Now before you begin throwing stones at me, just hold on and let me explain...and because my mind is a sparatic nutso, I am going to use a list that may not flow logically from one point to another at all...
- To begin, christmas music, is not Christmas music. Small c, christmas, music is those absolutely annoying jingles about sleigh rides, santa, and snowmen. Now I will admit at one point they were catchy and I sort of liked them, but after having them played on the radio for 3 monthes a year for the last 21 years have made them lose their charm. I know the numbers may be an exaggeration, but radio stations now adays start playing them right after Reformation Day, if not before. I am disgusted with hearing them, and the 50 variations upon the same theme. Come on people, how many artists(and I use the term loosely) are going to make a rendition of santa claus is coming to town.
- Beyond being annoying, the jingles detract from the true nature of Christmas, and turn it into a secularized hallmark holiday. Yes thats right, I just classified christmas with sweetest day, valentines day, and all the other hallmark holidays. To prove my point we can look at the origin of many popular holiday music and see it finds its origin in advertising and schemes by companies to make more money. The entire holiday focuses on greed and stimulating the economy. The invention of santa claus is probably the most horrific sin of the 20th century. Why you may ask? Because rather than just causing physical death, like war, santa claus has caused hundreds of millions of people to be led into greed, into sin, into forgetting what Christmas really is. I know its not the only reason, but the invention of santa is one of the causes of the death of Christmas.
Christmas is a Christian feast day following the fast season of advent. Up until december 25th the Church sits in waiting and preparation for the coming King, both the rememberance of His first coming and in expectation of His second coming. The feast season of Christmas doesnt begin until december 25th, and it is a short stint before epiphany. It's time for Christians to reclaim their feast from the pagans, because despite what most americans think, they don't celebrate Christmas! they celebrate x-mas, or whatever other bastardation of the Feast of the Incarnation that removes the incarnation all together!
now you may be saying ok, I agree lets not stone him, or you may have already stopped reading and thrown a few boulders my direction, but time to move from the obvious wretched part of the holiday, to a more subtle, dangerous, and painful criticism of the Christian practice of Christmas. So we are moving from the secular holiday christmas, which needs to be abolished, and removed from the bastardizing power of satan in world, and into the Christian feast day. So lets see what trouble I can get myself into...
- The celebration of the Feast of the Incarnation has historically been within the church a culmination of the fast of Advent. Now adays Churches have a tendency to try and skip advent and jump into Christmas. Churches put up Christmas trees(whose symbolism needs to be reestablished and explained) at the beginning of Advent, if not sooner. While not common yet, I know that many congregations try and push into Christmas hymns during Advent, totally missing the point of Advent.
- Advent is a fast of preparation and contemplation, a fast of waiting. We eagerly await the coming King, and prepare for Him through patient waiting, prayer, fasting, and singing hymns of longing. I feel as though most congregations would rather skip the season and jump into Christmas.
Why? Because we are an impatient people who as a church have begun to forget what it means to prepare and wait in eager expectation. We have bought into sociteies obsessive desire for things right now, for immediacy. We have forgotten the good of longing, of desire, of fasting.
I hate christmas music....because it seeks to destroy the Rememberance of the Incarnation, and turn it into a celebration of the god of money. I loath Christmas music, because it reminds me how we as a church are forgetting to fast and ever seeking to live in 'happy times'.
Christ was not made incarnate because he likes peace and good will towards men, He did not come to earth to make us never want, to make life into a pastoral scene in which animals dont smell and dont make a mess. No, Christ came to suffer and die. We tend to forget the truth of Christ's coming because it makes us feel all warm inside if we say he came to bring peace and good will, that he didnt come to earth the suffer and die for our sins. Yes the incarnation is a glorious miracle which we should sing about and praise, but we must never forget why Christ came, why the immortal ineffable deity became frail mortal flesh.
Let us reclaim Christmas and banish the disgusting perversion that is the feast of greedy consumerism. Let us wait in bitter longing during advent and feel a painful waiting, let us stand up for Christ and His incarnation, and turn from ourselves, and our own desires for peace and good feelings, and serve God, rather than demand that he serve our own desires.
Lord, let me wait in bitter longing with eager expectation for your second coming, even as I await to celebrate your Incarnation and birth. May I cease to abuse your feast for my own good feelings, and remember the true nature of your coming to earth, to suffer and die for our sins. I praise and glorify your Holy Name and remember your cross this holiday season. Amen
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