The Reason for the Season

“Put the Christ back in Christmas!” “Remember the reason for the season!” “There’s a war on Christmas!”

Throughout the holiday season I've heard these sentiments touted over and over - there are even Facebook pages dedicated to these causes. There are obviously many who are worrying that the meaning of Christmas is being lost as it's replaced by the forces of political correctness.

Some complain that the word "holiday" is being used where “Christmas” properly belongs. And if we believe everything we hear from Christian alarmists, we might be easily convinced that the "true meaning" of Christmas is quickly fading in American culture.

And indeed, I would agree – I think there is something terribly wrong with the way in which we observe Christmas in this country.  In the midst of frantic shopping, the stress of travel, and the ever-present anxiety that always accompany family showing up for the big Christmas meal, I think we sense that something is askew. There's a disconnect behind how we celebrate and why we're celebrating.

Though I don’t think political correctness or the “non-Christian” culture is to blame.

I think it runs deeper. I think the problem lies not outside Christianity - but perhaps within it.



When the Christmas season begins with people being trampled to death or stabbed when stores open their doors on Black Friday, being pepper sprayed, shoved, or punched... there's a problem. When we scream and yell at retail workers for not having exactly what we want, when we care more about the language of Christmas rather than its meaning…yes... then we have certainly lost its significance and meaning.

In the middle of all this, we tend to forget just exactly who and what Christ is. How Christ himself came into this world. How God came and chose to “dwell” and live among us.

Christ was born homeless – in a manger. A wanderer that was NOT nestled all snug in his bed, while visions of sugar plums danced in his head.

He was born under the looming shadow of the oppressive Roman Empire – whose taxation laws were the reason Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem in the first place.

He lived under the ever-present rules and laws of Roman tyranny, that declared Caesar to be the Son of God.

It’s this same specter of imperial power that would eventually put Christ to death as well.

As joyous and wonderful as it is to know that Christ has come into the world – that God has broken in on our world and chosen to dwell on earth with us – it should also be with a sense of trepidation and awe.

Because God has come into the world to CHANGE the world – to change how the world operates on a day to day basis. To change sorrow into joy, to change sin into redemption – to change death, into life.

Christ came to raise up the humble, the poor, the sick and the destitute, and bring down the rich and the powerful.

The wonder and awe that surrounds the story of God' coming to earth survived the Roman Empire not because it was common – or because people demanded that you say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays – it survived because it's message was strange, new, and it captivated people - especially the slaves, the poor... the majority of people who today are not usually thought of as synonymous with Christianity.

It;s message defied the norms of the controlling powers of the world: primarily greed and wealth.

The message of God coming to earth to walk with the poor and the destitute, the hungry, lost and the hurting MEANT something to people. It was a different message than their culture was telling them. It let them know that the forces around them that held them captive were not supreme.

It gave them hope and it survived because of its counter-cultural message.

Not because it was forced on them (in fact, most faced death on account of their faith), and not because people demanded certain language and terminology surrounding a holiday that has come to celebrate consumerism, greed and material gain. All the things Christ was fighting against.

An article I read recently quoted another author, Rachel Held Evans, who stated: “Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I wonder if the best thing that could happen to this country is for Christ to be taken out of Christmas—for advent to be made distinct from all the consumerism of the holidays and for the name of Christ to be invoked in the context of shocking forgiveness, radical hospitality, and logic-defying love.”

Christmas loses its power and meaning when our "giving" becomes about getting the next greatest and latest technological toy, our over-the-top parties and nearly gluttonous celebrations replace the sufficiency of faith and family, and when our perfect plans for the "perfect Christmas" are used to cover up the normal messiness of our daily lives.

If we begin demanding that the surrounding culture recognize the meaning of Christmas - we become no better than the oppressive Empire Christ was born into. Jesus is no longer a counter-cultural figure who makes demands on his followers that they live and act as he did 365 days out of the year.

If we want to say “remember the reason for the season,” then we need to remember what Jesus did while he was alive and walked this earth. What he stood for - why he came, and why he died. The obsession that surrounds the expression of the holiday leaves behind the significance of his humble, threatened birth.

If there’s a war on Christmas, it’s not on how we say it. It’s not on demanding the culture give lip-service to our Lord and Savior.

If there is a war on Christmas – it’s that we’ve lost our way in regards to what it means to be Christ’s followers. We’ve lost its significance. If we really followed Jesus and did unto others as he did and commanded of us, if we saw God in the broken, homeless, destitute and lost, then all the "wrappings" of Christmas would lose its luster.

When we tell people, “Think about all the families that don’t have anything this Christmas,” the problem is… those families that have nothing are precisely WHY Christ came in the first place. THEY are what Christmas is about.

Christ coming into the world and dwelling among us means everything has changed. God coming into the world should change our reality. Should change how we behave – how we treat others. How we view our world as a whole.

“‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ – This should be the message at Christmas we demand of Christ’s followers, not worrying about whether the President calls a huge tree filled with lights a holiday or Christmas tree.

Christ came to change our sorrow into joy. Change sin into redemption. Change darkness into light.

To change death… into life.

If you think about it – one of the gifts Jesus received from the three wise men was the gift of Myrrh. An embalming ointment used on the dead.

How would you like that as one of your gifts under the Christmas tree? A jar of embalming fluid to remind you of your impending death?

And yet – in an odd way – that should be PRECISELY what we think about when we think about Christmas. When we think about why Jesus Christ came into this world. He came into this world – to die.

To redeem the world from its sin. To put to death all that is evil and self-centered. To remind us that death… is not the end. That Christ has overcome and defeated the power of death, defeated the powers of this world that seek to oppress and turn our attention from God.

Christmas is about how we await with expectation the fulfillment of the new heaven and the new earth – where every tear is wiped away, where there will be no more mourning, crying, pain or death.

Christmas is about hope – for the hopeless. Comfort for the suffering. Peace, for the troubled soul.

It’s about the promise – that God loved this world so much, he came down into it, suffered and died because of it – all for our sake.

If Christmas is about anything other than the radical way in which God has entered into our world and turned it upside down, prompting us to live radically different and changed lives that makes us care about and love our less fortunate neighbor – than we’ve lost our focus on the “reason for the season.”