Incite went dark yesterday as I celebrated Christmas with my coworkers for the entire lunch hour. I can get away with the reference to Christmas because, to the best of my knowledge, we don’t have any infidels on our team. The food and cameraderie were akin to what is probably experienced in prisons and other institutions that let the n…the oppressed observe the holiday. Ah, Christmas!
This brings me to the truly miraculous nature of this holy day. Whenever a tradition is observed for centuries it runs the risk of losing its meaning, or of it at least becoming corrupted and diluted. Literally a child of Christmas, I would encourage us all to look at the central figure of this profound myth: a child. And not a child of means or prominence but a possibly bastard child born in the lowliest of conditions in the outback nowhere. Christians have prettied the story up over two millennia, but the raw original tale is truly incredible to the rational mind.
So Christmas really is for children! It’s about children. It elevates children as represented by the Christ child to the status of God dwelling with us. Imagine how our world would change for the better if every birth was celebrated as sacred. (I’m going to have to find the poem that Dad always used in his candlelight services which even Google isn’t turning up.) The glory of Christmas revealed in a child is that it holds true for all children, and when we come to see the Christ in every child we will begin to understand what the reign of God is really all about.
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