I’m sure this has happened to you this year at least once. There you are, full of Christmas cheer and, like all good Jesus followers have just won the fight for a prime space in a checkout line so you can purchase this year’s liturgical necessities.
Suddenly and out of nowhere the totally-depraved, five-foot, 85-pound girl at the cash register has the audacity to wish you “Happy Holidays.” You scan the store only to discover that Christmas sales are nowhere to be seen; they have all been replaced with holiday discounts. Songs about silent nights and midnight clears have turned to those about reindeers or, worse, Christmas shoes. The secularists, atheists and terrorists have won. Christ has been effectively removed from Christmas.
Alex Gallimore
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I’ve heard this litany of disdain from countless people this time of year, all seeking my counsel on how we as Christians might put the “Christ” back into the Christmas holiday. While I understand the concern, I don’t think expecting the secular culture around us to accommodate our religious preferences is the answer, especially considering we’re the ones to blame for the absence of Jesus in the season which celebrates his incarnation.
When I observe the activities of most Christians during the months of November and December, I do not see Jesus anywhere. This is nothing the culture has done to its Christian population but something our group has done ourselves. We’re crazy this time of year! Although as Christians we follow a figure who tells us to sell all that we have and give to the poor, this just can’t compete with the gospel of Santa Claus and consumerism. If we really wanted to put Christ back in Christmas, things would look very, very different.
A couple years ago, cultural satirist Stephen Colbert described it best.
“Its time to take Baby Jesus out of the manger. Replace him with something that’s easier to swallow. How about a honey baked ham? Because if this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”
Yet I do believe there to be one method for putting Christ back into Christmas in a way which silences the commercialism that has invaded this holy season. To put the Christ back in Christmas, we must begin a few weeks before. We as Baptists must thoroughly embrace the season of Advent.
Advent is a time for reflection and preparation as we await the birth of Jesus. The word Advent is borrowed from the Latin word adventus, which means "coming," and during the four weeks before Christmas we are reminded that something truly monumental is only right around the corner.
Most of us stop at that big day, however. Christmas comes, and we tear into our presents like savages only to pack up baby Jesus with all the other decorations. An American Christmas is nothing more than a consumeristic rush which leads to an exhausting and abrupt end.
Advent, however, gives us something different. By preparing for Christmas the way it was meant to be remembered, Advent gives us a time of expectant waiting and preparation which initiates a climatic and life-giving beginning. Advent prepares our hearts for Christmas and directs us towards the things we should be all the other days of the year.
Advent is a season which reconnects us with the need for Jesus’ continual coming in our lives by focusing our energies on hope, peace, joy and love. These themes communicate that the same infant lying in a dirty animal feeding trough is the one who will also inaugurate the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. He is the Hope of Glory, the Prince of Peace, the joy of our desiring and the one who has revealed the truest of all loves, the love of a creator who moves towards creation as that of a Heavenly Parent.
The kingdom that is to come will be governed by these four virtues of Advent and it is the purpose of this season to center ourselves to become its co-builders who likewise seek hope, peace, joy and love in every aspect of our lives.
So if we really want to keep Christ in Christmas, let’s do it. This has nothing to do with what we say and everything to do with what we do. But if we are more concerned with participating in the same consumeristic capitalism that only adds to systemic injustice, I’m going to have to ask that we keep Jesus out of it.
Alex Gallimore (alexcgallimore@gmail.com) is pastor of Hester Baptist Church in Oxford, N.C.