In Search Of Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…No, it’s not. Does anybody else out there feel like Christmas is different this year? My wife and I drove home tonight and noted very few Christmas decorations up. It’s more than that though. Something in the air doesn’t feel right. Maybe it’s because the weather is warm and weird or because it’s an election year or the end of the Mayan calendar. Don’t know for certain but there’s an odd feeling that pervades.

I know Christmas isn’t about the lights and Santa Claus. Oddly enough it’s all that commercialism and Kringle focus that gets me upset in the first place. Perhaps I’m feeling uneasy because I’m realizing the truth. We live in a culture that wants Santa Claus and not some man that died on a cross. Santa’s a safe guy. I mean, c’mon, how many people do you know that ever received coal in their stocking? That Christ guy though knows how to rock the status quo. Santa’s Mr. Milquetoast whereas Christ calmed the storm raging on the Sea of Galilee. Santa wants my behaviour, Jesus wants my heart.

Bottom line the heart is where I need to focus. Despite my feelings I need to go deeper with Christ. We’ve been reading through John Pipers’ Advent meditations. Advent is about Christ’s coming. It’s a season for us to be vigilant; as we should always be. It’s a season of hoping. It’s a season of waiting. It is in that mix that the prophets and saints were stirred to search their own souls as they sought God. It is in the quiet and the uneasiness that God is most desired. So I will seek and pray as did the Shepherds and the Wise men. They found their Christmas in a world unaware. May we as well.