“SEASONING OUR GREETINGS”
TEXT: Colossians 4: 2-18
Sunday, December 1, 2002
I know it is early in the season, but I’ll keep asking you this question throughout Advent–“Are you having fun yet?” Gallup did a poll asking people if they were having more fun this year than last year. Do you think people are having more fun or less fun? 52% said they are having less fun, 34% said about the same, and 17% said more fun. I read a statement in the paper that captures why this is. A lady is upset about all the talk about Jesus and Christmas. She says, “If you want to celebrate, that’s fine with me. I work in a women’s clothing shop and we play carols all the time. I have been to several holiday parties, and the name of Jesus doesn’t ever come up. I see people coming into the store with their eyes glazed over from shopping. They ask me if I have my shopping done and I tell them I don’t have any Christmas shopping to do. They tell me how lucky I am.”
Why are people not enjoying Christmas? I think this story capture the heart of the problem. People have left out the very Spirit of Christmas.
I read another article about a teacher in the public school system who said it is difficult to handle the Christmas season. Here’s what she said, “It’s probably the hardest holiday to celebrate in the schools. Teaching about the holidays is becoming increasingly touchy in the public schools. The reasons depend on who you ask. It’s called progress. I have been a teacher for 18 years and I have always let sensitivity to the individual be my guide. I have noticed in recent years that children are more aware of the issues. If I tell them that we celebrate Christmas to give to and love each other, they will say that it’s because the Baby Jesus was born. It is not the schools’ policy to teach religion, and I have to handle the children’s responses.”
It is interesting that children know what Christmas is all about, even those who are not church-going children. They know that the heart of Christmas is Christ, and we need to keep that central in our focus or we will miss out on the very spirit and significance of the season. Like the average American, we will experience the season as being less fun.
The culture that we live in has some animosity about Christmas. We cannot allow that culture to permeate our lives and our celebrations and rob us of its meaning and significance. Some of us come from secular families and didn’t grow up with a Christian heritage. When I became a Christian, the meaning of Christmas changed a little bit. It wasn’t about presents anymore–it was about Jesus and everything we did then was a celebration of Jesus. However, the celebration didn’t change at all. Initially, the way I did things didn’t change. I did the same things, but I did them to honor Jesus. The result was that there was little depth in my celebration. I had not given my Christmas traditions over to God. They were not influenced by scripture. The reason I hadn’t done this was because I felt it would rob me of the childhood magic that I had experienced in my own family. I thought that by “getting religious” about the holiday, it would become dull, less mysterious and less fun. I didn’t want to rob my children of all those feelings. I was settling for sentiment instead of the spirit.
The consequences were radical. As a result, a lot of bad attitudes crept into our Christmas celebration. I felt that lights were extravagant and the Christmas tree was a hassle. There were too many gifts. The wise men only brought three, but then my daughter reminded me that they were gold, frankincense and myrrh–expensive things! Along with that, I was harsh and had a quick temper. Things were not all calm and bright in my Christmas celebrations.
What helped me get a handle on this and allowed me to turn my Christmas traditions over to Christ was when I got married. My wife is a very solid Christian woman and she told me that we had to change some things. We discovered as a family that the more we gave our Christmas traditions over to Christ, the more meaningful they were, the more fun they became, the more mysterious things were. There were less disturbances in our home and it became a spiritually enriching experience.
I encourage you throughout the Christmas season to give your traditions over to Christ and ask how to celebrate him. I encourage you to look over all your traditions and evaluate them. List your expectations and talk about them. Then list your limitations and admit them. Don’t drive yourself nuts trying to do it all. Ask which traditions focus upon Christ and honor him. If there are some that don’t, make the choice to spice them up or eliminate them.
There were some traditions that we found had no value. The number one thing we got rid of was the Christmas dinner because for us it had no spiritual value. It did nothing but make Christmas Day an extreme hassle for us.
Develop a schedule of what you plan to do and spread it out over the four weeks. Do a little bit each week, make sure you get lots of rest and food, don’t overload yourself, and schedule quiet time.
You may think there are some things you can’t eliminate, and that’s fine. All you have to do is spice them up to bring Christ into them. Our theme for the next four weeks is seasoning our season so that the flavor of Christ comes out in our Christmas traditions. The first area we want to address is seasoning our greetings.
TEXT
Paul spends a very long time sending greetings in this passage. Isn’t that just wasted paper, or is there something meaty there? In all Paul’s writings, the first part is doctrinal and the second part is ethical. He always ends with greetings. He teaches people how to pass on greetings to others because greeting other people validates our concern for them. When you acknowledge another person, you esteem his or her worth.
