:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

This morning I was trying to imagine what Christmas would be like if my family got together and decided we were going to discuss everything we believe about politics, religion, same-sex marriage, abortion, U.S. foreign policy, and anything else that may be a source of contention. Just for the fun of it, we could sit around and evaluate one another’s beliefs and life decisions, criticizing them one by one.

I doubt we would make it to the meal, which would be rather sad since we always have pierogies on Christmas Day.

I don’t have any intention of trying this out. Rather, I write this in order to follow up on last week’s post about Christian unity and the idea that we can remain united despite our divisions.

The more I think about families, the easier it is for me to believe that meaningful Christian unity can be possible today despite the fragmented nature of Christians. It’s true that most of us know the right answer on paper: we are united by the bond of Jesus. Believing that statement when someone holds a belief that seems to run counter to the Bible or acts against the spirit of love requires a bit more faith than we can muster some days.

When I think of the differences in my own family and our ability to gather every year for great parties that have no shortage of love, I’m hopeful about Christianity. Many of us are already experts at living at peace and unity with family despite major differences.

We know how to avoid sensitive topics.

We know how to focus on what joins us together.

We know how to show an interest in others who are quite different from us.

There have been days when I’ve despaired about Christianity and the ways we are hopelessly fragmented. However, this morning, I am hopeful.

Even now we are all looking forward to the birth of Jesus, celebrating his coming among us and the arrival of God’s salvation. We all struggle with materialism. We all have long to-do lists before we can celebrate the holidays.

When we sit down to pray, seeking God amidst busy days and tasting the joys of his presence, we are all connecting to the same Father who loves us. As we tap into the peace and love that comes from our one Lord, may he share with us his passionate love for his people.

Years of being blessed with a low checking account balance forced me to rethink my approach to Christmas. Those were not easy years as I tried to tell myself that Christmas isn’t all about the presents, while fearing that my family would consider me cheap or inconsiderate.

A budget gift is a budget gift.

In a happy case of irony, my focus on gift-giving lead me back to a better conception of Christmas.

If art thrives on limitation, gift-giving followed suit. If I only had ten dollars to spend on each person, I had to ask very different questions for gift-giving, the most important being: “What would this person never buy for himself/herself?”

This lead to a series of time-consuming projects such as homemade applesauce, unique jams, hot sauce, and framed photographs. Everything was tailored to the specific needs of each person and in most cases kept us within our budget.

The first time I gave my grandmother a jar of homemade applesauce, she opened it right away and burst into tears at the first taste. She hadn’t eaten homemade applesauce since the last time her mother had made it. My mom guards her jar of blueberry jam, while my in-laws don’t miss a meal without their hot sauce.

As we’ve reached greater financial security, we’ve been able to spend more money on gifts, but our question remains the same. Oddly enough, the homemade gifts are still a big hit. In addition, we’ve begun to keep our Christmas spending under control by joining together with family members to buy one large gift that someone would never purchase on his/her.

I organized some pretty epic purchases that both met a relative’s need and ensured a minimum investment—the biggest ticket item being a computer for my wife before she entered graduate school. I’d share some examples from this year, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise for anyone.

Ironically, the more I’ve thought about my gift-giving strategy, the more I’ve been drawn away from focusing on giving gifts and pondering the power of God. Isn’t Christmas all about the power of God to do for us what we could never do for ourselves?

I love the promise that Gabriel made to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”

God overshadows us. He breaks into our gift-giving madness to remind us that our iPads will one day break, our E-readers will be replaced, our shirts will unravel, and even our jams will go rotten. We can’t beat greed, materialism, and selfishness on our own. We’ll keep thinking that these bits of technology and clothing are what we really need.

God knows that we need to overshadowed. We need him to overcome every competing desire in our life. Only he can overshadow every idol that tries to replace those quiet moments where we sense that the loving touch of God is what we were made to experience, even if we think we’ll be fulfilled by touching what we have made.

