The Reason for the Season

            About two millennia ago, a little boy was born to a poor family into utter obscurity.  He was born in a cave, and spent His first night on Earth sleeping in a feeding trough.  He was the Lord of glory come in human flesh for the purposes of redeeming creation; the omnipotent God born into weakness for our sake.

            About two weeks ago, in anticipation of the anniversary of that world-changing event, millions of people stampeded over each other to save a few bucks.  In order to appease a consumerist culture, retailers even decided to start “Black Friday” on Thursday and opened on a national holiday to offer better prices on the things we want. 

            And many of us who lament each year that far too many are forgetting “the reason for the season” took our stand.  We refused to shop.  We told our friends and family they should refrain from doing so.  We took to social media to do the Christian thing and we not only berated retailers for opening on Thursday, but we let everyone who even thought about going shopping know how horrible they were for forgetting what the season was about.

            So some spend Christmas in the throes of anxious, joyless commercialism while many of us who know what this holiday is really about spend it in the throes of anxious, joyless finger pointing. 

            All I want for Christmas is for God to work in me, and in all of us, to be humble enough to take our pointing fingers off of others, and point to Him instead.  Rather than tell everybody what they should and should not do, I pray we would confess that we have also forgotten what this season is really about.  And instead of making this Christmas about what we all do or don’t do, I pray we would proclaim that it is really about what God has already done. 

            About two millennia ago, God let go of His glory and took on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  Not so we had a reason to shop, but to purchase us at the cost of His own life.  Not so we could condemn those who do shop, but to take our condemnation on Himself. 

            About two weeks from now, we will be celebrating that world-changing event.  May we all remember that the reason for the season is not a question of what, but Who.

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