I am reminded of the lyrics of an old song that goes, 'If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning.' You see, there's a little blue marble of a planet out in space, in a fairly ordinary galaxy, where something unusual happened: A Jewish carpenter tried to build up our faith and show us the way to Heaven. I expect a lot of people this time of year look up and say, "Lord, please save me from Christmas!"
My move to Pensacola has separated me from my relatives in the Pacific Northwest. In theory, the best Christmas is enjoyed with family, but strangely, no one disappoints us more than family. We can't all have Norman Rockwell worthy Christmas dinners. I'm emotionally ready to spend Christmas in an Airbnb. I'm not the only one in the world who will be alone eating a Subway sandwich on Christmas. It's just one day; I can handle it. There's Skype, email, and cell phones to shorten the distance.
Christmas should be a time of quiet celebration, not migraines. There's a lot of pressure to shop for gifts and mail them in time for Christmas. I've violate this gift giving timeline every year because I mail gifts whenever the spirit moves me. I mailed Christmas cards to a dozen people this year, so I had better not find a lump of coal in my stocking. As of this writing, Christmas is only a week away. Soon it will arrive and quickly it will be forgotten. Christmas trees probably wish Christmas was abolished. About twenty-seven million live Christmas trees will be harvested this year. Twenty-two million fake trees will be sold. Wouldn't it be great if all the live trees were left to grow? We'd all have a lot more oxygen.
I am flummoxed by the timetable of stores transitioning to the next holiday months before it arrives. Halloween displays were up in Home Depot in August. Christmas displays go up in September. I imagine every holiday blending together. I have found Christmas stores that are open year round. I expect Valentine's Day displays are already being set up nationwide. This is why Jerry Springer in the Seinfeld show, invented Festivus, which afterwards was taken up by the masses and celebrated on December 23rd.
When I was a boy, Christmas mornings meant finding my expected present under a tree festooned with gaudy lights, tinsel, strings of popcorn, and ornaments. At the top of the tree was either a star or an angel figurine. An hour after Christmas morning began, the living room floor looked like a tornado had touched down, festooned with torn packaging, shards of ribbons that held the packages, and name tags that once were held in place with Scotch tape.
My family's usual Christmas breakfast consisted of eggs, sausage, pancakes, waffles, glasses of orange juice, toast with jam or biscuits, and coffee for mom and dad. Bowls of overly sugary cereals, adorned with berries, were a part of the bacchanalia. Then it was time to lounge around in pajamas watching Christmas themed cartoons and movies. Mom would order us to brush our teeth, and go outside to play in the snow while she cleaned up the mess. It was a simpler time, but most American families carry on this Christmas morning tradition. Nowadays, it's rare for families to stop and talk about the real meaning of Christmas as a family.
I suggest there should be a time where everyone stops whatever they are doing, on Christmas Day, to contemplate the meaning of the holiday. The mistletoe reminds us to show a little more love to one another. Now that 2020, a year which will live in infamy, is coming to a close we have a lot to ponder. What will 2021 bring? How long before life returns to normal?
There are 7.8 billion people on Planet Earth; not everyone is a Christian. I imagine the extreme capitalism of Christmas shopping must seem like temporary insanity to non-Christians. Surely the end goal is not in acquiring a huge treasure trove of presents. From December 10th to December 18th, Jewish families celebrate Hanukkah. It's a festival of light, remembering when a day's supply of lamp oil in the temple in Jerusalem lasted eight days. As a boy I was ignorant of their holiday, and the parish priest never talked about it.
At the top of the entrance steps of the church my family attended, was a grand nativity scene with large ceramic figurines of Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus in his wood cradle, the three Wise Men, and a couple of shepherds. There was real hay for the holy family and their friends, and animal figures, to rest on. It was gloriously lit with floodlights. The animals and figures were turned towards the baby Jesus, who had a happy look on his rosy-cheeked face, and his chubby arms extended to bless the gathering. The figures of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had gold hued halos around their heads. The manger enclosing this scene was made of real wood, about ten feet wide and six feet tall.
