It's Not Your Birthday

A few winters ago, Emily and I were in Springdale, Utah (just outside Zion National Park) for a little break from the abundant madness the Western world has associated with Christmas. There aren't many tourists in Springdale in the winter. I had always imagined it as one of those kind of places you could envision Bethlehem being pre-census.

One evening while driving to dinner, we passed a light display in the yard of one of Springdale's little cottage homes. It was a fairly extensive setup — the kind that glowed like a little city from a distance and made Dixie Escalante Power Co. very happy. At the center of this sea of humming tungsten was a very non-traditional nativity. Instead of the newborn Jesus, proud parents, shepherds, animals (and the gospel-blur wise men), this nativity had a proud Santa Claus placing Jesus in the manger as if he were another gift under the tree.

“Did you see that?” I asked Emily.

“What does that say about their belief regarding Christmas?” she replied.

Unfortunately, it says the kind of thing our culture perpetuates but we refuse to acknowledge; Christmas has mutated back into the pagan holiday it once was. Even Jesus — the King of Kings and Lord of Lords — is subject to the king of the world (ie, us) on his birthday. We make him another present given to us, as if it were our birthday.

The frightening thing about seeing that Santa and Jesus was that I could clearly see myself participating in the same outlandish behavior. For every silly demand I placed upon my parents as a youth, for every time I set out to spoil a friend or loved one with an over-the-top gift, for every time I said “it'll be my Christmas present” as I bought a large ticket item for myself, I saw the shepherds, Mary and Joseph vanish from the scene and a jolly elf appear in their stead. From that moment on, our Christmas was different. We spent less and we gave in a more eco-minded way (consumable or combustible is our rule). Now, we have upped the ante.

I recently heard Pastor Mike Slaughter of Ginghamsburg Church (a United Methodist congregation in Ohio) say “Christmas isn't your birthday.” In 2005, he challenged his congregation with that truth, and asked them to match their Christmas spending with a dollar-for-dollar gift to their ministry in the Sudan. He met with a great deal of resistance, but it has become a tradition of that congregation to use money once-earmarked for consumer spending for missional ministry. And it has become such a powerful tradition that they can educate and feed 17,000 children, and bring water to a quarter-of-a-million more.

This year, we will be doing the same ... a gift totaling the sum of our Christmas spending will be given to Grace Children's Hospital, the Lithuania Project and Nothing But Nets. It is our way of reminding ourselves — and the world we serve as disciples of Jesus — that Christmas is not our birthday. It is the celebration of birth of the one who healed the sick, fed the hungry and set at liberty those who are oppressed. What better way to announce that birthday than by sharing abundantly with those listed in that litany? On Christmas Day, he can fulfill the part that seems to be for me: he ate with sinners. That is gift enough for me.

BTW: Santa, but you aren't invited.