It’s Still Christmas
Colossians 3:14-17
Did you hear that? It’s the collective sigh of relief now that Christmas has come and gone. Consumers are recovering from Boxing Day combat, and now we’re sliding on into New Year’s Eve. We’re in that “in-between” time from the end of one party and heading into the next. I have little doubt that the decorations in the malls are already coming down. After all, there’s only 48 shopping days until Valentine’s… so wreaths will soon be replaced by hearts.
But it’s still Christmas.
I think we have become so used to the ways that the Malls tell time that we almost entirely forget that the Christmas season started on Friday morning. Christmas is not over, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Those of you who have gotten to know me know that I try to resist stampeding into the Christmas carols during Advent. It’s because Advent is its own season… with its special message of anticipating the coming of Christ. But Advent gets overshadowed in favour of getting ready for Christmas Day. I have often said that Christmas really doesn’t need a lot of help, but Advent does… but I’m actually wrong on that. I think Christmas does need some help in that we’re all too ready to let it go once the season really does arrive. It’s as if we’re impatient for it to get here, and then when it finally does we’re so glad that it’s over. I don’t think it’s a surprise many of my colleagues collapse from exhaustion on Christmas morning… metaphorically, of course… and most of us go off on vacation. I include myself in that mix, at the close of tonight’s Christmas Candlelight walk for the Compass, I am off for a week myself.
But even so, it’s still Christmas… and it will still be Christmas when I come back to the office a week from tomorrow. I think maybe one way we can remind ourselves is to leave all of our Christmas decorations up until after January 6th. Of course we run the risk of being seen as lazy, not taking stuff down until well into the New Year… but it can at least get a conversation going about why we leave it up.
After all, it’s still Christmas.
Even after the shepherds have gone back to their fields, once the angels have flown away… it’s still Christmas… because we are celebrating the coming of Christ right into our midst. Immanuel, God-with-us.
But somehow don’t really get it. We still work with this idea that God is somehow up there… way up there… looking down upon us. Bette Midler’s song says “God is watching us from a distance.” There may be some nice feel-good sentiment in there someplace, but it’s not what our faith is about, and it is certainly not what Christmas is about. It is about God being one of us. With us. Here. Now. In this place. In a way that is more real than anything else in this room.
16Let the word of Christ* dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.* 17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Notice that Paul does not say, “Let Christ look at you nicely from afar.” It says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” In you. In me. In all of us.
Christmas was and is a fundamental shift in humanity’s relationship with God. No longer did we think of God as being somewhere, up there, far and away from ourselves… instead we proclaim Immanuel, who is there with us, up-close and personal in our loves. In other words, it’s still Christmas. It is still Christmas now. It is still Christmas in the middle of July. It is still Christmas more than two thousand years later.
So maybe it’s worthwhile to keep the decorations up a little bit longer, and not be in a rush to be onto the next thing. Maybe’s a small thing, but maybe it will help us remember that it is still Christmas.
Merry Christmas
Did you hear that? It’s the collective sigh of relief now that Christmas has come and gone. Consumers are recovering from Boxing Day combat, and now we’re sliding on into New Year’s Eve. We’re in that “in-between” time from the end of one party and heading into the next. I have little doubt that the decorations in the malls are already coming down. After all, there’s only 48 shopping days until Valentine’s… so wreaths will soon be replaced by hearts.
But it’s still Christmas.
I think we have become so used to the ways that the Malls tell time that we almost entirely forget that the Christmas season started on Friday morning. Christmas is not over, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Those of you who have gotten to know me know that I try to resist stampeding into the Christmas carols during Advent. It’s because Advent is its own season… with its special message of anticipating the coming of Christ. But Advent gets overshadowed in favour of getting ready for Christmas Day. I have often said that Christmas really doesn’t need a lot of help, but Advent does… but I’m actually wrong on that. I think Christmas does need some help in that we’re all too ready to let it go once the season really does arrive. It’s as if we’re impatient for it to get here, and then when it finally does we’re so glad that it’s over. I don’t think it’s a surprise many of my colleagues collapse from exhaustion on Christmas morning… metaphorically, of course… and most of us go off on vacation. I include myself in that mix, at the close of tonight’s Christmas Candlelight walk for the Compass, I am off for a week myself.
But even so, it’s still Christmas… and it will still be Christmas when I come back to the office a week from tomorrow. I think maybe one way we can remind ourselves is to leave all of our Christmas decorations up until after January 6th. Of course we run the risk of being seen as lazy, not taking stuff down until well into the New Year… but it can at least get a conversation going about why we leave it up.
After all, it’s still Christmas.
Even after the shepherds have gone back to their fields, once the angels have flown away… it’s still Christmas… because we are celebrating the coming of Christ right into our midst. Immanuel, God-with-us.
But somehow don’t really get it. We still work with this idea that God is somehow up there… way up there… looking down upon us. Bette Midler’s song says “God is watching us from a distance.” There may be some nice feel-good sentiment in there someplace, but it’s not what our faith is about, and it is certainly not what Christmas is about. It is about God being one of us. With us. Here. Now. In this place. In a way that is more real than anything else in this room.
16Let the word of Christ* dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.* 17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Notice that Paul does not say, “Let Christ look at you nicely from afar.” It says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” In you. In me. In all of us.
Christmas was and is a fundamental shift in humanity’s relationship with God. No longer did we think of God as being somewhere, up there, far and away from ourselves… instead we proclaim Immanuel, who is there with us, up-close and personal in our loves. In other words, it’s still Christmas. It is still Christmas now. It is still Christmas in the middle of July. It is still Christmas more than two thousand years later.
So maybe it’s worthwhile to keep the decorations up a little bit longer, and not be in a rush to be onto the next thing. Maybe’s a small thing, but maybe it will help us remember that it is still Christmas.
Merry Christmas
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