The Meaning of Christmas

Christmas is a big letdown.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I love pretty much everything about Christmas.  It’s my favorite holiday of the year.  Singing “A Christmas Carol.”  Telling “A Christmas Story.”  Buying gifts at “The Shop Around the Corner.”  My favorite part of the holiday is a new tradition we started after moving to California.  Cassie knows how much time, energy, and effort goes into being a pastor at Christmas, so she started cooking Christmas dinner every year.  And I don’t mean just any old dinner, but Christmas dinner with all the fixings and I don’t have to do anything other than pick out the menu and buy some of the groceries.  It’s truly a Christmas gift I look forward to, and I don’t take it for granted.  If she ever wanted to stop, I would totally understand.  So, I just cherish it as long as she wants to do it.  “It’s A Wonderful Life” at Christmas.  And then…it’s over.  That’s the letdown.  It all comes to a screeching halt.  You wake up the next day and realize it’s time to put away the decorations, take down the lights, and throw away the trash. Two months of being inundated with music and lights and commercials and TV specials and toys and gift-giving and parties and suddenly…it’s…over. 

But does it have to be?

Does it have to be over?  Why can’t Christmas last all year?  Maybe not the lights or the music or the weather; I mean I’m a pretty big fan of summer and a person can only take so much peppermint.  But why can’t we hold on to that Christmas spirit all year long?  It certainly seems to be Biblical.  This evening, we’re going to read a favorite passage of mine from Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  What I love about this letter is that it typifies God’s work in the world.  As we heard in reading 1 Corinthians, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are.”  According to a commentary, the house church at Colossae was “the least important church to which any epistle of St. Paul is addressed.”[1] Yet, this letter has become one of the most important and influential for us today.  In the passage we’re going to hear tonight, Paul makes it clear how we should treat one another. 

¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. – Colossians 3:12-17

This is the life we are meant to live every day.  A Christmas life.

A life that reminds us of who Christ was and what he believed in.  It’s why Paul tells us to embrace compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  These are all qualities Jesus showed us during his time on Earth.  They are also qualities we find in abundance during the Christmas season, and exactly the qualities Christ wants us to show one another.  To bear with each other, forgive each other, and love each other are the ways we are supposed to behave all the time.  We don’t need to wait until after Halloween to show this kind of “love. Actually,” we should be doing it every day.  If every Sunday is a mini-Easter, then every other day should be a mini-Christmas.  Because when we act as God wants us to, it not only benefits the world, but benefits us as well.  Showing kindness through volunteer work can lower your likelihood of dying by 44%![2]  People who express humility tend to be smarter and more successful.[3]  Patient leaders increase creativity, collaboration, and productivity in the workplace.[4]  And the list goes on and on.  Embracing the Christmas spirit, improves our lives in both tangible and intangible ways and as Paul notes can bring about a peace to our soul we cannot get otherwise.

Sounds great but doing it every day isn’t easy.

But it can be done.  It’s not about being perfect, because God knows none of us are.  It’s about returning over and over to this life in Christ that leads us to a transformation of our inner being.  It’s about becoming someone new by practicing over and over the kind of person we want to be until we become it.  That’s what Paul means when he tells us to clothe ourselves in these things.  Paul loved the metaphor of putting on clothes.  To the church in Ephesus, he talked about putting on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6) and here he talks about clothing ourselves in these qualities.  Because every day we must CHOOSE to be like Christ.  We choose to be humble.  We choose to be kind.  We choose to be patient.  These are things we have to make the conscious choice to do.  Like getting dressed every day.  And that’s why we can choose to lead a Christmas life.  This Christmas spirit that seems to magically come around every year is something we can choose to continue even after tomorrow when it’s time to put away the lights and decorations.  It’s a matter of making the choice to do it. Don’t let the Christmas spirit “die.  Hard” to do, but it’s a choice we make every day.

The things we do during the season are what keep us grounded in its spirit. 

So instead of waiting ten more months to do it again, let us continue to live as if every day was Christmas.  Randomly send gifts to people simply to brighten their day.  Send someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time a card and do it for no reason other than wanting to make contact.  Don’t wait for their birthday, but simply drop them a note.  Be randomly generous.  Give an extra-large tip to your server at the restaurant.  Leave something extra for the person who does your hair.  Pay for the dinner of the person behind you in the drive-thru window of your favorite fast-food place.  These are the kinds of things we find natural to do at Christmas.  Why not make them part of simply who we are? The point is simply this: We are called to live a Christmas life.  Not just during the month of December but all year round. We are often called an Easter people. Maybe we can be a Christmas people, too. 

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[1] https://bible.org/seriespage/background-colossians

[2] https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/the-science-of-kindness

[3] https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/science-shows-humility-makes-you-smarter-more-successful-here-are-8-types-to-cultivate.html

[4] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-of-the-manager/202303/patience-brings-tangible-benefits-to-management