CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• FEATURE STUDY: "Christmas Time and Families"

We come again to that very special season which has so many wonderful implications for families. We won't get to share it with all of our children. My oldest son Elliott, his wife Melanie and our grandchildren, Hunter and Audrey will be spending Christmas at their home in Wiesbaden, Germany. The other grandparents will enjoy the holiday with them. My second son, Jim and his wife Tracy will be with us the Lord willing. Our daughter Ruby and her husband, Greg will be spending the holiday in Indianapolis, along with Greg's son, Dyllan. Gary, our youngest son, will be in Cedar Rapids.

Ann and I want to offer you our very best wishes for the holiday season. We thank you for the encouragement and support you have given us in our efforts to produce this newsletter.

In just a few short days, we will be celebrating Christmas. Without a doubt it is the most widely observed holiday in the Western World. For most people, it is a joyous and festive occasion. Have you ever wondered why? Most people would say that the birth of Christ is the reason for the season. However, the most reliable information indicates that the celebration of Christmas goes back to about the fourth century. Easter, Good Friday, and the celebration of the Feast of the Pentecost were all in place on the Christian calendar before that.

Many Christian-oriented groups have adopted a hostile attitude toward the observance of Christmas. Some quasi-Christian groups claim the rest of the world has the date mixed up. They celebrate Christmas on January 6. The Puritans banned it in England. Early in the history of our country, the observance of Christmas was forbidden in New England. Personally, I've met a lot of people who thought Ebenezer Scrooge should have been the hero in Charles Dickens' famous novel.

I'm well aware of the negative aspects of Christmas. It's overdone on the commercial end. There's also a tremendous downside among those who are lonely, bereaved, rejected and depressed. Christmas intensifies their pain because it's supposed to be a good time and their trauma overrides any thought of celebration. Tragedies seem sadder this time of year. A few days ago, a young girl was struck and killed by the driver of a recycling truck. The driver didn't see her until it was too late. The little girl was bringing and offering of Christmas cookies to the driver. Some people behave in totally irresponsible ways at Christmas. The recent death of John Denver calls to mind one of his songs "Please, Daddy. Don't Get Drunk This Christmas."

Having said all that I'm basically in favor of Christmas. Paul wrote, "One man considers one day more sacred than another, another man considers every day alike. Each man should be fully convinced in his own mind" (Romans 14:5). I admit to attaching some special importance to the day, not because I think it's the birthday of Christ, but because it provides me such a wonderful opportunity to emphasize how important Christ is to me. Christ is not excluded from any part of my life and that includes Christmas.

I am part of a church that has no official celebration of Christmas, but Christmas has been a very big thing to me all of my life and I'm not just talking about the secular observance of Christmas. "Silent Night" was one of the first songs I ever learned to sing. I learned it in my family. After Thanksgiving our house comes alive with the sounds of "Said the Night Wind to the Little Lamb," "Joy to the World," "O Come All Ye Faithful," "The Hallelujah Chorus" and numerous other favorite songs of the season. I learned the nativity stories from my parents and along with it, the importance of living for Jesus.

We continued and expanded these traditions when we formed our own family. Last year, I had the blessed privilege of spending the Christmas season with my grandchildren. I thank God for the opportunity to share the faith with them. That was a week in time that I will savor in my memory the rest of my life.

Some or our most treasured memories concern family. We have a tradition we call the "Sharing of Christmas Past." When my oldest son was very small, I bought a 35 mm camera. Back in those days, everybody and his brother were taking colored slides. We grew tired of slides, but I kept shooting them at Christmas. Then every year, we would show the slides from the previous years at Christmas time. That was more than 30 years ago and the slide show has gotten awfully long. I think we're going to have to adjust it in some way, but Ann wants to see every slide from every year - even the ones that are out of focus. Our visit down memory lane at Christmas time reminds us how important our commitment to family is.

Of course, Christmas has always been important to children. It's one of those times in the year when hardened, cynical, worried adults momentarily recall what it's like to be six years old. We all get caught up in the pretend game and fantasize about an old gentlemen who lives at the North Pole and delivers elf manufactured toys in the back of a sleigh towed by eight reindeer. We turn thumbs down on the grinch who stole Christmas and thumbs up on the red nosed reindeer who illuminated the path for Santa Claus on a foggy Christmas Eve. It's the season when you take the children to the department store to visit Santa Claus and encourage them to "hang their stockings by the chimney with care." It's the one night in the year, you don't have trouble getting the children to go to bed early.

