Glory to God in the Lowest, for God deliberately falls into the low places. Jesus is God, in the flesh. But in entering the world, He sets aside the rights of divinity. He must learn the alphabet. He cannot walk, He cannot crawl. He must be nursed. And swaddled. He has become the lowest. And He goes down, into ditches, into loneliness, into hunger. He knows betrayal. A feeding trough is His crib. …
Read MoreThe satire in Peter Gabriel’s song Big Time is often missed. From college basketball to professional wrestling, it’s bumper music for success. “I’m on my way, I’m making it, big time.” It’s the American dream: you can be anything you want to be; you can make it big.
There’s a religious dimension to the song that fits perfectly the modern obsession with bigger and better churches. “And I will pray to a big god as I kneel in the big church.” Then later, “And my heaven will be a big heaven, and I will walk through the front door.”
The way God works couldn’t be more different….
Read MoreA new version of “Blue Christmas” hit the charts this month, sixty-five years after Elvis Presley’s popular rendition. Christmas is blue (the idea goes) when we are without the person we love. “I’ll have a blue Christmas without you.”
Some churches now offer “Blue Christmas” services. One church advertised their service like this: “a space for those not feeling so merry & bright during the holidays.” The church offers “a space where you can be still and quiet and not have to pretend to be jolly.”
It’s well meaning, responding to the cultural demand we put on a veneer of gaiety. Happy holidays! And if they’re not happy for you, at least pretend.
The assumption is that the big Christmas service—which here at Immanuel is this one—is merry and bright and doesn’t really offer anything for the losers: the people whose lives are difficult, and lonely, and painful.
But that’s not Christmas. Christmas is for losers….
Read MoreThings Ain’t What They Used to Be. It’s a jazz standard from 1942, written by Duke Ellington’s son Mercer. It’s increasingly how I feel: Things ain’t what they used to be. In Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” one of the characters observes, “Everything is getting terrible.” Perhaps you’ve felt that way. “Everything is getting terrible.” Things ain’t what they used to be.
What does any of that have to do with Christmas? Much in every way. The cultural Christmas event is all about experiences. Adults want to recapture and experience anew our childhood Christmases, when things were better. We want to create great memories for our children.
Feelings of nostalgia are powerful. But they might just be a sin. We can’t recapture a golden age. Since man’s fall into sin, there never has been a golden age. The meaning of Christmas is not found in sentiment. The meaning of Christmas is not found in giving. As much as we should love our families, the meaning of Christmas is not found in family time….
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