Chaplain's Corner

The day I began writing this article was June 20th. It had rained the night before, the sun was out, the sky was blue and it smelled fresh outside. You will read this at the end of September three months before this year’s celebration of Christmas. So why write about Christmas so far in advance?

I would like to ask you to image the possibility of Christmas before it became what it is today: Christmas without colored lights, evergreen trees, wreaths, carols, gift buying, family gatherings and all the rest that it has become.

Have you ever considered what it would be like to be a Christian living in the Amazon River basin, or the jungles of New Guinea or the steps of Mongolia or perhaps even in sub-Saharan Africa and celebrate Christmas without the influence of radio stations pumping out non-stop Christmas tunes for a month before December 25th, shopping malls pushing holiday shopping beginning in September or being absolutely unaware that you must get your gifts purchased, cards written and baking done because your December is going to be so busy.

Have you ever wondered how the first century Christians celebrated Christmas, even before December 25th was pronounced to be the day it should be remembered? I know it is impossible to step out of our culture and all that it has done with this sacred remembrance and I know how much resistance I would get from every quarter if I espoused a down-right moratorium on Christmas as North Americans know and celebrate it but can we admit that these cultural trappings actually fog our vision that Christmas is actually about the Incarnation.

The Incarnation is perhaps the most stunning Divine act ever. It is described by Paul the Apostle like this: “…Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!…” (Philippians 2:6-8). That is what Christmas is about!  And the way we celebrate Christmas in our culture misses this completely.

The Creator takes the form of his creation, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords takes on the posture of servant hood, the omnipresent deity confines himself to the limitations of being human, all that it means to be God is voluntarily laid aside for the sole purpose of becoming the only sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world, a sinless man. And all this is done for one reason: to demonstrate to human kind that God loves us, not just corporately, but individually.

That’s what I would like to encourage us to capture in the next three months as we approach the celebration of Christmas 2014. Do whatever else you want, but let’s commit ourselves to attempting to raise this truth to the forefront of our thinking about the event celebrated on December 25th. See what a conscious effort to remember this absolutely outrageous divine expression of love does in our hearts. I believe if all we did was commit ourselves to pondering this truth that it would naturally have a dramatic impact on how we approach the holiday this year.