Hope

The Happy Occassion

I’ve never been one to get all wrapped up in society’s concessions to the Christian faith. Partly this is because I think the fact that our culture has historically been associated with Christian ideas and traditions has caused a persistence of watered down allegiance. Sure, I’d appreciate it if people who celebrated Easter actually acknowledged that it was a day to commemorate my Savior’s death. If they want a day for bunnies and eggs hunts pick some other day of the year. But that hasn’t happened yet and waging a war against it seems kind of self-defeating.

However, I was amused when I attended a local city’s recent Christmas concert. Technically it was called “Joyful Jingles” – presumably to disassociate it with any one of the December celebrations. What amused me was that in the introduction to a song parody about the wives of the 3 Wisemen the choir director performed a magnificent fete of verbal gymnastics to describe Christ’s birth without actually saying those words. She called it “the trip to Bethlehem” and the “happy occasion.” It amazed me because the song was in fact about the birth of Jesus and yet in her introduction she tactfully avoided any mentioned of that fact plainly choosing instead to describe it in the most nondescript way possible.

If you’re going to celebrate a happy occasion, I think that’s all well and good. But please, if you are going to celebrate the birth of my Lord and King – can you just call it Christmas?

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Growth

Starved for Truth

I have no idea what its like to go hungry. I’ve been hungry before, and I’ve participated in the thirty-hour famine, but I have no concept what its like not to know where your next meal is coming from or to be deprived of all nutrients. It is just not a part of my life experience and the helplessness that comes with that depravity is difficult to relate to. However, despite the difficulty in a physical sense, I have a better grasp of what it is like in a spiritual sense. If I was a medical student or had the inclination to spend more time on the subject, I would fill this page with a description of what the body does during a time of starvation. From the initial pangs of hunger, to the body’s ability to disregard the initial impulse and sustain itself, to the eventual turning on its own members, I think the parallels to the spiritual realm would be significant. We experience the need for spiritual food and if we don’t get it, we can fool ourselves into thinking we are o.k. without it. Eventually this self-deception causes us to do things that spite ourselves because our hunger has no other outlet. Regardless of the growing obesity numbers in America, there is still plenty of lack. There is a lack for spiritual nourishment and truth. Unfortunately many choose to remain in their state of need rather than accept the One who can satisfy.

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