Advent ponderings

Hey, look at this an actual blog entry and not just another sermon. Whoa!

I plan to do a “Life Update” sort of entry before the end of the year, or maybe just after the first. We’ll see. For now, I have to vent a little.

There are a couple of things that are really, really getting on my nerves this Christmas season. I’m not sure why they are bothering me, but they are. And now I decided I would share them.

#1 – The phrase “Jesus is the reason for the season” – I’ve never been a big fan of the phrase. It’s trite and cliché. But this year it is really bothering me. The sentiment is ok, but I think the use of it is, well, shallow.

Yes, Jesus is the reason for the season. Countless bumper stickers and t-shirts and pins and church signs tell us so. But that phrase means nothing. I see countless cars pass by with their “Jesus is the Reason” bumper stickers with their backseats loaded down with all of this year’s latest trinkets and gadgets. In other words, “Jesus is the reason for living excessively and over-spending on gifts!” We have a focus problem.

I think the phrase needs to change. Jesus is not just the reason for the season; Jesus should be the FOCUS of the season. That’s the bumper sticker I want to wear. (Not a typo, a joke. I know you don’t wear bumper stickers.) “Jesus is the focus of the season.” Of course you can’t wear your bumper sticker if you don’t actually make Jesus the focus of the season.

#2 – Nativity scenes and Christmas songs – Jesus was born in a cave meant for sheltering animals. He was given a feeding trough as his first bed. He shared his first night with poverty stricken parents and some guy’s livestock. He was born amidst the animals and all of their bodily functions. It was probably a dark, loud, smelly, bloody, terrifying (for Mary, Joseph, and maybe anyone else around), and all around pitiful situation. A far cry from a “Silent Night” or the lowing cattle and “no crying he makes” Jesus of “Away in a Manger.”

I imagine a baby’s screams, a mothers sobs, the shouts of a father desperate for help, the cries of cattle and sheep frightened by the panicked situation. I imagine the smells of dung, hay, dirty animals, body odor, and bodily fluids (birth is not pretty, especially outside of a sanitary hospital delivery room).

This is how God chose to come into the world. This is what the incarnation looked like. Wow. This is how God chose to reach down to heaven and show us how much God loves us.

That, for me, is much more powerful than seeing children and adults sitting silently in front of a homemade “stable” wearing newly laundered robes and watching a few animals mill around as cars pass quietly.

“Love Came Down at Christmas” and it wasn’t pretty.