It’s the time of the year that people start talking about trimming trees, watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music while they warm up to the Christmas spirit. That Yule tide feeling that has you breaking out in a chorus of “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas” even when you know the climate you live in makes such imaginings less than likely. Never-the-less, you’re up for a jolly, holly, Christmas! Unless you suddenly are blindsided by the reality of the commercialization, opulent indulging, consumer overloaded greed that drives overspending, gadget insanity and a spirit of not Christ worship (basic meaning of Christmas) but rather Stuff worship that Jesus says drives a spirit of building bigger barns (i.e. boxes to hold our stuff –Luke 12:18)! Hey, wait a minute preacher… did your grandma get run over by a reindeer or something? Christmas spirit is all about giving and sharing the blessings we have with our loved ones and neighbors!
I agree, I agree… but not at the expense of fiscal responsibility and good stewardship of not only the physical but the spiritual spirit of the season. My mother would always counter our ungrateful spirits when we complained about receiving only one toy for Christmas, with a lecture about how she put a remnant of a flour sack around a brick for a doll and nailed a tin can lid to a stick to roll around as her car. Christmas spirit was not in the status of the gift, or the price tag but rather in the joy of sacrifice that unlocked the imagination of a little girl that turned bricks into dolls and tin can lids into cars. Okay, preacher… now, you’re meddling and jeopardizing my chances for an I-pod Touch, so let me quickly remind you that the Magi brought gifts to the first Christmas party that were not only expensive but specialty gifts!
I agree, I agree… the Christmas spirit is about bringing the best to the party! I’m just suggesting we need to think long and hard about what brings the best! We need to see not just gold, myrrh and frankincense but swaddling clothes, manger tainted straw and desperate quarters that are warmed not by expensive gifts but by worship lit up by heaven’s star. That’s the spirit of the Christ mass… that’s the joy of giving! It’s not about whether we have designer dolls or brick dolls designed by a child’s imagination… it’s about the spirit of giving not receiving. Weigh your gifts with love and meditation on a spirit that will last a lifetime. Make memories that last beyond forgotten toys that can only nurture a moment. Share gifts that are from the heart that are filled not just with Christmas spirit but the Spirit of Christ. And by the way, thanks mom, for brick dolls and tin can lid cars that fill my spirit every Christmas! -DAN
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