Uncluttering Christmas

Taking a stand against the commercialism of Christmas.
by Debra Fieguth @http://www.christianity.ca

A group of Canadian Christians has some creative ideas for celebrating an "alternative" Christmas

Christmas in Manhattan! What could be more exciting or romantic? Busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style, people passing, children laughing, smile after smile. …

A group of Canadian Christians has some creative ideas for celebrating an "alternative" Christmas

At least that's the "Silver Bells" version of Christmas in the city. But when Jane Snyder and her New York-born husband Karl Kessler found themselves actually shopping in Manhattan one December 24th, the reality jangled louder than the bells. "People looked grim, angry, harried and rushed," Snyder remembers. "I think it was probably the worst Christmas shopping experience I ever had."

Christmas Eve in the commercial Mecca did not make Snyder long for more material things—she wanted a scaled-down Christmas instead. Now the mother of two young children in Waterloo, Ont., Snyder keeps gift-giving simple and encourages extended family not to buy presents for her kids. "It's very confusing for children" to be loaded down with gifts, she says. Instead of buying each other presents, she and her husband make a donation to a charity or put a special book on hold at the library.

Snyder is part of a small but growing movement of Christians who are trying to refocus Christmas away from overspending on needless gifts and back onto Christ. Aiden S. Enns and some fellow Mennonites began the Buy Nothing Christmas movement three years ago when he was a student in Vancouver. Expanding on the concept of Buy Nothing Day started by Adbusters magazine, the group launched a web site and started collecting stories and comments. The number of e-mail newsletter subscribers grew from fewer than 100 the first year to 1,500 last year. "Every year it gets bigger and better and more exciting," says Enns, now a freelance journalist in Winnipeg, where the movement has become ecumenical.

Part of the key is to avoid being strident or angry. "I'm trying to find fun, positive alternatives," says Enns. "I try not to take myself too seriously." This year's campaign, which Enns and others have been working on since last February, includes a whimsical new musical called A Christmas Karl.

So far the response has been mostly positive (although a couple of callers to a radio talk show last year called Enns a Scrooge and Grinch). The idea appeals to Christians who want to put Christ back into Christmas, and it appeals to non-Christians tired of consumerism. "When I look at Jesus, I hear him preaching a radical message," says Enns. "I look at my church and I see a celebration of wealth and power and ownership and even ostentation."

Statistics appear to back him up—to the tune of $30 billion. Statistics Canada reports that's how much Canadians typically spend in retail stores in December. A 2003 survey by Leger Marketing indicated that individual Canadians (not households, but people within households) planned to spend an average of $575 on the ten Christmas presents they planned to purchase that year. Ipsos-Reid, in another Canadian poll on Christmas spending, ups that amount to more than $700 per person and offers the not surprising statistic that 67 percent of Canadians won't even like some of the gifts they receive—usually from in-laws. Thirty-three percent of Canadians stow unwanted gifts away in a closet each year.

Whether they end up in a closet or not will probably never be known, but Enns and his friends do still give gifts. "It's not about not giving gifts," explains Enns, who gives homemade presents to 17 nieces and nephews. "Gifts are a very important element of humanity and society." That's especially true in the Christian story, he points out: "God gave us Jesus. The spirit of giving is profound. At the same time we can't turn into the consumer monster."

Instead, Enns, his wife Karen Schlichting, and a few of their friends turned their two-and-a-half storey house into a Santa's workshop last year, teaching crafts at different stations from the basement to the attic. This year an expanded Buy Nothing Christmas CraftShare Fair took place in the basement of Winnipeg's Anglican cathedral, with 15 to 20 crafters teaching their skills to several hundred visitors—and broadening their idea of what Christmas is really about.

"For me, the central message in Christmas is that we are loved by God," explains Lynda Trono, a United Church minister who works in communication, education and justice for the Manitoba and Northwest Ontario conference. "We need to find a way to express that love with one another to the world, and presents might not be the best way."

Christians have good reason to become part of a de-commercializing movement, she says, "because we have a depth of understanding of Christmas that can enable us to sit back and reflect on what Christmas is really about. The cultural message of Christmas is very shallow and damaging to the environment." The alternative "is to give to the people you love not the cultural understanding of Christmas [but] the Church's understanding of God's realm breaking into a hurting world as being different from the commercial frenzy Christmas has become."

Trono heard about Buy Nothing Christmas last year, just in time to participate in an anti-shopping Christmas carol sing at a Winnipeg mall. "I had been trying to do a simple Christmas for a long time," she says. "The radical message of Buy Nothing really captured me." This year she's chairing the craft fair committee and has been busy putting together resources for a church service.