There is incredible joy in giving someone a gift that he could never acquire on his own. In fact, meeting a real need is the best kind of gift giving. God knew that when he overshadowed Mary with his power and sent us a Savior as the greatest gift—doing something we could never accomplish on our own.

May we find that joy both in our relationships with God and with one another. May we find what only God can give and meet needs that would otherwise remain.

This post is part of World Vision’s 12 Blogs of Christmas Project about the true spirit of Christmas. In order to learn more real needs that you can meet this Christmas season, check out the World Vision Catalogue.

Do you have your own story about the true spirit of Christmas? Share it today at the World Vision blog.

When I saw the enormous flowers toppling over our Christmas cactus on the dining room table for the first time this morning, I knew I had a problem. How long had those blooms been sitting right under my nose while I sat at the table reading, browsing the internet, or staring dumbly at my cup of coffee?

It was like God gave me a pleasant little metaphor of how I approach the Christmas season. It usually looks something like this.

The first Sunday of Advent hits like an unexpected tidal wave. It throws me into a panic because I need to start shopping and getting ready for a spiritually significant Christmas. I now have a deadline. If I can’t get my gifts purchased and wrapped, as well as arrive at a spiritual epiphany by December 25th, I fear that the universe will start to unravel and I’ll be sent into exile—or something like that.

Dread often gives way to guilt until December 25th passes and I’m filled with nostalgia for the glories of Christmas. Ah, I can’t wait until next year…

It struck me yesterday that dreading the arrival of Christmas is sound evidence that my priorities are in the wrong place.

I still love buying gifts for family members, but I don’t want to dread Christmas. I want to enjoy this season of prayer and meditation on God’s love for us. Reading through a daily Advent Devotional has helped immensely. However, I’m still pretty confident that I can screw things up with overblown expectations and busy schedules.

Just as I schedule time to get my work done, to do the dishes, and to even shop, I’ve been working on scheduling time to wait on the Lord. I’m not even hoping that anything in particular will happen.

My goal is to wait in peace and hope, letting God do as he pleases. If I only end up waiting better for the season of Advent, then perhaps I’ll have learned something valuable in the process.

This post is part of Bonnie Gray’s Thursday Faith Jam. Check out her post today: Be Fully Present

This Sunday marks the beginning of Advent, and I’ve asked Christine Sine, an author and blogger at God Space, one of the best Advent and Lent resources around, to share a guest post about the Advent Season.  She most recently edited a collection of brief devotions for Advent and beyond called Waiting for the Light:

The Christian calendar begins at the end of November, with the season of Advent and our preparation for the coming of the Christ child at Christmas. This season means different things to different people.

For some the season of Advent is just a time to enter into the hype of consumer binging and overindulgence. For those of us who follow Christ, this season is meant to have a different focus. This is the season when we all should await the coming of Christ in quiet expectation.  We don’t just await his coming to us as a baby, we enter into the anticipation of the coming of a Savior who not only brings personal salvation for those who choose to follow him but who will also redeem all creation with love and righteousness. 

This is also the season when we anticipate the coming of a God who brings justice for the poor and freedom for the oppressed and judgment for the oppressors.  For still others it is the remembrance of a child whose birth two thousand years ago radically refocused our world.

Christians of all traditions are discovering the value of taking time in the days that lead up to Christmas to break away from the consumer frenzy of our culture and prepare their hearts and minds for the coming of Christ.  Waiting for the Light is a book that responds to this desire. It is more than a devotional; it is a complete guide to the Advent and Christmas seasons providing liturgies, weekly activities and daily reflections to equip and nourish us throughout the season. Reflections are contributed by bloggers across the globe who love God and love to share their faith with others.

And if you want to spend more time in quiet reflection during this season you may also like to follow along at http://godspace.wordpress.com where we will continue to add new thoughts on the theme Jesus is Coming – What Do We Expect?

