Star
Chasers
I have
to admit to having some weird Christmas obsessions that I like to dress up and
parade around each year as “beloved traditions.” For instance, every year I put up this ratty
artificial tree that sheds just like a real one. It's hideous but once I tried
to get rid of it and my kids acted like I was killing Santa Claus, so there it
stands in my living room like a 3 legged dog with the mange. But in the spirit
of Linus van Pelt, it’s not such a bad little tree. It just needs some
love. And anyway, it really doesn't matter because one of my favorite
tradition/obsessions is to enjoy the beauty of looking at Christmas lights with
severe myopia just as in the days of my childhood. By removing my contact lenses and gazing at
the colored lights all blurred together I can recreate the nearsighted fog in
which I spent a good part of my youth. Oh, the warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feeling I
get from remembering those days of running around half blind and not realizing
it!
Another of my fabulous tradition/obsessions is
that every year, while out Christmas shopping, I seek Baby Jesus wrapping paper, and every year I
become predictably appalled that there's none to be found. Oh sure, I could
order it from some special religious supply house, but that's just not the
point. The point is I want Baby Jesus paper available at my whim, stocked on
all the shelves of whatever store I happen to be in. They have angel wrap or
maybe a snowy church scene wrap but no Baby Jesus wrap. I was at a dollar store
the other day and found shirt boxes embossed with a beautiful Nativity scene so
I bought them. I didn't even need them, but somehow, I needed to BUY them and
take them home and celebrate their very existence.
It was
at this point that I realized that maybe I have a lit-tle problem. Am I now
worshiping gift boxes? No. I rejected this crazy notion. I'm just trying to
keep Christ in Christmas...um, via righteous indignation regarding tangible
items bought and sold from a cold metal shelf in a cold metal department store
in a cold metal world. Hmmm. Maybe I
should re-evaluate, huh?
It's
funny how something so simple can bring things into focus. All this time, I've
been trying to wrap Baby Jesus around a commercialized Christmas in an effort
to somehow merge the two into my own little mutant holiday extravaganza. As
Christians we often complain that others are trying to commercialize the
spiritual, but I think I have been trying to spiritualize the commercial. And
while it’s true that the Magi brought gifts to this Newborn King they heard
about, these were meaningful gifts, given in thoughtfulness, not
obligation. I was not there and history
does not confirm this, but I sincerely doubt that these Star Chasers stomped
around the mall swearing under their collective breath about what to get the
Christ Child. Nor do I believe that they haphazardly stopped at a 7-Eleven
along the way or else they would have come bearing gifts of beef jerky, a quart
of motor oil and a Druid tree air freshener.
Also,
you may note that these Wise Men were a little tardy to the party. Historians
speculate that Jesus was anywhere from 6 weeks to two years old before the Magi
arrived. Being men, I suppose that they didn't want to stop and ask directions
and when they finally did, they managed to ask the one person they shouldn't
have. But I can relate. When I worked in sales, I would just sort of aim at my
destination on the map and once in the city, I would ask directions to whatever
store I was assigned to visit. Invariably, I would find the one person to get
directions from who spoke broken English or who didn't have their teeth in that
day. (FYI Walmart is always “on the bypass” in all small southern towns). So no matter how big of a hurry I was in to
reach my destination, I just got there when I got there. Anyway, I guess what
I’m really trying to say is that I can't pick on the Magi when it's taken me
almost forever to arrive.
Just so
you understand me, I am not renouncing gift giving, or decking the halls, or
cookie baking or even watching those really sappy Lifetime Christmas movies.
I'm just no longer confusing the birth of Christ and what that means to me
personally with the secular celebrations that coincide with that. Christian celebrations have always run
parallel to secular celebrations and other religious celebrations too, even
going so far as to adopt some of the traditions and assigning new meaning to
them. There is no need to justify one
with the other. So even if there's not a single roll of Baby Jesus wrap on the
shelves; and even if the political
correctness police want to use generic holiday greetings; and even if someone
took down all the public Nativity scenes-- it's all going to be okay. Christ is
not bought from a shelf, he is not carved from wood and he is not dependent on
any sort of traditional greeting to remain relevant. No one can steal Christ
from Christmas and they cannot eject him from anything but their own lives. As for me…I am convinced that
nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither
our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell
can separate us from God’s love. No
power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation
will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in
Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39).
And “That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.”
Merry
Christmas, Star Chasers!
