The Christmas holiday is over. Christmas lights are untangled; ornaments and decorations are put away into storage. Packages under the tree are gone. Fir trees dropping needles will soon end up in land fills. The months long focus of Christmas Present – shopping and spending far too much is over and we question, “Now What?”
What I see is is a cultural Christmas that begins months before December with the opening of holiday shopping; it ends abruptly on the 25th or thereabouts when all the “giving” is done with. Christmas then gets put away into the attic for another year, until October when the cycle begins all over. Now as this holiday ends, a winter malaise seems to settle in, grey and foggy as the clouds outside. What’s happened to that “Christmas spirit?”
There is no mystery to behold in a holiday which is more tinsel than substance. The true mystery of Jesus’ birth is increasingly ignored but it transcends anything and everything that the media would have us believe about earthly peace and joy. “The Word became flesh,” according to John’s Gospel, “and dwelt among us.” In Him the disciples beheld the glory of God Himself. In Him is all the Mystery, Love, Joy and Peace we so desperately seek and which the world falsely promises.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
For God loved us …beyond anything we imagine or dare to believe. What greater gift is there than the promise of eternal life? That we will not perish? What can the neon lit worldly marketplace possibly offer in the light of that promise?
John writes that “Jesus was (and is) full of grace and truth.” The truth is that He was born to save mankind; His grace is given freely and can never be earned. Or bought. The gift of God does not end on December 25. Rather it begins eternally the moment when you believe in and accept the Son into your heart as Lord and Savior. Unlike Madison Avenue, there is no end, no cycle of useless repetition to find meaning where none exists. That is the Christmas Mystery!
From The Sheep Pen 