Nine years ago we were newlyweds. I remember when our photo album arrived from the photographer with 4×6 prints and negatives. Yes kids, people actually used to hold pictures in their hands, and you could only make another print if you brought the negative to a developer—I’m sorry if all of this is making your head spin.

I looked through the pictures and began to think about having some prints made, buying frames, and putting up some pictures around the house. Perhaps a nice picture of Julie for my desk and a portrait in our bedroom.

However, I had seminary classes, my wife was attending graduate school, and it seemed like we never found the time for it. We’d wait for later—a time when we’d have more time.

Nine years later, I’ve made no progress on this. Worse than that, there are so many things that I’ve put off by telling myself, “I’ll get to this when I have more time.”

It’s like I’ve created this fairy land in my future where I’m be rested, relaxed, and completely at leisure to do as I please. The truth is that we can always fill up our time with something. You can never have “enough” time.

One area where God is working on my heart lately is the stewardship of my time and how badly I can waste it. One night I drove over to our community market, which is an amazing natural foods/organic grocery coop. It’s in the middle of our residential neighborhood, so I parked on the street and could see the lights from televisions flashing in every single living room on our block.

The sight saddened me, but then God, champion for hypocrisy exposure, reminded me that I was chomping at the bit to go home and watch a bit of hockey. There was no use arguing that hockey is morally superior and more redemptive than Dancing with the Stars, even if I know that’s true. The matter was one of time and priorities.

I can always put off important things by saying that I’ll have more time in the future for them. This is a lie that turns me into the victim of the circumstances, when in reality I’m a victim of my own mismanagement—which is another way of saying that it’s my fault alone.

When Jesus came to earth, Simon and Anna proclaimed that God’s salvation had come that day. Herod sought to kill the newborn child because the threat to his rule was immediate. When God acts, there is no room for delay. We can’t let our circumstances become obstacles.

Jesus told his disciples that the time has come now. Today is the day to repent. Today is the day to follow him. When a man tried to put off following Jesus in order to take care of his family obligations, Jesus wouldn’t let him off the hook.

God’s timeframe is always now, not later. As much as I’d like to delay dealing with my sins and bad habits, God wants to heal them now. As much as I’d like to fill my day up with “important” tasks, God wants me to pray now. Whenever God prompts us to act or sit, to think or rest, he’s seeking what’s best for us.

I keep thinking that I’ll get to these things, but if I expect God to heal me in the future, he’s actually saying that he wants to do it now. He doesn’t want me to wait for a day when I’ll be less busy, less stressed out, and less fragmented because that day will never come. While I wait for life to become less stressful, I miss out on the source of healing that I need the most—the one thing that I’ve been waiting for.

Today’s post is a synchroblog with Christine Sine. Check out her post: Jesus is Coming—What Do We Expect?

And hey, did you know Advent is coming? I contributed to this great collection of meditations that is now available: Waiting for the Light: An Advent Devotional. Also check out Christine’s advent video.

A few days ago I had about twenty minutes to spare before running off to an appointment. I sensed a gentle nudge to sit quietly before God to pray and to just make myself available to him.

And then I thought, well, twenty minutes is a pretty big chunk of time. I’ll just go on Twitter to see what’s happening, and then I’ll sit to pray.

I read through the latest stream of updates, and then I noticed an interesting article. Without even thinking about it, I clicked it.

After reading the article, I obviously had to leave a comment.

After hitting the submit button for my comment,  I checked the time. I had five minutes.

Shoot.

We can always justify doing one more thing, but when I look back at that moment, I essentially squandered a chance to love God with all of my strength and to seek his Kingdom first. It was a good blog post, but I once heard someone say that the good is sometimes the enemy of the best.

Did reading that blog post and leaving a comment actually move me closer toward the most important objectives in my life? Probably not. While we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over our to-do lists, there is something to be said for hearing God’s voice and responding with quiet time before him.

