The message of Christmas

Heard a preacher on the radio tonight railing about the true message of Christmas & asking the question that if some foreigner or alien arrived in our north american culture & beheld the spectacle/car-crash that is our modern day Christmas, if they'd really hear the true message of Christmas. He talked about how the problem is that we don't think about Jesus enough during Christmas & instead worry about the holidays & the gifts & stuff....

... got me to thinking about how Christmas is maybe not so significant for me. The part I love about Christmas is that it gives me an excuse to buy gifts for family & friends. Yeah, I turn myself into a stress case worrying about finding the 'perfect' gift, but I love those rare moments where I can find something for someone that they can really use, or that they really want - most of all I want to find them something that makes them feel 'known' - like someone's listened to them throughout the year (& the stress/not knowing the perfect gift maybe shows that i don't listen as well as I'd like to).

But for me in my addled little brain, the reality of Jesus is a year round thing. He is the presence that never leaves, whether I'm aware of it or not. He is the unexpected voice, the one who heralds the unknown & gleefully beckons me to join Him in braving it. He is the lover, the saviour, the friend. & so the incredible message of Christmas, of Emmanuel, of God with us, is a (near) daily event for me.

In Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", the good news of Christmas seeps into Scrooge's withered soul & makes him come alive again. In Scrooge's opus at the end of the story, he promises to keep Christmas every day in his heart. Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" in the middle of a world where the poor were treated horribly, where the rich got richer & turned away from their fellow man & lived with hearts of stone, cold to the cries of the oppressed. At the core of Dickens' message was a message that the power of Christmas, the reality of "glad tidings which shall be to all people", was that this revelation of love should affect us permanently, should guide our actions & motives every moment of every day.

Maybe the problem isn't in whether or not we "keep the Christ in Christmas". Maybe the real issue is that we wait for holidays to open our hearts to the revelation of "Emmanuel". Maybe if Christianity was more relationship than lifestyle, more romance than how-to manual....