My Twitter feed has been alive over the last coupld of weeks with people on two sides of a battle. One the one hand, we have people who from the middle of October are in full-fledged Christmas mode, putting up countdowns, quoting Christmas songs and generally being obnoxiously cheerful. On the other hand, the people who moan about Victoria Square having their lights up before December even starts and snap at anyone who mentions the possibility of putting their tree up. Where am I? I suppose I'm somewhere in the middle. I hate putting the tree up but I love the dinner. No pain no gain, I guess...
I find myself wondering more and more each year to what extent we do take part in the commercialization of Christmas though. As Christians we obviously have a very different approach to and meaning behind the celebration of Christmas. We set a particular time apart each to commemorate the coming of God in human form to take part in the salvation of all mankind. Probably worth a mention once a year, yes?
So how does God feel about his people getting sucked in to the way the world has trivialised it? If we weigh up the amount of time we spend pondering over presents, decorating houses, writing cards, watching the films on tv and even simply daydreaming about a few days off work; against the amount of time we give it the proper focus it deserves, are we really surprised that God is not glorified to the extent He should be? Countercultural living is surely never more important than at a time of year when something profoundly spiritual is abused by marketing and industry.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Christmas, genuinely can't wait each year. There's nothing wrong with that. And even though the world doesn't quite get it, it's still a time of year that seems to promote only love and compassion. But what better chance is there for Christians to shine than when celebrating the birth of Christ? Instead we so often choose to go along with the superficial.
If I had more time I'd also go on about how even the Christian worship folks seem to pounce on the market in order to sell a few CDs of Christmas songs, but for another time...