It's a festival of fun, which sometimes borders on self-indulgence. Some of us pick up extra pounds, which we vow to lose in January, but do not. It's a time for caroling, pageantry, and the display of lights. Some get involved in charitable activities, which is a very good thing, but one wonders why we don't sustain it throughout the year.

Some of our enthusiasm for Christmas is undoubtedly connected with family. But there's probably something else. Charles Malik, one time was President of the U. N. General Assembly, said "Christ is the hinge of history." Jesus Christ is so influential in history that even the way we mark time is supposedly linked to the time of his birth, although we now know that the calendar makers missed it at least four or five years.

And perhaps the birth of Christ is noted so widely, because everything in human history was irrevocably changed when he appeared on this earth. Nothing has ever been the same since then. Even those people who don't regard him as Lord, who don't come to him as Savior, and don't yield to him as king, still have a sort of grudging admiration for him. Someone else described "Churchill as the greatest man since Jesus." That' a left-handed compliment, but a compliment nonetheless because Jesus is used as a measuring standard for great leaders.

But there may be an even more fundamental reason for the widespread observance of Christmas. It has something to do with the human condition. We are living in a world that's not what it was supposed to be. When God created it, he called it good. But then it got all messed up. People started craving things that were not good for them. They stepped over the line of what's proper and when that was done a whole process was set in motion which led to every imaginable form of improper behavior. According to Genesis 6:5 "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all of the time." Human desires his desire to gratify his inclinations, led people to push God off the throne of his rightful domain. In his place, a usurper, a malignant evil power was allowed to reign.

Too late, man realized his mistake. He found himself needing to repent and he also found himself locked in a dilemma. On the one hand, "only a bad person needs to repent, but then only a good person can repent perfectly." He needed to repent, but he didn't have the capacity to do it right. The birth of Jesus the beginning of the story of how the human race is given an opportunity to climb out of that hole.

One night Jesus came into our world. He came into it as its rightful owner, but nevertheless he came into enemy occupied territory. You could say that he came in disguise, because very few recognized the baby in the manger as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords" But a very profound thing was really taking place. ". . . . he made himself nothing" (Philippians 2:7). He was made in the likeness of man, made in the appearance of humankind. But before that, he was a baby and before that he was a fetus. C., S. Lewis once said, "If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like becoming a slug or a crab." God actually got down on that level, so that he could do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

From the human viewpoint, we may wonder why God did it that way. Why didn't he come into our world as an invader? Why didn't he march in front of a well-equipped army? Why didn't he stand on the steps of Herod's Antonia Fortress and issue an edict proclaiming himself king and demanding absolute perfect obedience on penalty of sudden death?

It's because he wants us to choose him freely. It's because he presents himself to us as one who loves not one who forces us to obey him because of his great power. In fact, the very last word that he has to speak to us in the New Testament echoes this side of his nature. "Come and let him who hears say 'Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life "(Revelation 22:17).

We should not, however, misunderstand his intentions. He came to draw people to him by his humble example, his life of service, his unselfish death on the cross, and then he went back. But even as he went back, there was a promise given in Acts 1:11, "This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven, will com back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."

But that Second Advent won't be like the first. He won't come from the womb of a virgin. He won't present himself in a stable in Bethlehem. He won't take on the form and the frailty of a man. He will come in power and he will come in vengeance. Instead of coming incognito, every eye will see him. And he'll come not to offer forgiveness to those who haven't been able to find forgiveness. He'll come to deliver his children. And he'll come in power, with the most awesome invasion force the world has ever seen. As Paul says, that he ". . .will be revealed form heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God, and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power" (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)

I would suggest that it is because his life so powerfully impacts our lives and the lives of our families that we are drawn to honor him at this season. But that's a bittersweet truth. He needs to be honored in our families and our lives in every season of the year.

NEXT WEEK'S FEATURE ARTICLE: "I WISH I HAD THE TIME"

Norman's e-mail address: nlbales@allaboutfamilies.org