it is sunday morning and we are skipping church (yes, you read it here first folks). i have about 576 good reasons, but i have determined that i don’t really need a reason to not go to church on sunday morning.. of course my baptist children had to be convinced that it was ok to miss church, so i handed them the holy grail and told them we could unpack the christmas decorations this morning instead of church and worship Jesus by decorating our house for Him. i then proceeded to give them free reign on the boxes and decor items while i sat on the couch and read a book that i had been dying to get to (sailing between the stars by steven james- it is really good, i loved his book story: recapturing the mystery too). well if you have children, you all can imagine how the decorating is going. and if you don’t have children let me sum it all up for you...
it looks like christmas threw up at our house.
there is glitter everywhere and i swear that i never authorized the glitter to be removed from the sacred glitter cabinet (i should have locked the sacred glitter cabinet). angels are mixing with elves, donkeys with dragons, stars and candy canes mingle and there is a fine dusting of glitter over it all.
i was really involved in my reading and then i got up to get some more tea and saw the christmas carnage on the table (and on every available surface in the family room) and i just had to laugh. it reminded me of something that i had just read in the steven james book- it was such a clear example of what he was talking about that i had to put it here...
“we humans have agathokakological (consisting of both good and evil- isn’t that a great word) hearts, motives, dreams, and passions (and in our case christmas decorations)...
Christianity offers this strange mixture of sorrow and joy and hope and regret and confidence and humility- and honesty too, because when you enter the realm of grace, you enter the arena of awareness. you become acutely aware of who you really are but also aware that you are forgiven, accepted, loved, and redeemed. Both sinner and saint, rebel and ambassador. Both the harlot and the bride.”
our christmas decor and celebration certainly does show my bride and harlot side, plus my very real need for a Savior. we skip church to decorate, our then decor consists mainly of items that have NOTHING to do with the real meaning of christmas. we have glitter all over everything, when in actuality there should be hay and sawdust over all of christmas.
but then again, our decor shows us the real meaning of christmas. we as humans have NO idea what we really need in a savior, what christmas really meant to the whole plan, and what God was really up to in that manger (and later up on that cross). we glitz it all up, candy cane stripe it and in doing that we show that we need more than anything someone to set us free from our idols and our delusions.
we need Christ because without Him we only have spilled glitter and you can never clean up glitter all by yourself (believe me i have tried and there is NOTHING harder to clean up than glitter).