Some thoughts about Christmas

As I write this, Christmas is two weeks away.  It is a holiday where we celebrate the birth of Christ.  I really doubt that he was actually born on December 25, but the important thing to me is that he was born and that we are celebrating it.

Christmas is also a time where a lot of pain comes to the surface.  In this time that is supposed to be a happy time, the unhappiness that we live in comes out.  Depression overcomes many of us. The stress of all the activities and schedules will overtake many.  Remembering those who have died and our failed relationships will haunt us. 

 I believe these things show us why Christmas is so important. The dysfunctional family that hurts this time of year is a picture of the dysfunctional relationship that mankind has with God.  The reason that God came, was to heal that relationship between us and Him.

Contrarily to popular opinion, God is not some angry narcissist.  God desires to be friends with us and for us to be happy.  He is the God who put a naked man and a naked woman in a perfect paradise and basically told them to have sex and to keep having sex until there was no more room for another person to be born.  He is a God who would come by in the evenings and just hang out with them.  

Then after Jesus came into this world, we see God as one who liked to hang out with the people who the seminary trained leaders of his day, condemned.  He ate and drank and partied with those people.  He even provided wine when the host ran out at one of those parties.  He told us, as well as those seminary trained leaders that He preferred mercy over sacrifice.  He also would describe his kingdom in terms of a big banquet or party where there was music and food and even dancing.  

The bible also tells us that when that kingdom is fully restored, God will be a personable God.  He will be among the people with hugs, wiping away tears and healing hurts.  It will be a perfect paradise.

This way of living is all about love.  When love is the driving force, then there is no need for laws, because love will cause us to act rightly.  This is what God set up in the beginning and Christmas marks the time when God came into this world to right that relationship.

3 responses to Mother's Day

To me as a kid growing up, Mother's Day was one of the biggest days, if not the biggest day, of the Spring.  It had all the hype of Easter, but where as Easter seemed to disappear into being just another Sunday, Mother's Day had meaning throughout the morning.

Celebrating Mother's Day would start a few days before Sunday.  Someone would order Carnations that would be picked up on Saturday and all the males would wear boutonnieres and the women would wear corsages.  The ones who had living mothers would wear red and if your mother had died then the flower would be white.  We would wear these on our Easter outfits.

The whole morning church service would be focused on Mothers and all that they do.  It would not be uncommon for families to travel back into town and attend the church service, just to be with their mothers.

Then about 20 years ago my family encountered a teaching that came from one of the local seminaries that stated that celebrating Mother's Day was evil and sinful because it shamed women who wanted to have kids, but for some reason couldn't.  While I understand the hurt that can come from this, I also thought that it would be wrong to penalize people that wanted to show honor to the women that played an important part of their lives (no matter if they were blood related or not).

This leads me to a 3rd response.  I saw a man who had been severely abused by his mother and step-dad as he grew up show honor to his mother.  This was not done on Mother's day, but throughout the year.  His mother was very elderly and so the kids would take turns housing and taking care of her for about a month at a time.  They came from a large family, so that the stay would only happen about once a year.  Even though this man would be justified in denying any aid to his Mom, he cared for her when it was his time to do so. He did not let her actions determine his response.  To me this was a Christlike love for someone. I have thought about this often these past 20 years as I have gone through some emotionally tough times in my life.  It also seems to me that society has forgotten this type of love for people.