Rejoice! Rejoice!

So today was Christmas. My last Christmas day post didn't have much to do with Christmas. This time around I'll stick to the subject. And so I rhetorically ask... "What's up with Christmas?"

There seems to be two schools of thought when answering this question. The first would not admit it in words, but in action, the answer would revolve around the commercialism of the holiday. Get together with family and give and receive stuff. The Grinch put it well…

That's what it's all about, isn't it? That's what it's always been about. Gifts, gifts... gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts. You wanna know what happens to your gifts? They all come to me. In your garbage. You see what I'm saying? In your garbage. I could hang myself with all the bad Christmas neckties I found at the dump. And the avarice... The avarice never ends! "I want golf clubs. I want diamonds. I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored and sell it to make glue." Look, I don't wanna make waves, but this whole Christmas season is stupid, stupid, stupid!

We’ve heard the argument against commercialism often enough that we’ve developed a callous towards the excessive nature of our culture. So no need to keep going with that.

The other school of thought is that there is something more meaningful about this holiday. And so I’d like to place myself amongst this school of thinking, and not only that, to clarify what it is about Christmas that I find meaningful.

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

For the entire course of history, before that first Christmas, the One, True God was all powerful, the perfect picture of love and peace, active among His creation… there was nothing missing. And on Christmas, He became GOD WITH US. And for me, especially this year, I’m seeing a huge difference between God and GOD WITH US.