Nativity Thoughts

Christmas Eve usually puts me in an interesting predicament because I can't keep a secret from Nicole. She already knows what she is getting for Christmas, largely because I can't ever go to the store without her to begin with. She got exactly what she asked for (some horseshoeing tools in order to shoe her own horses rather than hire a farrier to do it, which is a major expense that we can't really afford). Nicole loves horses, which is normally a very expensive hobby, and one that I certainly wouldn't be able to finance, except that we've been blessed in this way by the right people seeming to cross our path who share Nicole's love for these beautiful animals. One horse was free, the other was cheap (as in very inexpensive). What is even more remarkable is that these "giveaway" horses both come from good bloodlines, and those people who really know horses can tell this. Nicole found a place to board her horses-the home of a very nice lady whose lone horse needs companionship in the pasture (horses are herd animals). Hence, board also costs us very little compared to what people normally pay. Because of all these things, I feel blessed that Nicole is able to own, ride, and take care of two fine horses at so little cost to us-largely because the Lord blessed us (and specifically her) with meeting the right people who shared her passion for things equine and could help her keep a foot in the horse world.

How all of that relates to Christmas is that Nicole's Christmas requests in recent years  almost always relate to horses and horse-related things. It is impossible for me to hide a Christmas present from her-she almost always knows what she is getting, and this year is no exception-she asked for shoeing tools and she will get them. Me, on the other hand-I have no idea what I am getting, and she has the secret well-hidden-something she seems able to do with great success every year. I have gotten to a place in my life where I rarely ask for much in the way of gifts at Christmastime, because I am thankful for the things that I have, and there always seems to be so little that I actually need, and I thank the Lord for that.

It is entirely too easy-and I know that many people say this every year so that it becomes almost cliche-to become caught up in the material aspects of this time of the year. Indeed, we know that our society has become so obsessed with both the material and the commercial aspects of what we have come to call the "holiday season" that people bring out the Christmas decorations and the carols and the associated bon vivant at Thanksgiving weekend and sometimes before. There is no preparation of heart and mind for Christmas, so that when Christmas does come, people have a meal, open presents, and then quickly in their minds move on to other things the next day. When I wished a Merry Christmas to a friend of mind last year on December 27th, he wondered why..."Christmas is over," he said. It is not over at that time, of course, it has just begun.

We still have traces-albeit ever smaller ones-of what Christmas is really about within our culture, but Americans have lost (and many never had) the idea that Christmas is a season, and not a single day that we get excited about for a month (this comes from the Puritan heritage within this country-we do not have a true tradition of Christmas as Americans, it wasn't even an official holiday until the 1880's). That season does not end on December 25th, it begins on the 25th, and actually begins tonight at vigils for Christmas. Many people do not prepare themselves for Christmas by truly celebrating and living Advent before we get to the point of tonight. We need Advent because of what exactly it is we are preparing to celebrate and commemorate. We need time to reconcile in our minds how what we commemorate reconciles-or is radically opposed to-our materialistic culture of today.

We have our romantic notions of nativity scenes and singing Away In A Manger and Silent Night, but do we know of that which we sing? We are celebrating that God was made incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that He was made man, and that He came to us born in a cave used to house dirty farm animals and was laid in a feeding trough used for cattle, and donkeys, and other animals. He came into this world with nothing...nothing. Not as a child of privilege or wealth or power, but as a child born poor amid a backdrop that would make the modern conditions of the poor in our own country look like a vacation in the Hamptons. God chose to manifest himself to the human race as a child born in some of the lowliest possible means that humanity could afford. He came, in his own words (Luke 4:18-21):

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 

That reality-that Christ came to proclaim liberty to captives, preach the gospel to the poor, and give sight to the blind-both literally and, most importantly, spiritually, is what we celebrate at Christmas, and it is the real reason Christmas is-and should be-such a big deal. It's a whole lot more important than a man in a red suit saying "ho-ho-ho."