Sometimes we need to just stop.

We can always add another chore to the list during the holiday season. However, are we leaving space for God and letting him rise to the top of our priority lists?

Lately, God has been claiming my time in the car. It has been really great. I’ve had some refreshing moments of prayer and meditation while driving that I would have missed if I’d had the radio on. Nevertheless, when God wanted to move in my time at home, I found reasons to distract myself.

It’s a process. It’s a relationship. There will come times when we lose sight of what’s most important. Thankfully God is passionate for his people, and he is patient with us. I’m blown away that he sticks with us.

As our schedules fill up during the holidays, may we find the time to stick with him and to enjoy the love he has for us.

For more posts about finding Jesus during the Christmas season, drop by Bonnie Gray’s Faith Barista Blog.

Over the past two days I’ve focused on the ways that Jesus came to save us from sin and death, but that really only tells part of the story that began on Christmas. The concept of the incarnation is essential for not only understanding our salvation, but the entire scope of Jesus’ work.

Jesus didn’t just preach a bit, die, and rise from the dead.

Jesus healed illnesses, provided fish, and met a number of everyday needs. We see God implanting himself in the everyday moments of our lives, and not just the mountaintop moments of salvation.

Think about this. Jesus didn’t just multiply fish as a clever trick to impress people. There were thousands of hungry people around him. On another occasion he filled the nets of his disciples.

We have lessons here about God’s concern for our everyday needs and his involvement in our daily struggles. For those who commit themselves to him and his Kingdom, Jesus demonstrates his ability to provide.

Jesus wants your today to be better. He’s not holding back all of his good things for heaven. That doesn’t mean we’ll be wealthy and free from trouble. It does mean that he will meet us in our daily struggles and walk with us.

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we have an assurance that God is here among us today. He cares about your job search, your family’s conflict, the stress you feel, and the lack of certainty you have about the future.

God is here in your now.

Whenever someone brings up the problem of evil in our world or criticizes God for how things have played out, I always want to know what they would do differently or better. In a sense, this has everything to do with Advent. However, we need to set a few ground rules and look at a few options before looking at the birth of Jesus.

Why Are We Here?

Christians and any other religion that believes in a god, teach that God created the world. We didn’t arrive here by chance or luck. Christians in particular believe that God created us to be in relationship with him.

Therefore, if we follow this “free will” line of reasoning, God did not create us to be robots who obeyed him. God also doesn’t force himself on us. He wants us to choose to love him and to love others on our own.

What Options Do We Have?

Therefore, God could cancel his plans to work with us and to reach out to us. He could conceivably take control, force himself on us. However, God is defined by love and relationship, and such forceful action would run counter to his nature. His eyes are searching the earth for those who are seeking him.

If God doesn’t take control of us and our world, how else can he deal with sin and all of our other problems? I mean, there have been times when I wouldn’t have minded God taking control of things, but then again, that wouldn’t change anything for you or me personally. I believe God has a better way forward.

Bearing and Overcoming Evil

The thought of Jesus hanging on the cross with angels at his command is startling for me. God himself came to us in the person of Jesus, suffered like any other person, and then endured a painful death with the weight of the world’s sins upon him.

God didn’t choose a superficial plan that solves our problems for today and leaves us unchanged. God dealt with the roots of our problems by facing all of the evil in our world, bearing it on the cross, and then overcoming it through the Resurrection.

The Intimacy of God

God is not detached from us and our suffering. He faced it head-on in ways we cannot imagine. However, God will also not use the nuclear option. He modeled the way we should live and left his Spirit among us. If we can stop filling our brains with every other influence from the internet, TV, and radio, we may be quiet enough to hear him.

I crave that quiet time during Advent this year. I want to ponder the wonder of his incarnation and his plan to bear our sin and suffering. Every time I think of this incredible plan to work with us from the inside out, I’m blown away by the patience and compassion of God.

