Have we lost the real reason for the season?
Isaiah 9: 2-7; Titus 2: 11-14; Luke 2:1-14
Fr. Nelson Lobo OFM Cap
The first Christmas Mary’s Christmas was not a commercial one. It was about a coming, God coming down to be with us. God through His Son came to seek and to save that which was lost. There is nothing merry about being lost. Mary’s Christmas was about a Saviour born to die for our sins. That was the reason for this Christmas season. Mary’s Christmas is about a mighty God, a holy and merciful God. A God who keeps his covenant and never forgets His promises. Mary’s Christmas is about the Saviour who humbled himself to save us.
The Merry Christmas is about shopping for gifts, working overtime cooking or decorating, partying, navigating huge traffic, gaining weight or losing weight, Christmas programs, sending Christmas cards or forwarding greetings, hearing Christmas songs, cleaning the house, remembering the past year, facing relatives whom you don’t like, arranging travel plans, repairing old Christmas lights, missing love ones who are far away, paying off credit cards, in between wedding season, entertaining the children.
The Merry Christmas is about forgetting to find out the true Meaning of Christmas. Forgetting to reflect upon our sin, our saviour and our salvation. Forgetting to reflect on the Holy Family and their struggles and tensions. Forgetting to reflect upon Mary’s obedience, her purity, her submission to the will of God. The Merry Christmas is about missing the truth, modernizing and commercialization of Christmas. Merry Christmas is about money, advertisements, publicity and money. So,
Have we lost the real reason for the season?
It’s time to go back to the roots and develop a Christmas Heart. Christmas Hearts traditionally are a custom in Denmark.
What is a Christmas Heart? A Christmas Heart is a pondering heart. The experience of having her first child was probably nothing like Mary had imagined. The event was filled with wonder and mystery. With her nostrils filled with the smells of the straw, the animals and the blood, miles away from her family, her eyes glazed over with the pain and exhaustion of child-birth, Mary was able to “treasure up all these things and ponder them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19). At Christmas, it is so important that we rediscover the art of “pondering.” We should ponder the fact that God loved us so much that He purposely became one of us, not just so He could get an idea what it is like to be human. It wasn’t so He would have a better grasp on what it’s like to be tempted, or to get angry, or to feel loneliness. He did not come as a tourist. He came in order to die, to pay the tremendous penalty for our sins so that we wouldn’t have to! When we ponder this awesome truth at Christmas, we will go deeper than cute little angels and fluffy Santa Clauses. We will move past the crowds and the lines and the traffic.
“May we not “spend” Christmas or “observe” Christmas, but rather keep it.”
-Peter Marshall (chaplain of the United States Senate)