Using FaithLife to Facilitate Discussion

Christmas Reflection

What do you want for Christmas?  I suspect somewhere, there is a psychological dissertation waiting to be written about the point in a person's life when that question goes from being euphoric to being pathetic.  It does seem to be that in my family, the younger you are the more you enjoy being asked and answering that question. What do you want for Christmas.?    I have been accused of being a Grinch before and I'll risk taking the label again by suggesting this:  There comes a point in a person's maturation when the bells and whistles fall off of Christmas.  And I think it comes when you realize that what you want most in life can't be placed in box, wrapped in pretty paper and placed under a Christmas tree. 

Amy Grant has a song that speaks about such a longing.  It's entitled "Grown Up Christmas Wish." Do you remember me?/I sat upon your knee./I wrote to you with childhood fantasies./Well, I'm all grown up now,/But I still need help somehow./I'm not a child, but my heart still can dream./ So, here's my lifelong wish;/My grown-up Christmas list./Not for myself, but for a world in need./No more lives torn apart,/And wars would never start,/And time would heal all hearts./Everyone would have a friend,/And right would always win,

And love would never end.../This is my grown-up Christmas list."  In 1967, Stevie Wonder penned a similar lyric—Someday at Christmas  "Someday at Christmas we'll see a Man/No hungry children, no empty hand/One happy morning people will share/Our world where people care."  And perhaps that reluctance to answer the question "What do you want for Christmas?" begins to set in whenever you've matured enough to want these things and lived long enough to see Christmases come and go yet no real headway made in the departments of peace, goodwill toward all humanity, good news for the poor, and release for the captives. 

The bells and whistles of Christmas fall off when we realize that no one else is going to wrap that Christmas gift up give it to us before breakfast on December 25.  And that's when we have a choice to make.  One choice that many people make is in giving up on the possibility of that nonsense ever ending.  We throw up our hands and say, "God's never going to step into history and do that for us."  In truth, there is no "easy button" for world peace.  For those who submit to such darkness, Christmas merely becomes a time to drown out the suffering in overeating, over-indulgence, and drunken revelry—which has been the modus operandi of Christmas for centuries.  But for others, the fact that Christmas has lost its bells and whistles means that Christmas finally has a voice.  It becomes our goal then to clean up the political corruption, enable others to weather the erratic economic fluctuations, to resist the domination and replace the terrorism with love.   To kneel in Bethlehem with the prophets, is to look at the face of God incarnate and with a sincere heart ask, "What, dear Lord and Savior of humanity, what do you want for Christmas?"  And upon hearing the voice of Christmas respond, we say with the prophet—the zeal of the Lord will do this through me.  

Andy Mangum

Take time to read today's Advent Devotion.

Events taking place this week

This week at FCC-Arlington, we will participate in a World Communion Sunday Ice Cream Social with the folks at First Presbyterian Church. According to the unbiased judges provided by Arlington Charities, the recipients of our food, we won the food collection competition (just barely). So, we're going to them for the social.