The service includes the script for a skit: Mary is just sitting there talking to Jesus, and Martha (who resembles Martha Stewart in her ambition to overdo things) is becoming annoyed: "She has a whole scroll of things that have to be done," says Trono, "and how can Jesus have His birthday at the same time as Christmas!?"

It sounds ridiculous, and maybe it is, but sometimes it takes turning a story on its head to make Christians turn away from the made-in-Manhattan consumerism—and turn towards a meaningful celebration with Christ at the centre and gifts in the background.

Giving More by Giving Less

Coming from a family of seven children, Elsie Wiebe-Klinger learned early not to spend a fortune on Christmas presents. "Who can afford to buy something

Debra Fieguth is a freelance writer in Kingston, Ont.

Originally published in Faith Today, November/December 2004.
http://www.faithtoday.ca

Have a Martin Luther Christmas

By Philip Ryken @http://www.reformation21.org

---

Somehow the legend persists that Martin Luther wrote the famous Christmas carol “Away in a Manger.” The truth of the matter is that the carol was not written in German but in English, and that it did not make its first appearance—right here in Philadelphia—until the 1880’s. However, according to the famous Luther scholar Roland Bainton, “Away in a Manger” may have been written in 1884 to honor the German Reformer on the 400^th anniversary of his birth. And in a way the legend is appropriate, because as much as any other theologian, Luther had a passion for celebrating the true meaning of Christmas [see Bainton’s introduction to Martin Luther’s Christmas Book (1948; repr. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1997), p. 7].

Over the course of more than thirty years in ministry, Luther often preached from the Christmas narratives in the Gospels, and from other passages related to the incarnation of God the Son. Typically he would preach on Christmas several times a week throughout Advent, carefully working through each passage verse-by-verse. He also wrote at least five Christmas carols, composing the music as well as coming up with the lyrics.

What were some of the main themes in Luther’s theology of Christmas and the cross? The famous Reformer often emphasized the humble circumstances of the people who witnessed the Savior’s birth. He characterized Mary as “a lowly maid from a mean town,” and said that among “the downtrodden people she was one of the lowliest, not a maid of high station in the capital city, but a daughter of a plain man in a small town” [pp. 12-13]. Of the shepherds he said, “That was a mean job, watching flocks by night. Common sense calls it low-down work, and the men who do it are regarded as trash” [p.35].

Luther used similar language to describe the earthiness of our Savior’s birth. “Bad enough,” he wrote, “that a young bride married only a year could not have had her baby at Nazareth in her own house instead of making all that journey of three days when heavy with child. The inn was full. No one would release a room to this pregnant woman. She had to go to a cow stall and there bring forth the Maker of all creatures because nobody would give way” [p. 30]. So it was that when the wise man came to worship the newborn King, “they saw but a tumbled down shack and a poor young mother with a poor little babe, not like a king at all” [p. 58].

These sufferings were all part of God’s saving plan. In order for God the Son to do the work of redemption—and to save ordinary sinners like Mary and the shepherds—he had to become a man and endure all the difficulties and degradations of our human situation.

We might be tempted to think that if we had been in Bethlehem, we would have given the baby Jesus the welcome he deserved. “If only I had been there!” Luther imagines us saying. “How quick I would have been to help the Baby.” And yet, said Luther, “You only say that because you know how great Christ is, but if you had been there at that time you would have done no better than the people of Bethlehem. Why don’t you do it now? You have Christ in your neighbor. You ought to serve him, for what you do to your neighbor in need you do to the Lord Christ himself” [p. 31]. Spoken like a true pastor, always trying to encourage his congregation to put their faith into practice.

Throughout his preaching on the incarnation, Martin Luther had a pressing concern for Christmas to make its way into our hearts. “We must both read and meditate upon the Nativity,” he preached. “If the meditation does not reach the heart, we shall sense no sweetness, nor shall we know what solace for humankind lies in this contemplation. The heart will not laugh nor be merry” [p. 15].

The true believer’s response to the true meaning of Christmas is beautifully expressed in a carol that Luther wrote for his young children—a carol commonly known by its opening words: “From Heaven High.” The carol seems to have been written for a Christmas pageant to be performed in Luther’s church. First an angel sings, announcing the Savior’s birth. The final stanza of the angel’s song goes like this:

Look now, you children, at the sign,
A manger cradle far from fine.
A tiny baby you will see.
Upholder of the world is he.

These words serve as the cue for the church’s children to come forward and worship the Christ. With reverent wonder they sing:

How glad we’ll be if it is so!
With all the shepherds let us go
To see what God for us has done
In sending us his own dear Son.
Look, look, my heart, and let me peek.
Whom in the manger do you seek?
Who is that lovely little one?
The Baby Jesus, God’s own Son.
Be welcome, Lord; be now our guest.
By you poor sinners have been blessed.
In nakedness and cold you lie.
How can I thank you—how can I?
O dear Lord Jesus, for your head
Now will I make the softest bed.
The chamber where this bed shall be
Is in my heart, inside of me.

