As a kid I loved Christmas! Really and truly loved it all. The tree, the lights on the houses, the music. We would always go to my grandmother’s house. At her house there was a formal living room area that I only ever remember using at Christmas time. But during Christmas this formal room was transformed into lights, stockings, and sparkly everything! Presents would take up a third of the room. We would peek in before Christmas and just marvel at the presents. My brother, sister, and I would sit on the outskirts of the presents and imagine what treasures were inside.

I remember the first Christmas I spent as a newbie Christian. It was truly the first time I realized that this was Jesus’ birth we were celebrating. I always knew that’s what it was. But it had never really sunk in until my first Christmas as a follower of Christ. That year my son was in preschool. At preschool they had made reindeer food for the kids to sprinkle outside for Santa’s reindeer to eat while Santa did his business inside. As we are putting out this reindeer food, I remember thinking”wow, this is kinda weird. Not sure what glittery reindeer food has to do with Jesus.”

Every year since my struggle with Christmas and Jesus has only gotten bigger. None of my questions are answered and I’m left every year feeling frustrated. I mean we are celebrating the day that God sent his son, knowing that he would be killed. Knowing that He would be tortured. Knowing that He would suffer. Knowing that one day we would take this incredible act of God sending His son, and we would tell all of our kids about a big, fat, happy man that brings presents to our hearts desire. Depending upon if we were good or bad.

This is my struggle Christmas after Christmas. How to take Christmas and, well, make it Christmas. My best bud and I have late night chats. We both have 5 kids, so our days are kinda crazy. So once those kids are in bed we can have a true gabfest, that can rival any teenage gabfest! So a couple of nights ago she says, “so here is something I have been wrestling with. My only purpose for being born and alive is to serve Christ. Everything that I do comes from that one place, serving God. If I help out somebody in need, I used to do it, cause that’s what good people do, right? We help. But I did it because I serve Jesus. Everything is because, I serve Jesus.”

Back to Christmas(hummm….that might be ironic. Talking about Jesus, then back to Christmas…). I was reading this great blog, and on the blog I found Advent Conspiracy. I clicked on it, cause I thought it was a funky name. Here is a quote from their website that does a pretty good job at describing what/who they are;

“Advent Conspiracy is an international movement restoring the scandal of Christmas by worshipping Jesus through compassion, not consumption.”

 

Intriguing, right? I thought so. Here is the basics of this group(started by Imago Dei Church in Portland, Oregon).

 

• Worship More
• Spend Less
• Give More
• Love All

Deep thoughts, right? So how does one do that? I’m not really sure how it all looks in action, but I guess that there is probably only one way to find out. And it probably requires verbs. Lots and lots of verbs……

 

You guys know any good verbs for worshiping Jesus(I mean, it is kinda all about Him), spending less on all the cool stuff at Toys-R-Us that my kids would drool over, but then forget about in less than a week, giving more to all the folks that we can show a little Jesus to by feeding or new Bibles or (geez…the possibilities on this one are freakin’ off the hook!), and last ,but not least to love all?

So here’s to celebrating Jesus! And all the cool hope, mercy, and grace that came from that one night….