I couldn't help but notice that the TV airwaves (are they still called that when they come from space...from a cable?) have rapidly filled up with all the traditional Christmas shows, most of them not even waiting for Thanksgiving to be over! Cold, snowy, or not, Christmas is indeed coming (less than 4 weeks now), so we may as well settle in, hunker down and discard the belts once again!
One of my favorite Christmas shows might surprise you, as it's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." If you haven't seen it, you really owe it to yourself to view this classic piece of American culture...at least once. In a nutshell, the story goes that there's a mean old "Grinch" who simply can't stand Christmas, so much that he states more than once in the film, "I must stop Christmas from coming!" He proceeds to do everything he can to carry his desire out, stealing everything possible from the beloved Whos of Whoville. The result? Come on, I told you that you need to watch it for yourself :^)
What startled me a bit today as I was doing my sermon prep for the Second Sunday of Advent was the idea that, though I'm not green and grumpy, I can quite easily become as much of a Grinch (at least in purpose) as the Grinch himself! How? By allowing (or dare I say, even making) Christmas into something it was never meant to be!
If I, even full of good intentions, foster the idea that anything is more important at Christmas than the celebration of Jesus, the Christ-Child, then I, just as sure as if I were the Grinch himself, am actively working to "stop Christmas from coming!" Oh, the holiday will occur regardless of my actions, but Christmas...the real Christmas...will never happen.
The only way to avoid getting "Grinchy" is to make sure that my family, friends, parishioners & coworkers know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Christmas is first and foremost about Jesus...about worshipping the One who gave up everything so that you and I might get to experience what real joy is all about at this potentially misdirected time of the year.
And who knows? Maybe choosing to avoid "Grinchyness" will (spoiler alert) lead to each of us having "a heart that grew three sizes that day."
