Strange and Plain Things Christmas

Christmas is always an odd time of the year to me - a bit odder with this being the first without my father. But odd for me every year as I have always struggled with the "Jesus is the reason for the season" lingo and those who get overly protective about it. I guess I have viewed the original "reason for the season" as being about Saturnalia, the harvest festival that marked the winter solstice (which happens right about now in our calendar year).  December 25th was originally the celebrated birthdate of the mythological god Mithra - not the date of Jesus' birth. So many of the things we know so well today such as Christmas trees, wreaths, mistletoe, decorating with greenery in our homes, yule logs etc. all originated in the pagan celebrations of Saturnalia, the birthday of Mithras and the winter solstice or later European non-biblical customs that developed from specific culture. So I don't see that we need to take back the "season" and December 25th, as the season and date wasn't ours to begin with.

It wasn't until around the year 354 AD, when the church wanted to counteract all the December 25th pagan celebrations happening and birthday of Mithra - that they intentionally chose December 25th to also celebrate the day Jesus was born. Jesus most likely was born in the Spring or Fall - we don't know for sure, as the Bible does not say when He was born.

I find it fascinating that there are some Christians who make a really big deal about not allowing culture to influence us and feel you cannot have redeemable things in culture or from other religions -  yet in their homes and in their church buildings have Christmas decor that are originally derived from pagan religious practices. We have a tree and wreath and evergreens in our home and in our church building and I don't mind at all that we are using symbols of what was once  a part of pagan religions. We don't practice or believe what they did and we have redeemed them with meaning for the gospel of Jesus.

As a family we still do celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th. Despite the origin of the December 25th date being of a pagan religion, I see nothing wrong to use it as the time of remembering the birth of Jesus as the true Savior - as the historical church has done since the 300's. It is helpful to have a time each year to remember the birth and arrival of Jesus. In our church it is an annual time to focus and teach on the biblical Christmas story. When we started Vintage Faith Church almost 4 years ago, we began celebrating and teaching about Advent. Something we didn't do in the Bible church I was previously part and I had never learned about Advent in seminary. So there is a richness of church history in celebrating Advent as a church which I am so glad we do now.   

Never-the-less, what is more sad to me about the season - and what I do wish we would remember it is not about - is all the consumerism and subtle and not so subtle pressure to spend money that occurs. I haven't seen "What Would Jesus Buy?" yet, but plan to when it comes out on DVD. But as a church, we adopted this December the Advent Conspiracy  (worship more - spend less - give more - love all) and had our teaching about this as well as a prayer path set up which walked through the themes of the Advent Conspiracy. We had the coffee house art gallery also have the theme on the Advent Conspiracy. Our church adopted supporting Living Water as well as took donations for a local family shelter. Each week there was loads of clothing, supplies, diapers all types of things needed that were picked up and brought to the shelter. So it was refreshing seeing so many people in the church respond.

Today as part of the season, we had three gatherings where we put on a play called "Strange and Plain Things". The title was taken from a line in a G.K. Chesterson poem about the birth of Jesus. But a team here wrote a play which was a retelling of the biblical narrative of the birth of Jesus putting the story in a contemporary context. It was a mix of acting, beat poetry, singing worship songs, and going through a prayer stations. They had all the Scriptures written for each Act in the play bulletin that was handed out - but they had Mary being a young woman (Mary) who worked in a diner. She even had her pregnant cousin Elizabeth visit her while working. Her fiance, a modern day Joseph struggled with hearing the news of her pregnancy but then had an angel tell him it was truth. They traveled for the census but there were no hotels available and a tavern owner opened his garage for them and put on a space heater so they can have some heat. There was a time in the play where everyone actually walked through a prayer walk and went into the garage and there was set up a mattress on the ground, laying next to some tires and a fender - where the baby was born symbolizing the manger.

It was really a gripping retelling of the story as often we can't really picture what a manger would be or what it would have been like having to have a baby in an unpleasant place (a garage instead of a manger). Or instead of shepherds (who at the time of Jesus, shepherds were not known as honorable people and I read how shepherds at the time of Jesus weren't allowed to testify in court as they weren't seen as trustworthy). So the shepherds recreated in this story were biker types who were entrusted with the news about the baby being born. It really was fascinating thinking about it - and the team stuck to the biblical story but tried to tell the story as though it was happening today.

We then wrapped it up with  26 year old Sarah, who was one of the main writers of the play, explain how when she was in high school she became a Christian and how she wanted people today to understand the story of the birth is not just a nice fable from 2,000 years ago, but a truth and reality in our lives today.

Tomorrow night, we will have a traditional Christmas Eve gathering with the usual songs and choir and reflection on the birth of Jesus. But for today, we had a "strange and plain things" telling of the story of the birth of Jesus. I was quite proud of Molly, Cliff, Brad, Colleen, Erin, Sarah, Sarah, Matt, Cheryl and the team who put it on and hope that people who came today were blessed in hearing the story and understanding that Christmas is about the birth, life, teaching, example, death and resurrection of Jesus. Whether December 25th or in July or January or October. It is 2:55 AM. I am wide awake right now thinking about all this.