Thanksgiving is over. Well, the holiday is, though hopefully one's state of being thankful for blessings is never over. My last post here talked about being thankful and hopeful. Now I think I see a pattern in our holiday schedule arise out of that.
Thanksgiving is usually the official start of "the holiday season", which is secular-speak for Christmas-time. Of course, there are other holidays of other faiths, but as I am a Christian, my concern in this blog is of Christian holidays, so forgive me for being narrow-focused. Why would thanksgiving be the beginning of the Christmas season? (Nevermind the nearly proven theory of unified Creep [from ESPN's Page 2 columnist Gregg Easterbrook], which states Christmas creeps up on us earlier every year...)
First, we are reminded to be thankful. And for many of us, we are thankful for family, friends, jobs, cars, TV, and so forth. We may be thankful for all the "right things" on the holiday known as thanksgiving, but immediately the attention gets refocused on Christmas. In the Church Year, this time is called Advent. Waiting. We are waiting for the coming of the Messiah, the Christ Child. And then it dons on us (okay, some of us).
We are thankful for Christ. Above all else, and before all else, we are thankful for Him. He came as the lowliest of lowly, for us. We are, and should be, thankful for His gift: the gift of Himself for us and our salvation.
"On this night of hope and salvation
One Child lies embraced in a dream
Where each man regardless of station
On this Night can now be redeemed."
So goes the song "Anno Domine" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. As Christians, we understand that without the Easter Event, the Christmas Event has little value besides being a feel-good time of year about a miraculous birth... or it's about presents and a fat man in a red suit who breaks-and-enters into people's homes and leaves things behind instead of taking them. I rather like the idea and, I believe, truth of the birth of a savior who would let us all truly live by His dying and rising up again.
So why do we celebrate when we do? History suggests that the birth of Jesus would have happened sometime in October, maybe September... when weather was warm enough for shepherds to actually be outside tending their sheep. Why December 25? Well, I've heard stories about Christians in Rome co-opting pagan holiday schedules to celebrate a Christian holiday instead of the pagan one. But perhaps God was working in that as well as simple human desire to co-opt.
Jan. 1 is the New Year. We make resolutions every year, keeping few and obliterating many (how many times have I vowed to lose weight? More than I've actually done it, and slightly less more than I've done it and kept it off). But we know that the New Year is a time of year to make those resolutions, with all intents in the world to keep them and make a new, better us. A renewal of ourselves, if you will. Christmas happens just one week before this. It's as if the calendar is saying to us, "This day you celebrate as Christmas is HOW you get to be renewed!"
God comes down to us to renew us, and indeed renew all creation. In the midst of our thankfulness and our resolution to do better, God comes down to us.
"Realizing the past can be forgiven
The future be rewritten
On this night where every child is saved
And that dream we've dreamed most
Where every child is held close
On this night that dream won't be betrayed."
And for this renewal by God coming down, we are thankful.
Thanksgiving is usually the official start of "the holiday season", which is secular-speak for Christmas-time. Of course, there are other holidays of other faiths, but as I am a Christian, my concern in this blog is of Christian holidays, so forgive me for being narrow-focused. Why would thanksgiving be the beginning of the Christmas season? (Nevermind the nearly proven theory of unified Creep [from ESPN's Page 2 columnist Gregg Easterbrook], which states Christmas creeps up on us earlier every year...)
First, we are reminded to be thankful. And for many of us, we are thankful for family, friends, jobs, cars, TV, and so forth. We may be thankful for all the "right things" on the holiday known as thanksgiving, but immediately the attention gets refocused on Christmas. In the Church Year, this time is called Advent. Waiting. We are waiting for the coming of the Messiah, the Christ Child. And then it dons on us (okay, some of us).
We are thankful for Christ. Above all else, and before all else, we are thankful for Him. He came as the lowliest of lowly, for us. We are, and should be, thankful for His gift: the gift of Himself for us and our salvation.
"On this night of hope and salvation
One Child lies embraced in a dream
Where each man regardless of station
On this Night can now be redeemed."
So goes the song "Anno Domine" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. As Christians, we understand that without the Easter Event, the Christmas Event has little value besides being a feel-good time of year about a miraculous birth... or it's about presents and a fat man in a red suit who breaks-and-enters into people's homes and leaves things behind instead of taking them. I rather like the idea and, I believe, truth of the birth of a savior who would let us all truly live by His dying and rising up again.
So why do we celebrate when we do? History suggests that the birth of Jesus would have happened sometime in October, maybe September... when weather was warm enough for shepherds to actually be outside tending their sheep. Why December 25? Well, I've heard stories about Christians in Rome co-opting pagan holiday schedules to celebrate a Christian holiday instead of the pagan one. But perhaps God was working in that as well as simple human desire to co-opt.
Jan. 1 is the New Year. We make resolutions every year, keeping few and obliterating many (how many times have I vowed to lose weight? More than I've actually done it, and slightly less more than I've done it and kept it off). But we know that the New Year is a time of year to make those resolutions, with all intents in the world to keep them and make a new, better us. A renewal of ourselves, if you will. Christmas happens just one week before this. It's as if the calendar is saying to us, "This day you celebrate as Christmas is HOW you get to be renewed!"
God comes down to us to renew us, and indeed renew all creation. In the midst of our thankfulness and our resolution to do better, God comes down to us.
"Realizing the past can be forgiven
The future be rewritten
On this night where every child is saved
And that dream we've dreamed most
Where every child is held close
On this night that dream won't be betrayed."
And for this renewal by God coming down, we are thankful.