AN ANSWERING GOD

From You comes my praise in the great assembly;
I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him.
The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
Those who seek Him will praise the Lord.
Let your heart live forever!
All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,
And all the families of the nations will worship before You.
For the kingdom is the Lord's
And He rules over the nations.
All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship,
All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him,
Even he who cannot keep his soul alive.
Posterity will serve Him;
It will be told of the Lord to the coming generation.
They will come and will declare His righteousness
To a people who will be born, that He has performed it.
(Psalm 22: 25-31)

When outsiders, non-believers look at the Christmas celebrations of believers, what do they see? What is it that we are showing them?

Black Friday, a super-commercialized day of consumerism, following on the heels of a day of thanksgiving? A day when everyone is greedily out to get those bright, shiny objects we desire for ourselves? Is that the celebration we communicate? The getting of the things we desire?

The giving of gifts has been woven into our celebration of the coming of the Lord, but for a very specific reason. We are supposed to be giving gifts to others because God has given us so much. Because He is a God who brings us what we need, so that our hearts may "live forever". He has given us so much of Himself, that He became flesh to be among us.

Non-believers look at the Christmas story and, at best, say they see a mythic tale that isn't much different from other myths that are all equally improbable if not down-right impossible (at least in their way of thinking). In their minds is the question, "If there even is a god, why would that divinity do this? What logical purpose would it serve?"

I'm not sure how to answer those questions, at least not in a way that would satisfy someone who doesn't even believe in the existence of God.

For me, I have always had a sense of the presence of God, an Otherness that was always with me, but outside me. Was this merely the indoctrination that came from being born into a believing family? A paternal great-grandfather was a pastor, and his daughter, my great-aunt was a missionary. My maternal grandfather was a pastor as well. Church activities were a regular part of our schedule. My mother was a church choir director and organist. But I am also by nature a rationalist and logician, so "indoctrination" by itself does not explain my internal response. There was always something beyond the physical world, Someone who listened and responded. A presence that was experienced, not imagined. You don't "imagine" a presence when it is inconvenient to your present activities and desires. And that was the sort of Someone Other that I experienced.

For me, the story of the coming of Jesus is real. It is spiritually real, telling of how God chose to come close to us. But I also believe it to be literally true. And by that, I mean that there indeed was a child born into the Middle East in a particular year, a year when the Romans required a census of the residents of Judea and Israel. I do realize that the pinning of this event to the winter solstice of the northern hemisphere was a later thing -- but that of itself does not make the event untrue. I don't think the early Church was blind to the fact that they were making a symbolic choice by placing the celebration at the solstice. When else would you chose to celebrate the coming of the Light of the World but at that point when the world is at its darkest? The real point is not when in the year that Jesus was born, but rather that he was born.

That is what I celebrate. That is what I want to tell to "the coming generation". The Lord God promised to answer our needs. He promised to come to us. And he did.