meet. Our belief in the power of the human spirit and all the crap is quickly turned into "I'm nobody's charity case" or "How dare they think of me that way!"
The other side of the coin is just as obnoxious. When we have tons of cash and can buy whatever we want we worry that what we buy won't be loved like we want it to be. We desire to show our love to people by filling their pockets and storage units with the latest, greatest stuff that will be obsolete by New Years. Then when one of the millions of people on our list doesn't like what we've given them we get all defensive because it's not an attack on the iPhone 50000G superior series, it's an attack on us. The feeling we want to get through giving is now gone and everybody else are ungrateful bastards.
Christmas without Jesus is a great divider. It exploits the differences between the haves and the have nots. There is no equality. There is no real goodwill. There is only the exploitation of somebody else in order for us to get a certain feeling. Apart from Jesus we may try to de-commercialize Christmas, but we can't. If God isn't involved Christmas has to be about people and feelings. We use people and money to get a feeling. It's still all about being a consumer.
The irony is quite simple. People fight to get rid of God and fight for equality of everybody. But only in Christ are we all equal. We are all equal in our sinfulness. We are all equal in our need of help. The average person doesn't want equality. They want people to understand where everybody fits into society and to just deal with it. Jesus flies in the face of that. Jesus let's us know that the status-quo is no longer that. The Emmanuel (God with us) is proof that God plays fair and isn't afraid to get in the mix. God, the Creator, the only person who has the right to say, "I'm better than you and I know it" said the exact opposite. He didn't go for a feeling or a warm fuzzy, He went for pain. He went for equality. He went for Love.
Thanks to Jesus all are equal.
Merry Christmas.
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