How valuable is a person to God? When Jesus addressed that question, he put three parables together to make a point. They were the parable of the lost treasure, the parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the prodigal son. All three have three things in common:
1. There was something lost.
2. It warranted an all-out search.
3. There is a celebration over the one who is now found.
The point of the parables was that people matter to God. He was willing to pay the most precious price of all–the price of his son. The least we can do as Christian people is to honor what God honors, even if we consider the image of God in them very distorted. It is up to us to look past the blackness of the distortion. One way we can do that is how we speak to people.
Paul says three things should characterize our greetings:
1. He tells us to be wise in our actions towards outsiders.
2. He tells us to make the most of every opportunity.
3. He tells us to season our conversations using words full of grace.
This means to say things that are wholesome and build up, not things that divide or tear down. What opportunities do we have to greet people in a wise fashion, to make the most of every opportunity, to season our conversation with grace?
One opportunity is Christmas cards. A long time ago, Christmas cards were just something to get through for me, something that was not very meaningful. That is not the way to honor God. Think of every card as an opportunity to express your faith, to communicate love and grace. Buy cards that express your faith. Write something encouraging in them such as a Christmas blessing. Invite the recipient to come to Christmas Eve service. Many people will respond. A lot of people write Christmas letters bragging about family exploits. Instead, communicate something that God has done for you this past year. Make the letter less about you and more about them. When you send a card to a kid, put a couple of bucks in it. It creates a great memory. It is a generous thing to do, and Christmas is a time for generosity.
I know it’s not politically correct to say “Merry Christmas” but Christians have the same rights as anyone else. If a person is offended, remind yourself that in the Dicken’s story Bob Cratchitt always wished Scrooge a merry Christmas and he always returned it with a “Bah, humbug.” However, that never stopped Cratchitt from saying it. Whose life was more full? Don’t be intentionally offensive, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wishing someone a merry Christmas. Add to your greeting a Christmas blessing such as “May God bless you in your holiday season.” While you are shopping, look for opportunities to touch people’s lives with grace–that means unmerited favor. Say something encouraging to the check-out person. Serve the people who serve you such as the mail carrier or the trash collector. Surprise them with a card with some money in it or a word of appreciation for the good job they’ve done. Hold the door open for people and be more patient when you are shopping.
Caroling is an old custom that has gone by the wayside, but my experience is that caroling is powerful. When our youth group went caroling door to door, we gave people a gift from the church and an invitation to the Christmas Eve service. If the opportunity presented itself, we would pray with them. People would stand at their door and sob. One woman had just lost her mother when we arrived and told us that she knew God cared about her after listening to us sing. Caroling is a powerful witness that is acceptable in our culture.
Catch the “Advent virus.” Be guilty of these things:
This Christmas:
1. Mend a quarrel.
2. Seek out a forgotten friend or write a love letter.
3. Share some treasure.
4. Give a soft answer.
5. Encourage youth.
6. Keep a promise.
7. Find the time.
8. Forgive an enemy
9. Listen.
10. Apologize if you are wrong.
11. Think first of someone else.
12. Be kind and gentle.
13. Laugh a little, and laugh a little more.
14. Express your gratitude.
15. Gladden the heart of a child.
16. Take pleasure in beauty and wonder.
17. Speak your love, and speak it again, and speak it once again.
What would happen if we slow down and begin to season our greetings? One gentleman did that and he wrote a greeting card. It was 1943 and a bitter season. American troops were fully engaged in World War II. Newspapers across the nation carried tallies of casualties on a daily basis. Children’s wish lists included not only dollies and toy trolleys but pleas for Santa to bring their daddies home alive.
With that as a backdrop, distinguished writer and historian Phillip Van Dorn Stern approached his annual task of sending Christmas cards with more creativity
and intention than was his custom. Stern wanted to encourage those he loved with some good news, so he wrote a short story and mailed it to his family, friends and colleagues. The story was about a young husband and father named George who suffered a downturn in his business and the possibility of going to prison for a crime for which he is falsely accused. Wishing he had never been born, George determines to take his own life. Fortunately, an angel shows up just in time to show George what a wonderful life he really has by showing him what the world would have been like without him.
George’s glimpse of what might have been and the overlooked blessing of his life is what Stern means by the title of this little story, “The Greatest Gift.” You know this Christmas greeting letter by a different title. Frank Capra received one of these letters and turned it into a screenplay called “It’s a Wonderful Life.” This has touched millions of people’s lives. What could happen if we do the very same thing–to season our greetings with the flavor of Christ by doing something in such a way that lifts people up? It may become as powerful as this Christmas letter by Phillip Stern.
Let’s pray.
