Im-perfect Christmas.
December 9, 2009 by Gretchen Mertes
Filed under Staff Blog
I just finished reading this awesome article about dealing with Christmas and divorce, and I wanted to share a few thoughts with you all. (Read the article now, and then come back here.) :)
Broken relationships and deaths and hard times have a tendency to get swept under the rug this time of year. It’s as if we are saying, “Let’s all just be cheery and get on with it, shall we?” But perhaps, as the author of the article says, “Christmas exists to remember the Advent of our Savior. Our Savior. Christmas is a crafted mercy, if we will allow it to be such for us, that reminds us again and again of the shipwreck and our (eventual) full rescue.”
Hold on to your hats. What I’m about to say may sound like heresy, but here it is anyway.
Christmas is not about family.
Christmas is not about pretty lights and presents and cookies. Christmas is not even about goodwill and charity and kindness. Christmas is about being put back together by the One who made us in the first place. Christmas is about God coming to us. It’s nice that we do so much other stuff, but none of that has anything to do with anything when it comes down to it. As a friend of mine posted on Facebook, “I have to admit that despite my religious convictions (or lack thereof), I still enjoy sparkly trees and glimmering lights and shiny baubles.” To which I replied, “None of those things have much to do with religious convictions anyway.”
I invite you to celebrate with all your might. The cultural reality of this holiday season is a lot of fun, if you’re up for it! But I also invite you to contemplate what it is that is really being remembered – what all this fuss is really about. And I’m not talking about putting on a “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” button. The season, at this point, has very little to do with Jesus. And that is exactly why Advent is so danged important. It’s why we wait, and why we sing. This is where we begin our church year. Remembering over and over again that this is where we get put back together.
O Come, O Come Immanuel.
