Meditation

What an Advent season this has been! Camano gets 15 minutes of fame in Time magazine as hangout for a notorious teen bandit – St James Cathedral Dean Michael Ryan writing in an America magazine criticizes the proposed Roman Catholic missal – and fundamentalist commentator again Bill O’Reilly bemoans how people say “Happy Holidays,” as opposed to “Merry Christmas.”

I can’t speak to either teen bandits or the new American missal. Nevertheless, I find myself responding somehow in sympathy to O’Reilly – at least as far as our modern focus on Christmas as secular and commercial. Think of how we go so deeply into debt as we yield to the compulsion that if we don’t spend enough money, people will think we don’t love them. Still, isn’t it odd that Christians get upset when someone won’t say “Merry Christmas” when they enter a store? Isn’t also rather odd to expect the stores to tell the story of Christ’s birth? That ought to be our job! We are the ones who ought to tell the story of the Incarnation of Jesus -- of God becoming one of us. “Jesus became what we are, so that we might become what He is,” said the church father Irenaeus. This is the meaning of Christmas -- this is what we ought to celebrate – the wonder of Jesus becoming what we are, so that we can become what He is.

And as we prepare to celebrate the Incarnation this year, we should applaud the “Advent Conspiracy” and its efforts against the frenzied activity and extravagant gift-giving of commercial holidays. This all started when three pastors some years ago simply wanted to challenge people to make Christmas meaningful again.

They asked their congregations to spend the season doing four things: worshiping Jesus to the fullest – and spending less money – and instead, giving meaningful gifts of ourselves as did Jesus, our Emmanuel – such as quality time or a gift we took the time to make – and finally, using a little of the money we didn’t spend to help those in need. Now, there’s incarnation in action – We’d do well to celebrate the season in such Christlike ways!

– Fr Bob Dietle St. Aidan Episcopal

Camano Island