[Josh] Inviting Jesus to our Holidays: Why We Celebrate

 I love the holiday season like many people.  I love getting together with family and friends, eating, having fun, watching football, etc.  But the holidays also make me sad.  They've been so filled with materialism and subverted that we've lost the meaning behind it.  It's easy to point the finger at the lost and say "they corrupted it with their consumerism!", but don't.  We have so many TV specials and movies looking for the "True Meaning of Christmas", but we already know it don't we? As in so many areas of our lives we have let our culture shape how we celebrate and worship God, instead of letting the truth of God dictate how we celebrate.  We should be distinct from our culture, not in a rude way that alienates and demeans others, but in a way that humbly obeys the Biblical call to be different from the rest of the world.  I started to make a list of my concerns, hopes and prayers for us this holiday season, but it got too long, so I'm breaking it up into multiple posts.

This is part one: Why we celebrate.

Thanksgiving - Thanksgiving is a Canadian and American holiday (actually celebrated at different times) in which we celebrate and give thanks for the blessings in our lives. I cannot speak for the Canadian version, but for Americans it arguably originated in Plymouth, Mass. where colonists celebrated a harvest feast and were helped provide food by the Wampanoag Native Americans nearby. For the most part we celebrate this holiday pretty well. We get together with our families and eat.  Sometimes we go around and say what we're thankful for.  We thank God for what he has given us and ask Him to continue blessing us.  Those are all great things we should keep on doing.  I do have a few suggestions, but we'll get to that later.


Christmas - Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus.  Ironically, we make such a fuss over Christmas, even though for Christians, it would be a meaningless celebration if not for what we celebrate at Easter- the death and resurrection of the same Jesus.  I could go into discussion on whether or not Jesus was born in December, why denying the virgin birth denies Christ's perfection and so on, but those are conversations best had in person and not really the point.  Man sinned and God promised redemption in the form of his Messiah.  Fast forward a couple thousand years, through massive depravity, wars, prophecies and then silence.  God made good on his word, as He always does.  Jesus was born, lived a perfect life, fulfilled every prophecy about the Messiah and then was crucified.  He took God's wrath for man's past, present and future sins and died in our place.  Then He conquered death and arose on the third day.  Christmas is a celebration that God keeps his promises.  We should be thankful for God's love, mercy and grace.  It should humble us and make us stop and remember that God did what he stopped Abraham from doing. He sacrificed his son.

I think our Thanksgivings could use some help, but as the people of God we (myself definitely included) have royally blown it with our Christmas celebrations.  We have mixed it with so many other things, emotions, and desires and diluted it down so much that Jesus is now more of an add-on. I don't have all the answers to how we redeem Christmas but I do see some massive failings, and I have a few suggestions on at least a start to moving it back to what it should be.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Thanksgiving suggestions and Xmas cheer.