A pastor works when others rest. This happens every week on Sundays. And it can be more acute around holidays.
This year I found myself going in to my office to get ready
for Sunday worship the morning after Christmas.
The maintenance man was there, taking down all the Christmas
decorations. So I found myself besides
preparing an extra service this week, writing this!
Throwing out the tree and garland on December 26 is probably
normal for many people. It’s even a
holiday of its own – Boxing Day – for some.
But it troubles me.
And in 2020 it indicates a deeper problem.
This year, it
seems people want 2020 to be over, more than they want to observe holidays.
It’s a spiritual problem.
We are like the Stoic fatalist who breaks his leg and says, “Well, glad
that’s over.” Hm. NOT a Christian view of life or God’s
providence.
In an outstanding article today on the Christian meaning of
Christmas, James Wilson notes that our feelings should be disciplined by healthy
outside forces that align us with reality and truth. One of those forces is the church’s tradition
of a liturgical calendar, Wilson notes (in the Wall Street Journal!).
I would go further and say that in the church’s calendar,
Christmas BEGINS on December 25, it does not end then. The twelve days of Christmas is not just a
song, but a steady, festive march to January 6. That is the holiday (holy day) of Epiphany,
when we celebrate the magi coming to worship Jesus, when we recall the light of
the world coming to Gentiles and the whole world, not just to Israel.
When we call out “Happy Holidays!” today it is often a
substitute for the too-narrow “Merry Christmas.” But Happy Holidays for the thoughtful
Christian can pull together Advent, Christmas and Epiphany all in one, and keep
our observance balanced, and more helpful than the world’s.
The world’s rhythm
is very different.
Store decorations come out right after Halloween.
The hustle and bustle builds to a climax around December
23-24.
Then all goes quiet for time with family December 24-25.
The next day the decorations come down.
The next Monday we go back to work, or away on vacation, and
think about a New Year.
In 2020, this is even
more pronounced.
There has been much talk since Thanksgiving about wanting 2020 OVER, and little talk of holidays, beyond how to [not] gather. The hopes and fears of 2020 are on a stupid calendar
square and a number: 2021. Or our hopes
and fears are on January 5 (Georgia elections) or 6 (House vote on the
electoral college) or 20 (Biden’s inauguration), depending on your politics.
But on Christmas Eve, we sang together as a church
congregation, a truth that exposes and rejects those hopes as false or fleeting:
“The hopes and fears of ALL THE YEARS are met in thee [in Bethlehem,
in Jesus] tonight.”
How can we live out this truth? Here are a few ideas.
1. Don’t make new
year’s eve such a big deal this year.
Resist the urge to celebrate with the world a calendar turn,
as if that has any affect at all on events.
“If we just turn the page to 2021, Covid will go away!” What kind of weird superstition is that? God’s providence rules the world, not a
Julian calendar. Not a change in the
American presidency, not the rollout of a vaccine. But this year we’re leaning on a new year to
give us hope, more than we are on the reality of Christmas. And this is not just a 2020 phenomenon, but
part of the overall growing secularizing of our American culture. Resist it.
Christians don’t lean on the same things the rest of the world does.
2. Keep giving
gifts.
I’ve reserved a few gifts to give to my family throughout
the 12 days of Christmas, leading up to Epiphany. The world sees this as a faux pas - as if you
forgot their birthday. But that’s the
wrong way to look at it. Jesus is truly the
“gift that keeps on giving.” Forever! Why not observe His Incarnation, not only in the
act of giving gifts at all, but in the WAY we give them? God gave Jesus on Christmas, but He kept giving
in Christ’s earthly life of 30 years, and obedient ministry of 3 years,
climaxing in His gift on the cross. And
then God kept giving! The
resurrection. Pentecost, when the gift
spread to the nations. The ministry of
Paul of Tarsus, when the gift spread to the Gentiles, and the world, even to
the Roman emperor. Keep giving to your
loved ones, in the same spirit.
3. Find ways to
remember God’s gifts to you.
We tend to use our extra time from December 25 until work
restarts to enjoy the gifts we received.
What if we also keep remembering God’s
gifts to us?
Here’s one way my family has done that.
The song “The 12 days of Christmas” may have started as a
code song for persecuted Christians to sing of God’s love to His people. Even if not, my family has profited from
singing this adapted version throughout the 12 days of Christmas. It mostly fits the meter of the song, so you
can sing it. This is the same pattern as
the Jesse Tree of Advent, remembering each day a particular part of God’s
redemptive history leading up to Christ.
On the x day of
Christmas, my True Love [God, Jesus] gave to me:
Jesus Christ our
Savior, baby
Two Testaments [Old
and New, the Bible]
Faith, Hope and Love
Four Gospel Books
Five Books of the Law
Six Creation Days
Seven Spirit Gifts
Eight Beatitudes
Nine Spirit Fruits
Ten Good Commandments
Eleven Faithful
Apostles
Twelve Tribes of
Israel
And the focus on Israel on Twelfth Night, January 5, can
lead naturally into the Epiphany celebration of God’s revelation to the
Gentiles, too.
4. Pray as you
consume news – hope in the Lord for good!
To have your hopes and fears of all your years meet in Jesus today, takes work.
It seems to me that the news, from every political bias,
has become more aggressive in pressuring its viewers what to trust in, as a
result of the bad news they report. And it's never Jesus. Science,
Trump, not-Trump, a dual electoral college vote, etc. This all reinforces their audience’s counterfeit “HOPES AND
FEARS” thus bringing them back for more viewing and ratings. (Tim Keller's "Counterfeit Gods" is good on this.) My newspaper this morning told me that their
Digital Word of the Year is “Doomscrolling:” being obsessed with taking in bad
news, such that you can’t stop scrolling.
Don’t get sucked into this. As
the media casts cares on you, cast them on the Lord.
Use His Word to help in this. It is a needed counterbalance to consuming
news. If you read through the Bible in a
year, a practice I highly recommend, you’re coming to the end of
Revelation. There’s a LOT of bad news in
there – far worse than 2020! But Christ’s
power and His return resolve it all into a coming world with no tears, pain or
death. Plan your Scripture reading for
2021, to give God’s news more weight in your heart and mind than the world’s.
Amen!
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful, Steve. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDelete