About every two or three years, it all gets on my nerves and I retreat into my “Scrooge mode,” grumping around at how all the moneymaking has obscured the true spirit of the season, how “wishbooks” and singing fish plaques and artificial trees and comic movies about Santa Clauses and his relatives(!) have turned the holiday into utter humbug. Acquisitiveness runs rampant!
In my anti-commercialism mood, my favorite figure is “a mean one... Mr. Grinch!” (The only Christmas television special I will watch is the animated Dr. Seuss “Grinch!”) We all relate to the Grinch’s annoyance at the effervescent materialism of the merchants in Whoville and how you can’t get sappy seasonal songs out of your head. If we’ve had a bad year, we hate everyone who’s happy and carefree; if we can’t enjoy Christmas, we don’t want anyone else to, either. Dr. Seuss picked a perfect “jealousy green” for his furry felon.
Another gripe constricting our “too small” hearts is our suspicion that lots of our neighbors are only in it for the presents and stuff. If joy irritates the Grinch, joyful hypocrisy irritates the Grinch-y Christian in us even more! We distain the superficial happiness of “the consumer Christmas,” grousing that money seems to be “the reason for the season.” OK, so we don’t actually want to steal all the materialistic trappings of everyone’s celebration like the Grinch, but we, like him, have a hard time seeing much of anything beyond materialism in most of the faces at the mall.
However, in a good year, we do, in fact, discover that there really is a strong, hope-filled, truly joyous spirit in the hearts around us, a depth of understanding which surpasses the carol sung by the Whos around their empty tree. Mercifully, we in the church are not as baffled by discovering a genuine “Spirit of Christmas” out there as the Grinch. If anything we’re rather relieved that it hasn’t been totally submerged by the mass merchandisers and advertisers.
In a very good year, we can help some scroogely grinch we know discover the wonder of the holiday, or at least, like Max the dog, look on with amused satisfaction while someone’s heart grows a couple of sizes.
But this year, maybe we can look beyond the shadows cast across December 24th by the jolly old elf and his gift-laden sleigh and by Ebenezer Scrooge and by the Grinch and lift our eyes high enough to see the star in the East casting its holy light over all the earth. We’ll know anew the birth of Jesus in our souls.
It’s not the gifts, it’s not a saccharine secular “Spirit of Christmas,” it’s not humbug, it’s not the ghost of past, present, or future, it’s not trees and lights, but it’s the presence of the God who loves us enough to be born among us. It’s not at the mall; it’s at the stable. It’s not a cartoon character; it’s the real hope of the world.
But deep down inside us, we know that already, don’t we?
In the true Spirit of Christ,
David
Texts For Sunday Worship:
From the Hebrew Bible Isaiah 2:1-5
From the Epistles Romans 13:11-14
From the Gospels Matthew 24:36-44
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