Welcome again to another podcast of Struggling Well. we're back in control now. Our daughter Jackie is no longer here. So, we're back in control. and we're right in the smack dab in the middle of Advent season leading up to Christmas.
How many days until Christmas?
I don't know,
10. No, no, no, no.
Like 15.
15.
Yeah, something like that.
Wow.
and Christmas is, you know, that time we say merry Christmas to everybody and all those kinds of wonderful things. Christmas is an interesting time for some people. It's not always a joyfilled time. but we all build our traditions around Christmas.
We've been talking about traditions a lot. and I am not a traditionalist. my some of my grandchildren have likened me to the Grinch because it just wears me out to put all the stuff up and but they love it. And so, fortunately, we have family that come and help us decorate. it's not because we're too old, it's because I'm too grinchy. but we definitely have traditions and there are things that we do. Every Christmas, like Christmas Eve, we usually go to one of the kids' houses and we eat. Do we eat Chinese?
Well, we started out that way, but you know, it used to be when I had to when I pastored and Christmas Eve services seemed to multiply, like the loaves and fishes. by the time we got done with all that, it was like, okay, we got to get something to eat. And we started going to a Chinese restaurant cuz we found out they're open on Christmas Eve,
which is a very religious celebration to do Chinese on Christmas Eve,
but it was a tradition. So,
it was so We've now changed that to one of our kids' homes and we go after the one service now that we go to, which is a big shift for me to only have to go to one service as opposed to doing four. so yeah, we have those traditions and then
yeah, we have traditions on Christmas day. We do a brunch, we open gifts, and then everybody comes back that night for Jimmy's chili, which he's up for a chili cook off if anybody wants to. We do have one friend who has challenged him and she has already said that she will win. because she doesn't use ground meat or any of that stuff. She uses sirloin, doesn't she?
Filet.
Oh, filt. Oh, excuse me. Anyway, you know who you are.
But one of the things about traditions is and they're a wonderful thing. So many of you have wonderful practices that you do at Christmas. But the problem with traditions is, believe it or not, they can also hinder the message of Jesus birth because we get very entrenched in how we do certain things and even I think you know doing things that we've done every single year can become more of a tradition than a practice of celebrating Jesus birth. And we need to focus on that instead of you know focusing on the point which is Christ coming in the flesh coming as a baby. This coming as a small thing ending up as the savior of the world. But we get kind of bogged down in our traditions. And if you look back in scripture, you'll see that Jesus often rebuked the religious leaders of his time because they had a lot of oral traditions like they, you know, strict handwashing, all sorts of things. They would break the law on one hand, but they would be real strict about other things and at the same time they neglected what Jesus said was important.
Yeah. You know, you think about his birth and we've turned it into this like you said, said, Suzi, this big spectacle. And there's nothing wrong with decorating. There's nothing wrong with celebrating certain aspects of family and enjoying being with family and everything, but I don't want to lose sight of who he is and what he said. And so often in his teaching, his teaching was lifting up the poor, the vulnerable, the needy. and I don't want to lose that. We don't want to lose that. when we celebrate his birth.
You know, I did a little research because, you know, I love to research and Yes, I do. And I saw this very interesting thing. Now, I'm not gonna say this is the absolute truth, but it was something that popped up in my research that we focus on the wrong baby. The historical Jesus, according to my research, was a poor brownskinned refugee. But our traditions have created this idolized, unhistorical nativity scene. And we risk what is really the story because we want it. We have to dress it up and make it I mean we have this little white baby and Mary and Joseph look like they just stepped out of a catalog as opposed to what was really happening at the time. And that can distract us. It's not that we have to focus on the fact that they were certainly they were poor and they were refugees for certain but we focus we try to dress up Jesus dress up the ity in a way that I think leaves most of us cold because there's nothing that seems supernatural about that when everything about Jesus' birth is supernatural.
Yeah. And you know this is just again I'm not trying to spoil anybody's Christmas or anybody's decorations that are up. when we think of the nativity scene the wise men weren't there. They it was probably 2 years after he was born that they arrived in Beth Yeah.
And so we did for a while with our kids when they were younger, we would set up the nativity scene and then we would put the wise men in a different room because they weren't present at his birth. And that's one of those places where we have allowed the traditions of how we portray things to not necessarily be accurate in their portrayal of Christ's birth.
And there are things that have been hand down culturally like a Christmas tree. I We have one. It's not real. It's beautiful. Has lights on it and decorations on it, but that's not a biblical symbol of Christ. I don't really know where the Christmas tree came from. Some people say it's from the Roman culture. I don't know. But there's nothing wrong with it, but we spend a lot of time and money making our trees, our homes look beautiful. How much time do we spend on focusing on Jesus and what God did when he became flesh. And I think one of the things that scripture does speak to, the gospel shows that we have this preoccupation with busyness and a lack of room for Jesus in our lives because of the modernday holiday hustle and we're coming and going all over the place getting the perfect gift. I know I'm going to you're going to think, "Oh, the Grinch has definitely landed." But I think about gifts and I certainly love to gift. That is not one of my love languages. We've already discussed. I don't think I have any love languages. Do you think I have any?
I don't know that you do.
I don't. Okay. That's
That doesn't mean you don't like to be loved. It's just that it makes it really challenging to find one that really speaks to you.
Right. and those aren't necessarily inspired, the five love languages by a very famous author who did a great job. But like we have gone so crazy with gifts and making sure that people have the right gift and that's a wonderful thing. And people that love to receive and love to give, it's a beautiful process. But what do you find most of? You go to the mall, you go on Amazon, and people are just pressing the button, buy by Black Friday, trying to either, you know, buy as much as they can because it's on sale, but also the agony over the perfect gift.
Right. So now we are getting a gift.
No, not Now that we've totally ruined your Christmas.
Merry Christmas. Ho.
No. And in all seriousness, I love that you have traditions. I love that you do those things that are special to your family and keep doing them. But don't lose sight. This is my prayer for us and my prayer for you is to not lose sight of what we're celebrating. And I love the Gospel of John and the prologue of the Gospel of John, which is John's Christmas story. It's his story, not it's not the Luke story that we read every year. It's not even Matthew's story, but he simply says this in John 1:14. And the Word became flesh. That's the nativity. And dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory of the only son from the father, full of grace and full of truth. And so, whatever your traditions may be, make sure you don't lose sight of what the real celebration of Christmas is all about.
Just a couple of things to keep in mind. Prioritize God. 's word. Focus on the biblical accounts and the message that is behind God who so loved the world that he gave his only son and that Jesus was born in the flesh had to experience all the things that we as humans experience. Don't forget to prioritize that. Also examine your motives about what your traditions are. they may be you've been doing this forever and ever and some of the traditions may even feel like they're you know I don't know biblical biblically based But determine read your broom number one and also make sure that your motives are not just empty rituals. the sec the third thing is see the Christmas story as a call to be like Jesus. And how did Jesus minister? He was always dealing with the marginalized. He was always looking for people, touching people, loving people, speaking truth to people. And then be open to what God might do this Christmas and might bring you to a place of doing something a little bit different. just because you've done something the entire time, your whole life in your family, maybe shake it up a little bit and get your family on their toes. so those are just a couple of things to think about.
So, we hope that you have a great week. One, one of the things we love to do is do some shout outs. So, I'm going to do one this week. We probably have some for the next several weeks. But, to, Greg Sllayton who listens regularly, who we ran into recently. Didn't know he listened. as we don't know, most of you listen. So, thank you and, I hope you have a great week and, we'll be back next week.