He gives us time to repent. He offers second chances. He waits for us when we can hardly scrape a few minutes together. He does all of this because he has not wavered from his original plan to be in relationship with his creation.

Have you ever thought, “I wish God would just show himself. Then everything would be easier.” I’ve imagined meeting God for coffee, hashing out my plans for the day, taking my marching orders from him, and going to it.

Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to follow God that way?

And then there are the larger problems in life and the arguments leveled by atheists and agnostics about the terrible things happening in our world. Why doesn’t God show up? Why has he remained so distant from the pain and suffering in this world?

Here’s the chilling reality we learn from the Bible: God already came down to earth and the majority of the people who met him weren’t interested or actively opposed him. Humans, in other words, tend to think and act in ways that run counter to God.

The problem isn’t that God has removed himself from us. He came. He also stayed. The problem is that we have removed ourselves far from God. As we’ve moved away from God, our world has become distorted and depraved in its thought and actions.

Advent is the season where we celebrate the beginning or God’s solution: the birth of Jesus. God literally made our problems with sin, suffering, and injustice his own.

Beyond that, he left his Holy Spirit to live with us, continuing his presence among us after his initial coming at Advent. Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost are three holy days that celebrate the progression of God’s saving and restorative work among us.

This week I’d like to ponder the significance of the coming of Jesus.

The Next Post: How would we deal with evil and sin in the world? In other words, was Jesus’ coming at Christmas really the best plan?

Should we even celebrate Christmas in the first place?

Perhaps I should have asked this question before we spent all of our savings on black Friday and cyber-Monday, but better late than never. You did save your receipts, right? I’m asking a loaded question about Christmas that may devastate some and bring relief to others.

Answering this question requires at least two posts in order to examine what we’re celebrating and then, in the next post, how we should celebrate it.

I’d like to begin by looking at what Christmas celebrates:

Every year somebody trots out the supposedly damning history of Christmas in order to prove that everything we do is somehow connected to the pagan worship of trees and big box stores. I’ll admit, reading the History Channel’s guide to Christmas would make Scrooge sing with glee.

The early church didn’t even think to celebrate Christmas. And even when it did catch on in the 300’s, it developed into more of a wild romp like Mardi Gras than a line of angelic choir boys singing Silent Night with glowing candles.

Over the years the meaning and celebration of Christmas evolved, and in the 1800’s it took on the sentimental, family-centered, gift-giving emphasis that has taken hold to this day. In a sense, Christmas preserves many of the high ideals of the Victorian period in the late 1800’s.

So what exactly is Christmas all about?

Is it really all about celebrating the birth of Jesus? From the best that we can tell, Christians first celebrated Christmas as a way of both sanctifying a pagan feast day and honoring the birth of Jesus, which in and of itself is not a bad thing.

God came to redeem our world, and it’s not too far of a stretch to include our holidays and festivals. If we’re going to celebrate something in the winter, as most people do, why not rework these feasts into something focused on God’s saving work? The metaphors work, and the writers of scripture use metaphors and images regularly.

Jesus is the light of the world, the lamb of God, and the bread of life.

Interestingly enough, “Christmas” began with Christianizing pagan feasts, but in the end we commercialized the Christianized pagan feast. So therefore, Christmas has always had this tension between the sacred and the secular.

There is no “pure” celebration of Christmas.

Christmas has always been a tangled mess of priorities and traditions that have morphed and changed over time in both the religious and secular categories.

In brief, the Christmas holiday has always been about gathering with friends during the coldest, darkest part of the year. It only makes sense to celebrate the coming of God’s redeeming light at the same time.

In the end, I think Christmas isn’t as clean and pure as we’ve been lead to believe, but even after we remove the sparkling veneer, we still find a valuable holiday to celebrate because it calls to mind the incarnation of Jesus and the launching of God’s plan to eradicate evil and to redeem his creation.

Nevertheless, how exactly should we celebrate the arrival of God during Christmas?