What's Missing for Christmas

Can we talk openly of God’s hope and love—as if Christmas were still with us—even though it’s now January as you read this? 

In polite conversation, just back from vacation, one asks, “How was your Christmas?”  But four days into the New Year, the conversation has moved on. Yet I will buck this taboo here, as I believe the Christmas message (that “God is with us”) bears little resemblance to how and when our culture celebrates the event.

Laura Crow, former Board president of Middleton Outreach Ministry and now a minister-in-training at Middleton Community Church, makes the same point. She points out in her Christmas Day sermon, “For a few weeks each year, we are given permission to dream. We feel safe to talk about God in everyday conversation, to openly express our hope in acts of ordinary kindness and radical trust. But something happens when we turn over our calendars and pack away all our ‘Christmas’ things. Once it hits January, however, talking about God is once again relegated to the ‘taboo’ list of polite conversation. The world has moved on. We retreat into our more privatized practices of faith.”

With Laura, I struggle to keep alive year-round the conversation about God’s gift of Christmas miracle hope and sustaining love. I struggle because American culture has so defined what Christmas means (the giving and getting more stuff).  And I struggle because several families I know are experiencing hard times, and for them Christmas seems like “all mirage and no miracle,” even “all promise and no delivery.”

One client, quite dismayed at her failure to register for any Christmas gifting programs, cries out to me, “Christmas is cancelled.”  Something else was indeed missing in her idea of Christmas, not just gifts.

A second family I know wants a good-paying job; only then could they “afford” or “pay for” Christmas. Meanwhile they refuse the kindness of others who would be and bring Christmas to them. How ironic. Christmas, originally, is not something we pay for, but a gift paid for by God, who gave up everything to become one of us.

A third family I counsel yearns for daddy to come home for Christmas clean, sober and faithful; instead they feel abandoned and betrayed by broken promises. By God’s grace, this dad, who pawned his family belongings and Christmas gift money to buy illicit drugs, will yet go into a residential treatment center this week. As bad as he feels about “stealing” or “missing” Christmas from his family, this addict will come through New Start, come back a new man, and be fully present for his family. Like Christmas.

Another couple I know well finds little joy in Christmas if that means being without their minor children, all in foster care.  I admit, something’s missing for families who do not know the “I’ll-be-home-by-Christmas” joy of a total family reunion.

Even in my own experience of Christmas, something or someone’s missing: Last September my mother passed from this life to the next, and so her presents and presence are missed. Likewise I miss my son Eric, who stayed overseas, choosing to travel Central America and come home later.

Two other families I know through MOM’s “Adopt-A-Family” program got very little on Christmas Day itself. Their donor families got all caught up in the busy-ness of Christmas and failed to deliver on time (“all promise and no delivery”). Nonetheless, these two recipient families found comfort and joy knowing that even the Christ child did not receive gifts on that first Christmas, but sometime in the next twelve days. Perhaps you also observe the “Twelve days of Christmas,” in which case, you keep on giving through January 6. 

But why stop then?  Why not give year-round?

Laura Crow drives home the point of Christmas, as one of living it out year-round, with this story about a Rabbi and soapmaker who traveled together one day….

As they walked along the soapmaker said to the Rabbi, “What good is religion?  Look at all the trouble and misery of the world after thousands of years of teaching about goodness, truth, and peace – and this after all the prayers and sermons and teachings.  If religion is good and true, why should this be?”

The Rabbi said nothing. They continued walking until he noticed a child playing in the street. Then the Rabbi said, “Look at that child. You say that soap makes people clean, but see the dirt on that boy. Of what good is soap? With all the soap in the world, the child is still filthy. I wonder how effective soap is after all.”

The soapmaker protested, “But, Rabbi, soap can’t do any good unless it is used.”

“Exactly,” replied the Rabbi. “And so it is with religion. It is ineffective unless it is applied.”

If you somehow “missed” the real Christmas, or want to keep it going, relax and soap up. The clock did not run out on you. The gift of God’s love and hope has unlimited shelf-life. But it should not be shelved until next December. Now’s the time to unwrap the Gift and put it to use, as directed.

© 2005 Middleton Outreach Ministry

Site design and maintenance donated by Liberty Professional Services, LLC
Hosting donated by TDS Metrocom