A Merry Tradition

This Christmas season, I can't help but notice the many, many traditions in our American Yule Tide culture. We do LOTS of things around this time of year because "we've done them every year" and that is "what you are supposed to do at Christmas." It's not that it's new or different from all the years before, but this year my gaze continues to rest on this season of tradition.

Did you know that the time of the year we celebrate Christmas, sometimes called "Yule Tide" coincides with an ancient Germanic pagan festival in honor of the Norse god Odin? What I find interesting is that the festival celebrated the "wild hunt" where Odin would race across the skies with an army of ghosts. It was a sign of pending war. Am I the only one who thinks this sounds just like Walmart in December?

The reason I bring up that bit of archaic history is that many cultural ideas and perceptions were brought into the Christmas celebrations during the evangelical movement of the church in 14th century. Because of the marrying with so many cultures during the imperialistic history of Christianity from Rome to the US and beyond, we have many ideas in our modern traditions that are not inherently related to the birth of Christ.

This is not a blog about whether Christmas is Christian or whether your traditions are right or wrong. I simply wanted to point out that our celebrations are made up of many traditions that come from many different lands, cultures, and peoples. The fact remains, if we are to honor Christ in our Christmas celebrations, what should we make of the many traditions we adhere to every year from Thanksgiving to New Years?

Here is my challenge: Make Christmas a celebration of Christ with Christ as the focus. Sometimes we do things related to Christ that are about Christ but they are not meant for Christ. Our Christmas celebrations are sadly, simply traditions. We put out a nativity scene, sing songs about Christ's birth, and give gifts of love to our friends, but our motives with most of these is simply because that is what you do at Christmas. Our motives rest in our traditions rather than sincere worship to our holy and heavenly Father.

"...'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' You leave the Commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." - Mark 7:6-8

We so easily cling (hold) to our traditions of trees, presents, songs, etc, but our hearts are no closer to the heart of God than any other time of the year. We tend to argue about whether Santa is right or wrong (we're truthers at our house - that's our choice) and have the notion that without presents a child's Christmas experience is ruined (yes, we got our kids gifts...this year). The simple truth is that it does not matter HOW you celebrate Christmas. It matters WHY you do it, and whether or not, Christ is your focus start to end. Is your primary aim to bring glory to God and to exalt the name of Christ. Could you be just as happy and content without your traditions and gifts simply because Jesus is fully sufficient? AND is this the message we teach our children at Christmas?

Here's to making your Christmas more than just a tradition, to making it a time of meditation on the profound mystery of how our majestic, sovereign creator chose to humbly take on the form of man out of love for you and me. Merry Christmas and may Jesus be the aim in all you do!