Happy Holidays, The Nativity Story, and the Incarnation.

I really enjoy listening to WEEI 103.7FM in Boston, actually I think that affiliate is out of Providence RI (suz + PB). Anyway it is sports radio, but the hosts are as conservative as they come which has always surprised me considering it is MASS. I mean they laugh at global warming, they mock social programs, and of coarse they have a problem with HAPPY HOLIDAYS. The host was getting really irate and it got me thinking. To be honest we do live in a "tossed salad" country that represents a variety of cultures and religions. To me it makes sence to be a little bit sensative. I don't know the percentages, but I would assume the majority of people in the US are Christians. However, there are a growing number of people that cellebrate other holidays during the winter. If they don't cellebrate Christmas why wish them a Merry Christmas. But at the same time the politically correct swing towards Happy Holidays is laughable. It is so insincere and toungue in cheek that I think it is even more offensive then wishing someone goodwill for the wrong holiday. I mean they take obvious Christmas symbols and slap happy holidays on it. It is effortless and thoughtless. Calling it a Holiday Tree, or putting Happy Holidays under Santa Claus. Come on!!! Those are Christmas symbols no matter how comercialized they have become. I dont see anyone calling the Manora a Holiday Candle stick. Christianity is kind of like the Religious whipping boy. Christmas was hijacked first by commercialism and then by politically correctness. But lets call things what they are. Christmas trees and even Santa Claus have Christian origins call them Christmas they are and thats not offensive. Quansa, Hannukah whatever religious or non religous days they have their symbols call them by that. Merry Winter everyone! So my wife and I went to see "The Nativity Story" the other day with her parents. Before going I really wanted to like it. I kept thinking in my mind about how I wanted it to be a positive assertion into the season. But I have to say I was pretty disapointed. It wasn't much different from any other church pagent you have witnessed or live nativity you have seen. It all ended with three wise men (one black of coarse)on the right and a bunch of shepherds on the left (don't worry one of them had a lamb across his shoulders) It was very safe. It did not rock the boat in either direction. I thought it could have looked at the story between the lines and still stayed true to the Biblical account. Interpret, speculate do something, please! The one thing it did do was hone in on the humaness of the story to a minimal degree. This brings me to my last point the Incarnation. Nothing is more Christmas than a little Theology and Doctrine of the Incarnation. Jesus was not God clothed in flesh, pretending to be human and he was not a really good person almost like a god. He was not some third thing. a half human half god angel mutant. He was both fully human and fully divine at the same time. At my church they have been talking a lot about the first advent and how that points forward to the second advent. But I have been thinking a lot about Christ's coming, Christmas in its own terms. It was the ultimate revelation of God. And it made a powerful statement of who God is. God was both fully divine and fully human at the same time. How? Who knows he is God? But I think that is the revelation. God is two seemingly impossible things at the same time. Like two sides of the same coin they are mutually exclusive. If it's heads it cannot be tails. If he is divine he cannot be human. But surprise!!! God is and was during Christ's life. He can be heads and tails at the same time. His is the only hand that can beat Chuck Norris's hand in poker. God is the ultimate paradox. He is forgiving and gracious and at the same time as just and holy. He is unchanging and still sympathetic and responsive. Lately i have been thinking that God is both outside of time and within time all at once. He is able to hold togheter seemingly impossible things. He is the Lion and then Lamb. But not the Ying and Yang. God is not both bad and good: a balance. He is all good, all love, all the time. But love is a paradox and only God has it figured completly out. So he sent his son gave us a picture and empowered us to do likewise. Can God create a rock so big he cannot lift it? Trick question? Nope. He can be both things at the same time. He is strong and meek and humble. This complexity is who God is and what keeps us searching him. Merry Christmas!