For many years I have reflected on Jesus, the real historical figure. I've read the prophesies in the Old Testament of the bible. Christians say they are proof and Jews say it proves nothing about Jesus. His life has a lot of gaps that are lost to history. As far as anyone knows, he never wrote a book. His Sermon on a Mount could have been a bestseller. And like most historical people, the real Jesus has been embellished to the point that it's rather confusing. Who can say with certainty what Jesus was really like? Was he like Brian, in the 1979 Monty Python film, Life of Brian? Was Jesus a man, like Brian, and simply misunderstood? What would Jesus say about Christmas, and how we celebrate it?
Christmas, the birth of Jesus, celebrated on December 25th, is made up. In ancient times it was a pagan holiday. The evergreen was a Druid thing. There is no Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Jesus wasn't born on December 25th. He could have been born in April. And his real name wasn't Jesus. It was Yeshua, or Yahushua, a form of the name, Joshua, that means 'to deliver; to rescue.' Sounds like Messiah, right? So we got his name wrong, and his birth date, and probably even the way he looked. The Catholic church can be blamed for a lot of the misinformation. I was raised Catholic. They had a lot of reasons to dumb down Christmas for the commoners. Most of the reasons had to do with making money, and making sure their version of the story was the official version. I was brainwashed like everyone else until I was in my late teens, when I began searching for the truth. It's like playing detective at a crime scene that is over 2,000 years old. There's not a lot of reliable evidence to go on.
The story of Christmas makes no sense if it's not true. There are biblical scriptures that describe what the Messiah would be like. But like in the movie, Miracle on 34th Street everyone has to discover the true meaning of Christmas on their own. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE9M7a4wAZ0
Like the little girl in the film, Susan, we don't believe in Santa until we see the miracle happen. Most people don't know that the story of Santa Claus was based on a generous monk named St. Nicholas, who was born around 280 A.D., in Patara, near modern-day Turkey. I often see miracles. I am grateful for the miracle that I never had Covid-19 symptoms, and drove thousands of miles, eventually to Pensacola, and never had an accident.
The bottom line of Christmas is Y'shua. Either he was a fraud or he was the promised Messiah. Some would say he never existed, but the Roman historian, Josephus, did make a notation about him, so he was a real Jewish man. As Jesus once said to his followers, "Who do you say I am?"
In filmmaking there's a saying that a movie works because it persuades a rational movie viewer to "suspend their disbelief." The Christmas story asks us to suspend our disbelief, and accept that once upon a time, God took the form of a human being living in a little backwater part of the world, for the purpose of saying, "Hey, you're forgiven for your sins. I want you to believe in me; listen to my words." Many people would say that God has used a lot of enlightened human beings to help us find our way. That is probably true. Have you ever had a person show up to help you in an hour of need? I have no doubts that some of the people we interact with in our lives are agents sent by God to help us.
The idea behind the 1977 film, Oh God! is that God wants to get to know us, and wants us to believe and quit doubting. In the film, God, (played by George Burns), reveals himself to an ordinary grocery store manager, Jerry, (played by John Denver). It addresses questions and misconceptions people have about God. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvKuI8oK3c
Ask most five-year-old children if Santa Claus is real, and they will enthusiastically say, "YES!" Ask them if Jesus was a real person, and they will likely say, "I don't know." If you are seeking the truth, then you already have a good foundation to begin to believe in the important things about Jesus, the reason for the season. God doesn't live in churches, or synagogues, temples, or mosques. That's architecture. Look for God's artwork in snowflakes, rainbows, flowers, and in everything that exists. Whether you call him by his real Hebrew name, (Yeshua, or Yahushua), or the wrong, transliterated form (Latinized) - name of Jesus, isn't important.
I will plan to stop whatever I'm doing this Christmas and imagine, as John Denver did in that film, that there is still magic in the world, and God, who lives outside of time, can always do whatever it is (he, she, or it) wants to do. There are no obstacles; nothing is impossible for the Creator of everything.
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