Truly, we find ourselves in the season of holidays. While I once demanded this season is only about one holiday—Christmas—I can’t help but see that, more and more, I was deluded by a cultural message ingrained in me. Power, dominance, my way, or else…
More than ever, marketing schemes have banked on Christians inserting their dominance in the culture, and now our religion is used to make a buck—or a billion. I am desperate to rid myself of that ridiculous pursuit of dominance. How could I have ever been convinced that Christmas was about that kind of power at all? And how could I have been so stuck on demanding Christmas and all its trimmings? As I grow older, I finally understand that “Christmas”, as we’ve come to experience it, is two holidays.
We have the marketed celebration. And we have the Feast of the Nativity.
It’s important to distance the celebration from the feast. There’s a danger in mixing them together, as if Jesus is a poster child for a grand marketing plan. And the marketers’ intention is obvious, these days. They’re playing a giant game of monopoly, investing in the manger; banking on the Santa with the baby; commercializing “Scripture” on trendy shirts, and offering up knock-off religious symbols in holiday sales. Marrying the two holidays inflates the economy, but bankrupts the sacred. Sadly, ironic.
The nativity isn’t a meme.
The Christ child isn’t a mascot.
And holiday shopping isn’t elevated and justified by using the Christian story as a logo.
Take my Savior out of your scheming, Box Stores. I’ll just shop. Just enjoy the colors and the lights. Eat, drink, be merry.
But I won’t find Christmas in those things. Thank God, He’s not in those things.
The Feast of the Nativity has nothing to do with the holiday celebration this culture mistakes for Christmas. The Feast of the Nativity is honoring the Christ and His Mother. The feast magnifies a Prophecy fulfilled. The Feast glorifies a humble servant, a compassionate Lord, Love Eternal. Nothing plastic, trending, or modern can touch the sacred meaning. Christmas or the Feast of the Nativity? They are not the same. Maybe they were once, but not as we label celebrations now.
So…What’s the big deal, you might ask? It’s all about the heart anyway. You can have it all and still have Christ.
Sure.
I will be the first to admit, I love the festive spirit of all the things in December. I celebrate the season, and I magnify the nativity. I do both.
But mixing the two in the way they’ve been mixed…well, it is a big deal. There is so much at stake.
Especially hearts.
There are people out there who need the Feast more than ever. And the stuff just won’t cut it. It has to be more than that. Confusing the two celebrations strips down the reality of Who Christ is to a plastic imitation perfectly suited for a store shelf. Who wants two for the price of one when it comes to a Savior? Allowing commerce to capitalize on our story is not what Christmas was ever meant to be.
And by God’s grace, the Feast is untouched, and will remain that way within the walls of many Churches. And I’d say, that the fullness is found in the pew, not the store shelf. The Light of the world is found in the candle lit by the broken hearted, not the perfectly lined roofs. And the Christmas story is powerful in itself—not because of dominance—but because of Love.
angie dicken 