“Are you getting in to the Christmas spirit?” asks the merchant at the supermarket, trying to strike up polite holiday conversation as I wait in line.
I smile and nod. Over the loudspeaker, I can hear the refrain, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year,” and behind me in line are men and women with red sweaters buying canned hams, green food coloring for Christmas cookies, and there’s even a few Cornish hens in a young couple’s basket. Is this a crowd infected with the Christmas spirit or is there more?
As I walk out of the market, a man with a Santa hat rings a bell next to a red bucket. He’s a member of the Salvation Army team and seeking donations. White lights decorate trees and common areas and greenery snakes around the light poles in the parking lot. Is this the Christmas spirit that ushers in a new hope or is there more?
Packing up the car with my groceries, I begin the rather brief drive home. On the way, I pass both stores filled with people and those who have closed due to the recession. I see men and women with large bags, doing their last minute shopping, on the same street as a bearded man who sits at the intersection with ragged clothes, holding a cardboard sign that reads “will work for food.” Which one has the Christmas spirit I wonder to myself? Do I have the Christmas spirit?
In his book, Knowing God, J.I. Packer writes these words: “We talk glibly of the “Christmas spirit,” rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.”
So, the Christmas spirit is more sacrificial than seasonal; more about relationships than revelry; more about the transformation of the mind and heart than decorations and parties. Jesus ushered in a new of life and invites us to a new way of thinking about life and at Christmas time, we are asked to consider not simply the baby in a manger, but also the Spirit that led that baby in to a life of service.
Arriving at home, I begin to unload the groceries and notice that there are houses on our street with lights, decorations poking through windows, facing the street, announcing that this is an unusual time of year. The challenge to you and to me is to live an unusual life that announces that Christ is coming to the neighborhood all year round. “O come, o come Immanuel; ransom captives”…set us free indeed.