“One day more...”
The big day is almost here. The moment we have all been expecting. The episode that has captured all of your attention these last few weeks, maybe months. The center of everything. the ‘still point of the turning world’ to echo T.S. Eliot.
I’m of course talking about the last shopping day before Christmas. Or maybe for you it is the last day of school. Or the Star Wars premiere? I’m probably on firm ground, however, saying that midnight mass on Christmas Eve is not that moment for you.
This is, of course good and not good. Christmas is a different kind of Christian observance than Easter, and one that has been celebrated very differently throughout the ages, and has always been, to some extent or another, an amalgamation of cultural and religious practices blended together. So the mixing of cultural and secular practices and religious and Christian practices around Christmas makes some sense. And some of those secular traditions are good! Collecting food for those in need, purchasing presents for disadvantaged kids, holiday parties with lots of spirit (and sometimes spirits), Christmas caroling, light displays, these are all beautiful ways for community to share and be together, and a helpful reminder that the Holidays are not just about consumerism and what I want.
But there is of course a shadow side as well. If we only focus on the secular, communal, cultural aspects of Christmas, we miss the opportunity to experience what the birth of a savior can mean. If we don’t place worship at the center, whether its at 5 pm with a pageant, 10:30 pm with smells and bells and choir and candlelight, or 10:30 am on Christmas Day with carols and joy, we forego the chance to see salvation in action. To invite the savior into our own lives.
We forget, of course, but the reason the Shepherds and the wise men and the sheep and the cows and the pigs and donkeys and giraffes (my children are certain there was a giraffe at the birth of our savior) were present was to worship the incarnate God. To bow down and pay homage to this boy King, to a child savior who came to make the whole world new.
So his Christmas ask yourself if you could use a little salvation? A little hope? And if the world could use a little salvation too.
And if the answer is yes, mark your calendar now for Christmas worship. Here or wherever you might be. Make Jesus the still point of your turning world, and salvation the hope we find in this season.