Now that Christmas day has come and gone and the new year is underway, in the midst of looking forward with our aspirations and resolutions lets take a moment to look back. The Christmas season is a time of year that is particularly suited to traditions, rituals and liturgies. Lights adorn our houses, trees are chopped and decorated, aromas of Christmas spices billow from the cookies in the oven, carols blast on the radio, familiar stories are told and retold accompanied by Christmas “hymns”. I must admit, I rather enjoy all the trappings of Christmas time. It was a pretty big deal growing up. We looked forward to doing the same thing every year. Driving to Granddaddy and Grandmothers house to spend the night on Christmas Eve; Christmas dinner with ambrosia for dessert; presents in the evening; stockings on Christmas morning. My Grandmother put up and decorated a tree in every room of the house. I remember the train that went around the main tree in the living room. I would watch it for hours and play with the different ornaments on the tree. There were ballerinas that would twirl on their own, snow globes that were always snowing and of course the Star Trek shuttle craft. When you pressed the button on the bottom it would light up and say, "Shuttle craft to to enterprise, shuttle craft to enterprise. Spock here. Happy holidays. Live long, and prosper."
You have heard Pastor Gene and I talk about liturgies and just how formative they are. This is why Kings Cross Church has tried to be very intentional about its liturgy on Sunday morning. Our desire is that our Sunday liturgy can serve to inform and direct our daily liturgies. I have come to think that liturgies function in at least a couple important ways. These are really reciprocal to each other. On one hand a liturgy will direct your affections, your desires, your loves, your heart in a certain direction. On the other hand your liturgy is an out working or reflection of what you value most, of what your heart truly desires.
So there are a few important questions to think on as we come out of this liturgy rich season. First, what is the secular commercial Christmas liturgy directing your heart to love and value most? Second, what is your own family's Christmas liturgy a reflection of? Finally, what kind of Christmas liturgy would most reflect the good news and glad tidings of Jesus' advent?
One need only listen to a popular Christmas "carol” or watch the traditional Christmas movie to begin to discern what the secular Christmas liturgy is directing you to love and value most. Now, I am not meaning to be too heavy handed but in order to really get at the kind of story the secular Christmas liturgy is telling we have to look underneath the sentiments of peace on earth, and being with family for the holidays. Many of these things are quite agreeable on a surface level. Who can argue with encouraging your kids not to shout, cry or pout? But continue on in that popular “Christmas” song and you will quickly find that it tells a story really quite antithetical to the Gospel. What’s the motivation for being nice? Santa, the omniscient, is coming to town and he has a list of who’s been naughty or nice. Break that story down into its rudimentary parts and you have a powerful, all-knowing being who deals with us according to our works, rewarding those whose nice column is longer than their naughty one. How many of us could sing that song from memory? And yet its story stands in opposition to the Drama of Redemption about the One who came into the world to deal with us not according to our iniquities but according to His great mercy. Of course, what is ironic is that somehow, naughty or nice, every kid ends up with presents under the tree come Christmas morning. The point to take away is that imbedded in the rituals of our secular Christmas liturgy is a rival story to the Gospel of Grace and the real meaning of the original Christmas story.
Begin to dig underneath the popular secular rituals of what has come to characterize the Christmas season and you will discern a narrative arc that runs counter to the story of the Gospel. This is a story that directs our loves and desires and provides us with a vehicle to propel us toward a particular denouement. If we are not careful we will find ourselves on board a bus going towards a very dead end.
What are the rituals and traditions that make up your Christmas liturgy? What kind of story do they tell? How do they direct your affections? What do they tell you is good and lovely?
Questions like these are good to ask not only about times that are clearly liturgical, like the Christmas season, but also about the more covert liturgies (and more formative ones) that make up our everyday, ordinary lives. This is what we will be unpacking in our Sunday school class starting January 15. I look forward to seeing you all there and discussing these themes from Smith’s book “You Are What You Love”.
SFE
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