When You Can't Keep the Feast

Why The Church Is Such A Blessing

File: Federico Barocci, Nativity (Prado).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

It has come to pass that in the days leading up to Christmas Matt has caught a bad cold and so, even though I didn’t have to go to church this morning and could have propped myself up before my computer at a much earlier hour, I chose instead to scrub the house from top to bottom to get rid of any lingering germs in a sort of pathetic and superstitious effort to evade any such illness myself. We’re all in God’s hands now, sob.

Also, I am of so many different minds this morning, it is hard to know in which direction to wander. Yesterday, besides there being an act of atrocious violence at a Christian school in the Midwest, the homeschool community where I live suffered the loss of a young man in a car accident. I haven’t learned the particulars yet except that everyone is knocked back in shock and sorrow.

How, I find myself asking so often this time of year, are we supposed to be able to celebrate a great feast when the world is so dark, when death keeps coming? Shouldn’t God put a moratorium on bad things happening during those desperate moments in the year when we must gather up scraps of joy and good cheer?

Of course, that is the whole point of Christmas and why the season can’t be full of unalloyed merriment. It always has a twinge of sorrow, of longing. It is why candles are such a good way to mark it’s coming. The light of a single flame is so small. The darkness around it so vast. It was because of the cacophony of deathly ruin that God chose to come in the mysterious and hidden way that he did—as an infant to poor parents, as a man who would go willingly to the grave, the perfect sacrifice for sin. And so, though not every one of us will be able to celebrate every time, depending upon the tragedy of the moment, those that can should keep the feast as best they can.

I was much moved by this post that I came across on Twitter today. It’s a bit long but I’m putting the whole thing in anyway:

Why I once rejected Christmas: Many years ago I started thinking there was just too much worldliness and idolatry involved in the Christmas season and was bothered by some of the things professing Christians were engaging in like Santa, elf on the shelf, excessive spending, etc. This caused me to do some (very little) research on the origins of Christmas, and it didn’t take me long to find some YouTube videos claiming Christmas was a pagan celebration and therefore not something Christians should engage in. So, for the first 6 years of our marriage we did not celebrate Christmas in any way.

Then about 5 years ago I had a dear brother sit down and talk to me about it and as we debated back and forth I found many of his arguments compelling but there was one thing he said that hit me like a Chuck Norris roundhouse that I’ll never forget. At one point he looked at me and said “why is it that the vast majority of the church on every continent for nearly two thousand years has said it is a good and right thing to celebrate the incarnation during this time of year?” That forced me to question my presuppositions and it was all downhill from there. Since then I’ve come to realize our God loves celebration and commanded his people to celebrate the great things he had done. For example, we see Jesus in the temple during Hanukkah (a man made holiday if you will) and not rebuking anyone for celebrating it. We see Christ at the wedding in cana making more wine when they had drank all they had showing us it is right and good to feast and rejoice on special occasions. Why wouldn’t we celebrate that our God became incarnate in order to crush the head of the dragon and save his people from their sins? It is worthy of celebration and feasting and rejoicing and worship and making much of our Christ.

We are slowly building family traditions (continuing some from my childhood) around the 2000 year old tradition of celebrating the birth of Christ! I am not arguing that everyone must celebrate Christmas and whether you do or do not, be fully convinced in your own mind and be free in Christ. This is a matter of Christian liberty and we should be gracious to one another. Romans 14:6 “The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.”

While I no longer believe the origins of Christmas were pagan, I really don’t care. If it started Christian, let us keep it focused on Christ. If it started pagan, let us continue to take it for Christ! There is also no scriptural reason for saying it’s wrong to give gifts, decorate, put up a tree or build family traditions but in fact there is much in scripture about feasting to the glory of God! Most of the church has followed a version of the Christian calendar for 2000 years that has included Advent, Christmas, Easter, All Saints Day and more. We set aside one day in seven to worship and rest and it is a good thing to set aside days and seasons to celebrate the good our God has done.

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, what is so gracious about the church year, the regular visitation of feasts and fasts that go inexorably past me, is that I am not keeping them alone. If it was a personal choice I wouldn’t be able to do it. I would look at the darkness both within and without and sorrow as one who has no hope. I wouldn’t be able to answer the spirit of this materialistic age with anything substantive. I would get lost in the busyness and the expectations of a hopeless world. But because the whole church together marks the continual redemption of the world by the Lord Jesus Christ, the joyous hope of the whole carries me along when I don’t have it myself.

And now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to go scrub some more things and then go shopping. May God richly bless you in whatever measures of joy or sorrow you have today.