A Christmas Reflection

A few years ago a pastor challenged his congregation to rethink the meaning of Christmas by boldly announcing in worship: 

“Christmas is not your birthday.”

He then qualified what he meant by declaring that Christmas was Jesus’s birthday so we should be buying gifts for him rather than spending all our money on one another. 

He then asked his congregation to reconsider how they spent their money on Christmas gifts that year. He recommended that they jump off the excessive consumer bandwagon and spend their Christmas money on helping dig wells in the water-deprived area of Darfur, located in Western Sudan. 

Though risky his strategy worked since a large portion of his congregation accepted the challenge and gave an enormous amount of money to help provide easily accessible water to the people of Darfur who faced life-threatening dangers each time they searched for water miles from their villages.

“Christmas isn’t your birthday.”

Look, much of our world is not a friendly, hospitable, and generative place. Google the word "poverty" and look at some of the sights on worldwide poverty. It truly is a humbling experience. 

Can you imagine if American Christians would accept the idea that Christmas is not our birthday? Can you envision how such an acknowledgment might reorient our whole approach for celebrating the most consumer-driven holiday of the year? 

Can you imagine how transformative it would be for congregations across America to route their financial resources in helping poor people just survive the grueling day-to-day grind of life, such as the people living in Darfur?

Yet poverty and a lack of water resources has become a global issue, even in some areas within the United States of America (think Flint. Michigan).. 

But let’s extend this challenge of giving beyond the Christian communities (churches) in America. Let’s suggest the unthinkable as an alternative to how we as a global community might spend our money helping alleviate poverty in the world as opposed to spending billions on violence and war. What a novel idea that would be. 

Now when we think about global poverty we are talking about more than just the absence of money to spend; rather we are talking about all attending consequences of poverty, such as widespread disease (HIV/AIDS in underdeveloped nations), crime and the escalation of violence (Darfur is a good example; Syria comes to mind), the escalation of crime in the inner cities and even in the suburbs, an increase in infant mortality rates, life-threatening birth defects, and the list goes on and on.

This year Christians all across America will gather on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day (since Christmas falls on Sunday this year) to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We will sit in our comfortable sanctuaries singing beloved Christmas hymns, listening to well prepared choirs singing musical arrangements written for the occasion, admiring our children dressed in bathrobes pretending to be shepherds, and hearing familiar sounding sermons while thinking to ourselves: “Haven’t I heard that before?” 

When we get home we will exchange gifts among friends and family just as we do every Christmas. 

But Christmas is not our birthday.

Christmas is the day we are supposed to celebrate the birth of God’s only Son. How many birthday parties have you ever attended in your life in which you received gifts as if it was your birthday? 

Yet Christmas is Jesus’s birthday.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas this year but perhaps not for the reasons we all have become accustomed: 

Celebrating Christmas as if it were our birthday.

My prayer is that this Christmas we might actually receive the joy of our Savior by giving to those whose lives are torn apart by backbreaking, life-threatening and oppressive poverty. 

Certainly there is no need for any of us to feel guilty over the way we celebrate Christmas by the giving and receiving of gifts. Giving often brings considerable joy into our lives. 

But we should feel a bit awkward when a major portion of our gift giving excludes those who need it the most in our world. 

Each Christmas the words of Jesus come to mind in such a haunting way for me:

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Happy birthday Jesus!

Indeed, Christmas is your birthday!