The most wonderful time of the year

The stores are full of holiday green and red, with markdown deals on everything from dolls that walk and talk to bread machines. Advertising flyers abound, offering deep discounts between the hours of such and such on this or that day. (Surely no one missed the headline introducing the story of a young man killed by bargain hunting shoppers in the pre-dawn hours of Black Friday.)

Action alerts are, once again, flying across cyber-space with American Christians called to arms, again, over the phrase "Christmas" and whether or not a retailer is using the phrase in their advertising or allowing their staff to extend or return the greeting.

Is this really the "most wonderful time of the year?" And is Jesus really the "reason for the season"?

I hardly think so. For many, too many, this holiday only serves to increase stress, boil already high blood pressures and disappoint, time after time, even the most modest of expectations. Hardly the gift that Jesus came to give. In the current economic climate the skirt under the Christmas tree will probably get a lot more exposure than usual, while resentment over the glaringly empty space grows. I'm afraid Christmas, at least Christmas in America, is more akin to the pagan holiday it was intended to replace than to anything Jesus may have had in mind, if he'd even had Christmas in mind at all. After all, there is no directive in Scripture to commemorate Jesus' birth. The only directive for a commemoration is the memorial instituted by Jesus on the night he was betrayed.

But every year, we pull out the colored lights, we string garland around the fence posts, we decorate trees in the middle of the living room and we write gift lists, wish lists and sign credit card slips because ... well, of course, because Jesus is the reason for the season.

Would that it were so. Would that the world really did pause from the pressures of this life to gaze in wonder into the eyes of an infant, and see, in those eyes the image of the God. Would that the world would pause long enough to hear, really hear, the angels sing in wonder, Emmanuel, God with us. Would that the world would pause long enough to read the rest of the story. Of how this infant grew in wisdom and stature, in faith and obedience, to live the life of an itinerant preacher, bringing the message -- and the means -- for reconciliation with God with every word, every touch and every breath, even his dying breath.

But what does the world hear? What does the world see? Christians, credit cards in hand, joining the pagan throng in excess after excess. Countless resources spent by Christian organizations clamoring in the marketplace to keep the Christ in Christmas, though Christ called us to lives of service, not lives of consumption. Christians whining when invisible toes get stepped on by slights in the workplace, slights in the marketplace, slights in the media. Small wonder, then, that the world has such a low opinion of us and of Jesus. Small wonder that the world won't take the time to turn from the second chapter of Luke to witness the miracles, to hear the call of repentance, to bend the knee before a heavenly King. Why would they, when we don't?

The writer of Ecclesiastes stated that there is a time for everything under heaven. And the time for Jesus is now. This day. Every day.

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light." -- Peter 2:9 (NIV)

Things you won't see in heaven:

Stockings hung with care