“ Christmas is getting to be too much,” an acquaintance of mine shouted to me as he hurried after his wife and their quickly filling shopping cart. I wonder if that’s true? Can celebration of our Savior’s birth become “too much” ? The short answer is no, but truth is much has been made of Christmas that isn’t Christmas.
Music has been composed. Songs have been written and sung.
Characters have been conjured from imaginations. Yarns were spun, fables were told and retold. Wonderous legends where carved into our hearts. When man gazed at sacred truth and perceived something malleable, we fashioned a Christmas spirit. Century after century we pounded on an amplified inflated dramatized versions of facts. Traditions have been held and are kept now as if the survival of the species depended on them. The season marries the talent and effort of those who would help you see what they see or feel what they feel, or at least wish they could, about Christmas.
Christmas will always be a loftier
event than our ability to communicate it.
So, we deflect our attention from celebration to decoration. We made our plans and got busy. Effectively, running back to chains Christ unshackled us from.
I wonder what plans Mary had just prior to the Gabriel’s visit?
Maybe a grand wedding.
What dreams did she lay aside to be obedient? Did the memories of what we call Christmas console her visions the crucifixion must have left her with? It's in her words I find the spirit of Christmas.
Luke
38Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”
Christmas ushered in a new era of man's ability to serve something greater than our primordial pleasures. Jesus became our spiritual food to curve our emotional and sensual appetites so that we could feast rather than starve. As long as what we celebrate truly is the first coming of Christ, we will never be guilty of overdoing Christmas.
God's word reminds me we’re to be living sacrifices. Never trade His vision for your Dreams. Never exchange His purpose for you for your passion. For those who cannot break free of those desires, Christmas will always be ”too much”. If through Christ you can declare, ” let it be to me according to your word, Lord” it will be enough. And Christmas will always be as it should be.
May the season afford you peace in every blessing. May Love and Joy come to you.
Merry Christmas,
Clint
