As a progressive, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to God; this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
Lyn Malone, minister of care and connection at The Met Church recently shared this on a Sunday morning; I hope you enjoy! Pastor Dan.
Do you remember layaway? It was here before credit cards. I know some stores still offer this option. You select the item; they hold it so that the purchaser can make regular payments on it until Christmas. You only get it when you can afford it or when it’s time. I think we’re sometimes tempted to do that with the joyful news of Jesus.
Jesus is born! Oh! But let’s wait and celebrate at the right time. Jesus has come! But we’ll greet him when we can pay full attention. Jesus lives! But the joy of this news is only for Christmas, Easter and Sunday mornings. Is this Jesus, the one who saves, who shows mercy, lifting the lowly, healing the broken, filling hungry souls … have we put this Jesus and that joy on layaway? Wasn’t the baby Jesus that we talked about during the Christmas season wonderful? Well, what have we done with him?
Have we placed Jesus, the risen Christ, in a shoebox, up with the Christmas stuff? Have we packed him away with the palm fronds, the Easter, Halloween and Valentines decor? Is our joy for Jesus on layaway?
Odd how we come to Christmas thinking of it as the time that sets everything right. Christmas is the time to come home, to return to that time in our memories when it was warm, and good and right, when everything that’s come upside down in our lives is set, at least for a couple of days in December, right side up.
Yet scriptures tell us, Christmas was that time when everything was turned upside down. It wasn’t about a loving, family – value mother caring for a conventional child. It was about Mary, an unwed teenage girl, expectant in a most unconventional, upside down way. The message came not through the official, governmentally-sanctioned communication channels; it was delivered in song by angels.
The good news came not to the learned and the powerful; shepherds working the night shift first received the gospel; not the biblical scholars pouring over the sacred texts in Jerusalem; but to Magi – pagan astrologers; the star appeared to gentile outsiders rather than insiders. The Baby, whose birth we sing about, lay in a cattle feed trough, not an expensive decorated crib!
Today, on a beautiful, warm summer day, we are more interested in the beach, softball and burgers on the grill than in strings of lights and roast turkey in the oven. It just makes no sense to us … Christmas in July? For us, it rings more true that December is the month of Christmas; the preparation, the celebration, the season of giving and love; that’s the time we remember our Savior’s birth.
Perhaps you are thinking, “Lyn you have a Christmas tree in July?” Well, why not? After extensive research, let me offer you some top reasons why we should have Christmas in July:
Think of travel! Anyone tried flying east during December? No canceled flights due to inclement weather! Shopping lines are shorter and it gives the economy a boost! It makes people happy! The Scandinavian word for Yule is Jul, which happens to be pretty close to the word Jul-y. And my best friend in elementary school always told me, “No one really knows when Jesus was born anyway.” In fact, history indicates that the early Christian Church chose Dec. 25 simply to annoy the pagans with their winter solstice celebration. But for me, it’s a reminder that Jesus exists all year, not just Dec. 25.
So why not celebrate Christmas in July? Unfortunately, we tend to limit Christmas to the bleak mid-winter; to the 24 hours of Santa and packages and trees and fruit cakes. And like good Puritan soldiers, by January we store our yuletide joy in the attic and get back to reality and the “true” responsibilities of life.
Forgetting the gifts of Christmas can be a dangerous thing. Remember Ebenezer Scrooge opting for work and money over love and joy? That choice changed him into a sullen, selfish man; a shriveled soul who lost the ability to feel joy. It’s easy to make that mistake; to opt for “humbug” over happiness, jadedness over joy. But here’s the good news: it’s never too late to reclaim the gifts of Christmas. Scrooge found them. The Grinch found them. And we can find them again too.
Deep down I believe we all still carry that sense of child-like wonder, a yearning to love and be loved, and a longing for joy. It just gets buried under years of “humbug.” Sometimes we have to dig it out through quiet introspection; like time spent around a Christmas tree in July.
On this warm summer day, I want to encourage you to live every day as if it was Christmas; remember that Christ did not remain a baby in a manger. Remember, He who was born on Christmas still lives today.
Have a merry upside down Christmas. Amen.
