Humanity Far Removed

It strikes me, as I begin the Christmas season of ... insanity, to wonder why there has to be so much humanness (I’m separating humanity from humanness in a vain attempt to sound trendy) in the mix? I remember a M.A.S.H. episode where Frank Burns remarks that Korea wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for all the foreigners ... not bearing in mind that he is the foreigner. I believe that wherever we go, we take our humanness with us - our expectations as individuals or even as a sub-group, such as a family or community. Humanity, for the sake of this writing, is all that makes us human as a species. Desire, drive, pride, love, grace, violence, hate, etc. Humanity is global. Humanness is the “us” in the “we”.

So here we are, with two dozen people in the house. Kids, adults, tall, short, awkward, funny, serene ... all representations. And we’re having a blast. But as I watched family play (people who have had very little time together, but who come together and instantly act as old friends because of the blood binding), I was looking at the news online and at Facebook posts and it struck me that perhaps Christmas is not only a time to celebrate, but also a time to be removed.

There is a modern attempt to replicate an ancient idea; be human, but be Christ. Only one person ever accomplished this excruciating task, and that person is of course Jesus. Fully human, fully God. We desire to celebrate Christmas, without being commercial. Give & get the gifts, sing Happy Birthday Jesus, and feel comfortable about the celebration. Decorate the tree, sing the songs, add some goodies to our closets, but do it as Jesus crucified. But how do we separate the humanity, and the humanness from the Christmas? We’re human. We desire. I desire. I love Christmas. Great music about the Savior, lots of family, lots of food, and we get new underwear, undershirts and if I’m lucky, some duck shoes. Anne, are you reading this? I mean, lets face it, if we took the gifts out of Christmas ... there’d be no Christmas.

Now, don’t get your hackles up. I’m being honest. The resurgence for making “Jesus the reason for the season” comes more out of guilt more than anything else. We should, in my own less than the sharpest knife in the drawer opinion, recognize that Jesus is not the reason for the season, He’s the reason for everything. No Jesus ... no anything. No grace. No redemption. No peace. No love. No gifts. No Saint Nicholas (the real one, not the Coca-Cola one). No carols. No nothing Christmassy. We would have found some other reason to spend billions on gifts, but it would not have been to take to the Temple. Just humanity. Just a world full of people failing miserably at trying to love God through failed attempts at trying.

But, if it were not not for a fallen humanity, Jesus would never have come either. If we had not had ourselves removed from the Garden, would Jesus have had to come? Had sin not entered in, would Jesus have come as a baby, or would we know the triune God in their own right? Walking earth with God. Eating with Jesus. Communing with the Holy Spirit.

The point of these ramblings is that Jesus is the reason for all of it. No Easter, no Christmas, and I mean it in that order. Jesus was born of a woman to be slaughtered. It was intentional. God set this in motion for His creation. For humanity. You can no more remove humanity from Christmas than you can remove sacrifice from Jesus’s birth. We don’t need the commercialism anymore than we need more stuff. But we do need the Jesus of the manger, and the Jesus of life perfectly lived, and we certainly need the Jesus of the cross. Humanity brought our humanness. Our humannes, in many ways, brought Jesus to earth. The greatest gift of all is Jesus, with His sacrifice. God could have started over - He had millions of good reasons to do just that. But He didn't. He gave His Son, as a gift. He gave His grace as a gift. He gave His mercy as a gift. He gave the gift. Don’t feel bad about exchanging a few gifts, God exchanged His son for His Creation. Just remember the most value oriented gift. The one that cost us the least, and brought the most satisfaction: Jesus.

This Christmas, celebrate the birth of Christ. Fall on your knees and tell God “Thank You!” Thank you for Christmas, a reason to celebrate being God’s creation. Thank you for family, for all the stressors and humanness they bring. Thank you for life, for the breath of life. For children. For The Child. We all need a little more Jesus this year. A little more love. A little more God. But few of us need a little more of anything else.

I do, however, need more undershirts.

“God bless the world - we need it.”