Many people no longer make the connection between Christmas and Christ, however, Christmas Day remains a prominent holiday. Most folks think it is a time to rest, enjoy family and take a break from all the stress. Maybe do some reflecting before the year is over.
All cultures have holidays and festivals that are a part of their rhythm of life. Most of them were rooted at some point in a spiritual significance. Charles Taylor, who wrote A Secular Age says that secularism has flattened time. It has done away with sacred time, the concept of something or someone higher. The days and nights all pass back without any difference. Holidays are just another twenty-four hours.
Yet for believers, there is a higher order of time, something sacred. Christmas is set apart in a special space as it were. Taylor feels our religious holidays have meaning and purpose. He writes that these “higher times gather and reorder secular time. They introduce ‘warps’ and seeming inconsistencies in profane time-ordering.”
But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4-5)
There is something about Christmas that is timeless or apart from time. God lives outside of time and when we stop to celebrate his work, he meets us in a profound way. We are drawn closer to the manger scene to adore the Christ child.
In the modern, secular world, it is challenging to pull ourselves away and engage in those sacred moments. At Christmas, we often see people who are hungry for something more but are not sure where to find it. As believers, we know the story of God’s love gives meaning and purpose to the rest of our year. We are shaped and transformed by something far greater than ourselves.
As you pause to celebrate the birth of the King, I pray that you will be drawn a little closer to him.
