Most of you know the kind of blooper I'm referring to --an expectation of some kind you project on family or friends, usually unspoken, during the Christmas and New Year get-togethers. And then WHAM … Reality Hits! People don't live up to YOUR standards.
Now, if you are NOT a Christ-follower, I discourage you from reading any further. My observations from this point won't make any sense to you. In fact, most of what I'm referring to will seem quite trivial to you.
On second thought, if you are a close family friend, you might find this discouraging.
The Blunder actually came near the end of a gathering of friends for Christmas. Gifts had been exchanged. A meal shared, belching and declarations of impending diets, and New Year's resolutions discussed.
Since the totality of the group were Christ-followers (meaning they had accepted Christ as their personal Savior) I thought they might be interested in watching The Nativity Story, a realistic, well-produced film which appeared theaters in 2006 about the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
THAT WAS MY BLUNDER -- A one hour and forty-one minute blunder!
Many families have traditions at Christmas. They read….
T'was The Night Before Christmas…. (short)
Or sing -- "Up On The House Top"….(short)
Or watch -- It's A Wonderful Life …. movie … (not so short but has has Jimmy Stewart and a clutzy angel)
Or -- A Christmas Carol …. movie ... (longer but has has Scrooge, Tiny Tim and ghosts, is a musical and lots of versions)
Or families will read the Christmas story -- Shorter than the movie but more interesting if from a modern Scripture translation, Matthew and Luke, usually before opening gifts. A crèche on the coffee table provide the visual reference for small children. A total of 51 verses tell the story of from the appearance of the angel to the virgin Mary to Joseph, Mary, and the toddler Jesus fleeing Bethlehem ahead of Herod's child-killers. It takes about two minutes to read the narrative.
Twenty minutes into The Nativity Story, my fellow viewers began to drift away -- physically. Phone calls suddenly needed to be made. Urgent matters that had been forgotten since morning cropped up called people to other rooms. The appeal of the all too familiar story was gone. Tiny Tim's peril might have held their attention in Scrooge. Clarence the goofy angel keeping George Bailey from committing suicide could have insured their watching It's Wonderful Life.
In retrospect I may have been witness to a micro-cosum of this modern generation of Christ-followers. We appear more in love with the IDEA of what the 'Christmas Season' does to people than the PERSON for whom the season is celebrated. Not only have we gotten the cart before the horse, we've decorated the cart, push it ourselves with worshipful celebration, and forgotten the stable where we've abandoned the horse.
Where is our amazement at the Creator of the Universe wrapping himself in flesh and hair?
Why does the God who birthed us from His very mind not hold our attention long enough to marvel in the story of His journey to "be touched with our very infirmities?"
How often do we complain that "God doesn't understand what we are going through!"...yet we won't sit long enough to see what He went through to sleep in the manure-filled stable?
And at the end of that hour and forty-one minutes, there were two of us left. Me (the storyteller) and a person, not born and raised in American "Christian" culture. This individual was not introduced to Jesus as his Savior until a few years ago; to him it is story still full of wonder.
So this past holiday has left me with sad acceptance that many Christ-followers no longer hold a fascination for "Emmanuel" -- God Among Us -- in the carols they sang. Their faces are no happier singing Oh, Come All Ye Faithful than when singing Jingle Bells.
But perhaps neither was mine. Most of us couldn't wait for Christmas to arrive and pass. For some of us it has been a really hard, trial-filled year.
We want the abridged, version Christmas story.
We want it short and sweet.
The Gospel writer John wrote:
The Word (of God) became flesh and blood,
And moved into the neighborhood.
And we saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son.
Generous inside and out, true from star to finish.
He was in the world,
And the world was through him,
And yet the world didn't even notice.
He came to his own people,
But they didn't want (have time) for him.The Message Bible (1:14,15,9-10)
I look at this generation and wonder; Has much changed in 2002 years among those who look for a Savior?
Have we made a visit to the manger, paused and rushed back to the "sheep fields" of our daily lives without much thought of what it really means for God to coo and cry and bleed and die?
And it really make me wonder who is more guilty …
King Harrods who try to kill the Christ child because they know how dangerous the Child is …
Or those who see Him daily, take him for granted, and live our lives unchanged?
4 comments:
David - this is a sad reality, and as you point out so well, we are all guilty of this to some extent or another. Thought provoking way to wrap up the post, too!
- Lon
Aw, sorry they didn't want to watch. I heard it was a pretty good movie! -Tina
Speaking as one of the witnesses to this event - If it had been another "traditional Christmas" movie I still would have gotten up to fix my tooth.
Pain was pain, and unfortunately, the Lord didn't take that pain away so that I could pay attention to what I was trying to watch.
My love and reverence for Christ and His birth still lives on past the newest up dated film version. This love cannot just be summed up in a movie.
Teeth are painful teeth are are understandable.... others are too quickly bored with the familiar, they've heard since a child. There is wonder no longer.
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