On Christmas

You know, I have a thing about birthdays.

But I guess before that I have to preface this with a hypothetical story of a boy and his lamb.

In a land far away, a long time ago, there was this boy who had a lamb. The lamb followed the boy around as the latter did his errands. And since the boy had many errands to do, the lamb and the boy were pretty much inseparable for much of the day. It was a good thing they did not mind each other. The boy liked the company and did not much mind the smell of the lamb. The lamb did not mind the company, and liked the way it smelled just fine thank you.

The boy had this routine that he went through each day. It was good that he had such a pattern, else he might forget a chore, and being of a rather simple mind, trying to remember something he may have forgotten would have been a terrible way to spend the day. The lamb also did not mind the routine, for the lamb had its own idyllic thoughts that would be crowded out by new ways of doing the same old things.

Each day, the boy would take his trusty axe and go into the forest to cut some wood for the fires that needed tending. Then he would take the pail and draw water enough from the nearby stream to fill the barrels. Finally, he would collect the berries, the honey and any fish that got caught in the nets before coming back home. The lamb would follow, spending its time lost in thought and idly passing the time.

The village elders were not particularly impressed with the boy or his lamb, and a vote was taken to rid the village of the boy or the lamb. The village council thus passed an ordinance making it illegal to own a free-thinking lamb, and the next day the boy was put in jail for a week for a statutory violation while the lamb was released on its own recognizance.

The moral of this story is that sometimes, doing things your own way, as reasonable as it may seem to you, can rub people the wrong way.

Alright, back to birthdays.

The way that I look at things, I see birthdays as possibly self-defeating. People, in an effort to make someone feel special, gather together on the anniversary of such a person's birth, and wish that person well, often with gifts and cake. The tradition begins at birth, which more of a celebration for the parents, and then later the focus turns to the child who then seeks the attention, the gifts, and the glory for... surviving. Since most children have no resources, will or capacity to survive independent of parental support, and due mostly to modern science, nutrition and relatively high standards of living, the act of surviving another year really has little to do with the fortitude of the child anymore. And yet, they want a birthday celebration.

There is more. I have found that some folks end up treating birthday people different on their special day. That is to say, they are "nicer", more generous, etc. on the anniversary date of such a person's birth. I wonder why this is so. If you are able to be as nice and as generous as you are on such a person's birthday, why not so act on the other days out of the year? Why reserve kindness, love and respect to one day out of the year?

Pushing this further, if, in the above example, you are unwilling to be nicer or more respectful except on that person's birthday, then why celebrate it at all? What is the point? I receive cards and well wishes from people on my birthday every year, even though I do not hear from them on any other day of the entire year. If they really wished me well, would they not seek to find out, say, a few months down the road, whether I am in fact doing alright?

I myself try, not always succeeding, but trying, to hold myself to the principle that I should treat everyone around me as best that I can, on any day of the year. That, to reserve some resource of mine, or some faculty or spirit, and hold it back only to unleash it upon such a person on 1 day out of the year, would be contrary to how I view the relationship between me and such a person.

To put it more simply - if you can act with love only one day out of the year, then don't bother. If you can act with love throughout the year, then that action will be recognized by the recipient regardless of whether you hold their birthday on high.

And this leads me to Christmas.

Do I celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ? Yes. Why? Because I get the day off, because it is a cultural and national tradition. Because I would look cheap if I just accepted other people's gifts and did not give any in return on such a day. And/or I would appear demented if I told my friends and family that I, a Christian, do not celebrate Christmas. And so, I do celebrate Christmas. Grudgingly.

But, honestly, I do feel like the commercialism and the materialism of Christmas has so overshadowed the meaning of the birth of Christ - that is to say, the meaning of salvation, grace, repentance, and love - that Christmas no longer has much relevance to me other than as a time when, during the brief holiday respite from work, I can meet up with people and spend time with my family and friends.

And, of course, Paul had his own ideas in Romans 14.

One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

The point - it isn't whether you celebrate Christmas, and it isn't whether you are a vegetarian. What matters is why you do such things, one way or another. Christmas comes from God, and so it is good. But if you do not celebrate Christmas for God's glory, then it is better than you didn't celebrate it all. Or, if you choose not to celebrate Christmas, then one should hope that the reason is to get closer to God by moving away from materialism and idolatry. Either way, do it for the right reasons.

And Paul said something else in Romans 14. He said not to judge, because that would only cause us to have an obstacle between the judger and the judged. Why place a barrier between people that has no purpose other than to separate?

So this brings me back to the boy and his lamb story.

Many might think that the evildoers in this story are the village council people, those that were opposed to the keeping of lambs who think for themselves. But that really isn't the case. Nobody in the story did wrong, except the boy who was duly punished for his statutory violation. And a week later, the boy was released and did his chores without the free-thinking lamb. In time, I believe the boy replaced the free-thinking lamb with a free-thinking goat, which was perfectly fine for all involved, including the goat, who didn't care much either way.

-David