Bigger, better, stronger, faster! The holiday spending season is upon us and stores are using every minute to promote the latest and greatest gadgets and gifts. Everywhere you look, you can find huge televisions with curved screens with quantum digital processing, phones with multiple cameras and a telephoto lenses, super cool laptops and virtual reality goggles –millions of items of all types and trends that are all being marketed to us; everything with the implied promise that somehow, with our credit cards, we will be able to purchase happiness this Christmas. — But that isn’t how Christmas works.
Shopping isn’t the reason for the season. Jesus did not come to earth in order to be first in line on Black Friday and to score the best holiday door buster deals. Jesus did not come to this planet to inspire us to spend enough money to lift the American economy. The things that make our December 25th celebrations truly special do not have stock numbers and they cannot be delivered by Amazon. Christmas cannot be bought, boxed, wrapped with a bow and tucked under your instagram-worthy stylishly decorated Christmas tree.
A real Christmas is all about the things that you cannot ever buy in a store. It is about the self-sacrificial LOVE that Mary had for her helpless child in her arms. It is about the HOPE that Mary had for her baby’s future. Christmas is about the JOY that comes when you are giving of yourself to others. Christmas is about PEACE, an even greater peace than the one comes as a blessed relief of silence when a fussing infant finally falls asleep.
I wish you a real Christmas. One filled with lasting relationships of love instead of expensive presents. I wish for you the peace of healed relationships, and the joy of living together in harmony in this wonderful world. This year, I wish for you the hope that all of us living together on this planet will create more peace, joy and love in the world. May it be so. Amen.
Article in Rockford Squire Newspaper January 2023