Then the whole congregation joins the song, celebrating Christmas the Martin Luther way, and the way of every true believer in the Christ of Christmas:

To God who sent his only Son
Be glory, laud, and honor done.
Let all the choir of heaven rejoice,
The new ring in with heart and voice [pp. 71-72].

What Christmas Is All About

From Justin Taylor@ http://theologica.blogspot.com

With all the talk about faith and film, and Christians influencing the world through entertainment, has anyone stopped to think about a TV movie that--perhaps more than any other--has provided a faithful pointer to Christ?

No, it's not high art. But I'm thankful that year after year, one of the big network three put this show on TV and some of God's Word--containing the essence of the incarnation event--is relayed each year to children and adults. No small thing.

The Last Noel?

Peter Jones @http://theresurgence.com

I write this article trying to explain what is happening in our culture, behind and below the headlines, at the deepest spiritual level. A case in point: we have all noticed that the word "Christmas" is avoided in public discourse-more or less. On my local "cool Jazz" radio station, the cool host wished us "happy Holidays," and then played "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Oops!

Surely sanity, fair play and the good old days of Christmas past will return! My sense is, though, if our social handlers and media moguls have anything to do with it, we are fast approaching the "last Noel." The "Give-A-Christmas" charity drive has become the "Holiday Fund." After Thanksgiving, we do our "holiday shopping," to fill our children's "holiday stockings," when we get back from the office "holiday party."

The sociologists saw this coming. "We used to be a Christian nation," said sociologist Alan Wolfe of Boston University in 1998. "Recently we have become a nation tolerant of all religions" -except Christianity. Behind the diversity and tolerance lies the view all religions are ultimately the same. Since this is not the Christian message, Christmas will not bring us together, so Christmas must go. But not only Christmas.

Winter and Spring Break now replace Christmas and Easter. The Ten Commandments are banished from the public square. Academics no longer refer to history as BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini), but with the meaningless BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era), thereby eliminating Christ as the center of history. One apostate theologian predicts that in the future the world will begin redating history, replacing the year 2000 with GE 1, year one of the Global Era! At the street level, according to Barna, only 8% of Americans are evangelical. All this spells the end, not just of Christmas, but of Christendom.

The grinches who are stealing December 25 are filling the void with virtually anything. One town hosts a Polar Express Festival, replacing Christmas trees with polar bears! In schools, trees are kept but ideologically renamed Peace Trees, Cultural Trees, or Diversity Trees. With ornaments from the world's cultural, ethnic, and religious traditions, these trees celebrate in coded language the agenda of neo-pagan unity. A teacher explains: "By acknowledging the value of all cultures, we become cohesive and accepting of each other's diversity…we become successful at working toward the motto: 'Let there be peace on Earth.'" Obviously, featuring a Christmas tree and explaining the biblical meaning of peace is clearly not part of the "accepting of each other's diversity."

The new religion of human unity celebrates the season by turning the Christian Gospel on its head. Planned Parenthood is selling its "Choice on Earth" Christmas cards, celebrating "human rights," "equality," "women's health," and the murder of babies. One "interfaith" choir sings "Joy from the world," and a so-called "Christian" feminist theologian declares that at Christmastime "flesh became word." In this religion, there is no divine Word who takes on flesh and provides salvation to helpless sinners. We are not sinners. "Flesh" can help itself, thank you!

As we watch the cultural demise of the American Christmas, it is easy to become nostalgic, even discouraged. But, realistically, during the 20th century while the word "Christmas" was largely used, Xmas had lost most of its connection with the original event.

Our present situation reminds us that we will always be the church militant, struggling for the truth, as at the First Noel. When our Savior was being born, there was no Christmas music playing in the hotels, if you could get into one. The Romans were moving people around for social control, while celebrating the pagan feast of Saturnalia, the birthday of the sun and light. Herod, the half-Arab King of the Jews, in the name of "choice" (his), ordered a mass post-partum abortion of all the male Christmas babies. No one had a clue that it was Christmas, let alone used the word.

The First Noel also reminds us that the reality of Christmas really happened anyway. Into that idolatrous scene of phony "light" and unspeakable cruelty, shone a healing light from the outside. God the transcendent Creator had mercy on his creation, bringing help into a fallen, rebellious world, when we could not help ourselves. Eight centuries before Jesus' birth, Israel was comforted by the mere prophecy of its coming. Twenty-one centuries after Jesus' birth, all who put their trust in him, whether Jew, Arab or Asian, whether male or female, whether rich or poor-look back with joy on the fulfillment of that prophecy:

Comfort, comfort my people,…cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned,….And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 40:1-4).

Happy Christmas