Thoughts On Christmas
Finding the magic again.
If you know me, you know I love Christmas. Our halls were decked on November 1—sharp. There’s something about the wonder everyone carries in their eyes this time of year. Perspective is recovered, family is reprioritized, work is deprioritized, and you gain an appreciation for the things you have been blessed with over the years (s). For this one month, all things are put right again.
In my house growing up, Christmas Eve was spent preparing cookies for Santa, eating (a lot), and dreaming of what we might find on Christmas morning. My most memorable Christmas was the Christmas of 1996. I grew up a diehard Clemson Tiger fan (sorry, Gamecock people), and all I wanted for Christmas that year was tickets to the Clemson vs LSU Peach Bowl1 game in Atlanta, GA.
On Christmas morning, we opened all of our gifts. Though I opened many compelling surprises, the tickets were nowhere to be found. When all hope was lost, my mom told me to look in the Christmas tree—she “saw” something. The tickets were about halfway up the tree in a stocking ornament. I’ll never forget it.
Then there are the traditions. My family eats noodles and chicken (made in the crockpot) every Christmas Eve. We decorated cookies, read the Christmas story in the Bible, and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Then, my wife and I stay up and watch movies while preparing for the big day. Going from the kids struggling to sleep to the parents having no time to sleep has made Christmas much better.
It is the most wonderful time of the year. However, I don’t take for granted that many people face difficulties this Christmas. Some have no money to buy what they would like. Some don’t know where their Christmas dinner is going to come from. Some are dealing with missing people at this year’s Christmas. Yet, Christmas is a reminder that it is in the darkness that the light shines.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
John 1:5 NRSV
On December 26, 1920, Karl Barth preached a sermon on Luke 2 in which he reminds us, “Nowhere is God more hidden than in Jesus Christ.”2
Jesus of Nazareth is the least likely place anyone would expect to find the God of Creation. Think about it: at Christmas, we celebrate a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and sleeping in a feeding trough of hay. This is God? Christmas reminds us that God does his best work in hidden places—places that are usually disregarded as irrelevant and unimportant. In the times when you don’t know how you’re going to make it through another Christmas, God is enthroned, shining a light in the obscurity to bring you out and into the good plans he has for you.
This brings me to the point of this writing: My favorite Christmas involved receiving something I completely missed. Only when someone (my mom) pointed it out to me did my sorrow become overwhelming joy. But the tickets were there the entire time. I didn’t have the eyes to see it.
As you prepare for Christmas in the week ahead, fix your eyes. That is the point of Advent—recalibrating how we see. It’s raising our expectation for a God who will come and invade our world of darkness and shine a light that the darkness cannot overcome.
We string lights everywhere at Christmas and at night, turn them on to reveal the glorious work of our holiday dreams. Those lights illuminate the darkness with a beauty that can only be seen in the dark. What if the night is simply a canvas for you to see the light of the Son on full display?
Christmas is a call to get your hopes up; our God is coming!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from my family to yours.
The Peach Bowl is now the Chick-fil-A Bowl
The Early Preaching of Karl Barth: Fourteen Sermons with Commentary by William H. Willimon by Karl Barth, William H. Willimon