Searching for Christmas spirit?

by Inge Schmidt

A few days before Halloween, a friend and I were shopping for pumpkins to carve. But all we could find were candy canes and Santa figurines. A few weeks later, I was out shopping and the store had Christmas carols playing over the loud speaker. From the looks of it, Christmas was all around me. But it didn’t feel like Christmas to me.

For a split second, I debated running into the store, picking up some lights, an ornament or two, and a small house plant (let’s face it, Christmas trees are expensive!), and calling it Christmas in my apartment. But I realized that I was craving something deeper than the material artifacts of Christmas-I was longing for a higher sense of Christmas. So for the next several days, I embarked on a spiritual search for Christmas.

At first, I was hit with a series of questions I wanted answered. Like, what about the people who weren’t going to be with their families-would they have a merry Christmas? What about people who weren’t Christian-could they experience Christmas, too? As I walked down the street one evening, I wondered about the homeless individuals in the community-what would their Christmas be like?

But as I prayed and pondered, a different kind of question kept echoing in my thought: how can I help prepare for Christmas? And before I could even begin to answer that question, one more question followed: what is it that you’re celebrating anyway?

I realized that I had been thinking of the Christmas spirit as a certain jovial and happy feeling that I associated with the events surrounding December 25th. And it’s not that that feel-good vibe is a bad thing, but Christmas really goes beyond December 25th.

Christmas is a celebration of the Christ, demonstrated to its fullest potential by Jesus. Through my study and practice of Christian Science, I’ve seen the Christ-that present consciousness of God’s love-tangible in everyday life, with healing effects.

Christmas is a time to celebrate and rejoice in that gift, that divine Love, and it can be an every day, every hour, every minute event.

I love this idea of an every minute Christmas. Think about it. How would your experience change if you approached every single minute with the same expectation, glee, and enthusiasm that you express running down the stairs on Christmas morning? This re-framed my original question about helping to prepare for Christmas. Now I see that preparing for Christmas isn’t a matter of schlepping boxes down from the attic, helping Dad haul in the tree, and untangling strings of lights. Preparing for Christmas is a spiritual endeavor, and I’m up for it.

As I was running errands that afternoon, I decided to read the different accounts of the Christmas story in the first four books of the New Testament in the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The idea struck me as a totally fresh way to look at the Christmas story, one that I had never considered before, and I was excited to see what came of it. I had an unusual chunk of free time that day, so I grabbed my Bible, curled up in bed, and turned myself over to God.

I had read different versions of the Christmas story before, but I had always focused on the actual event of Jesus’ birth. This time, I focused on the preparation. And the story was illuminated in a totally new way. Whereas before, Jesus had been the focal point of the story line, now the angels took center stage.

Suddenly, I saw how each and every individual character had an important and unique role to play in preparing for the birth of Jesus, and each one was given precise details on their own role. The angel Gabriel didn’t carve a message in stone to Mary and cc in Joseph. Each one was addressed individually, prepared perfectly for what would occur, and was met right where they are.

But even before the familiar story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, is the perhaps unfamiliar story of John the Baptist’s birth (see Luke 1). John’s mother, Elisabeth, and father Zacharias, were older and had no children. Six months before the angel Gabriel came to Mary and Joseph, Gabriel appeared to each one of them and informed them that Elisabeth would conceive. A fairly un-original story in the grand scheme of the Bible. After all, Elisabeth and Zacharias were hardly the first elderly couple in the Bible to be told by an angel that they would conceive (consider Abraham and Sarah, for example).

But Gabriel didn’t just tell them the news and leave them to fend for themselves; they were precisely prepared to perform their roles. Zacharias is maybe my favorite example here. At first a skeptic, he wasn’t sure it was possible for Elisabeth to conceive. But both trusted and obeyed. Elisabeth did conceive, and gave birth to her son, and putting aside family tradition, named him John, just as Gabriel had instructed.

And as John grew up, he followed in the same obedient footsteps. His own birth was a fairly remarkable feat, yet throughout his ministry he constantly announced that “he that cometh after me is mightier than I”.

What’s the point? Maybe the best way to answer that question is to consider the opposite story. What would have happened if Zacharias had said, “I don’t have time to hear your message right now, there’s a long line at the local bazaar”? What if John the Baptist had complained that Jesus’ gift was better than his own? What if Mary had decided she didn’t want to travel during the tax season because there was always a camel-jam?

I considered my own life. Was I so wrapped up [no pun intended] in the busyness of the human experience that I missed my cue in the Christmas story? Or was I following the examples of Elisabeth, Zacharias, John, Mary, and Joseph-humbly and unselfishly accepting whatever is asked of me, with the full confidence that the grace of God will bring it naturally to fruition? By simply listening the divine guidance, those “normal human beings” paved the way for what is arguably one of the best Christmas presents ever-Jesus’ healing ministry.

The very best part is that the Christmas story is timeless. The angels that guided those individuals two thousand years ago, are still present, silencing mortal sense [fear, doubt, pain, etc.] and guiding us to our right places. When we humbly open our thought to embrace those angel messages, we are guaranteed the same Christmas gift-the healing power of Christ demonstrated.

So what about all of my original questions? I realized that part of playing my own role in the Christmas story was to love and respect the role each of those other individuals were filling. After all, the Christmas story leaves no one out.

I was jarred back to 2007 in my room with the realization that it was time for me to get dinner and head to the Wednesday evening testimony meeting at church. I have to admit, I had enjoyed my afternoon of prayer and study, but I didn’t feel any different.

It was a lovely service that night. The readings were beautiful. The testimony period was active, with many church members sharing moving experiences of healing. As I walked back to my car, a homeless man asked for some change. I didn’t have any money to offer, but I wished him a good night with a grin, and had this incredible sense of respect and appreciation for him. I was overwhelmed with a not uncommon sense of joy and conviction that God was present. And as I settled into my car, a voice seemed to whisper, “This is the Christmas spirit.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Christmas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.