My Very Own Holiday

12.21.14

John 9.40-41 Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.  – Jesus to the Pharisees (ESV)

It seems interesting to me that my Bible reading plan has me read John’s writings during the Christmas holidays, and not Matthew, or perhaps Luke where the account of the Messiah’s birth is so aptly narrated. John starts out his narrative in by describing Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And it seems most of the rest of the narrative of John is centered in Jerusalem and during the last few weeks and months before the crucifixion.

In the reading today in John 9, a man is healed of blindness he’d had from birth. As was His penchant, Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath. Well of course the Pharisees were all hacked off over this move and sought to destroy Jesus. They were more concerned about the Sabbath than they were about the welfare of a man. Religion does that. But Jesus said God ordained the Sabbath for man, not man for the Sabbath.

At the end of the verbal altercation between Jesus and the Jews (as John called them) Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” And the Pharisees, said something like: Who you callin’ blind, Foo!? And Jesus said, Careful boys, if you were blind you wouldn’t be guilty; but now that you say you can see, well, you’re in a very rough spot! (Or something like that.)

Which brings me to Christmas. Innumerable people celebrate the Christmas holiday; but they don’t celebrate the Christ for Whom the holiday stands. The simple question: Why do you celebrate Christmas but not the Savior? The Savior was not made for Christmas, Christmas was made for the Savior. The holiday celebrates the advent of Jesus. Not Santa, reindeer, snowmen, or as I saw in the mega-mart the other day: an inflatable tyrannosaurus rex with a wrapped gift in its mouth. (Although, when you think about the commercialized cultural absurdity of the holiday, why not have a ten foot inflatable tyrannosaurus rex with a wrapped package in its mouth?)

The blind cannot see and therefore, aren’t guilty. Those who claim to see yet cave to the commercialism of the holiday have some ‘splaining’ to do.

Father, I think the biggest miracle I could ask for this year would be peace on earth. But I think a contending miracle for the top spot would be the realization of what Christmas is really about, and a global repentance for the way we’ve twisted the meaning of Christmas into reindeer, snowmen, Santa, and a green reptile with a bright red Christmas gift in its gaping maw. Use me this year to share the beauty of the mystery of Christmas and the Christ-child whose advent was not in glory but squalor; and whose return will be that of a Glorious King. Amen.