http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/december-web-only/go-overboard-celebrating-christmas.html?paging=off
I think he makes a number of good points here. While it is true that there is a lot of stuff associated with the secular Christmas that is perhaps more an excuse for sin than a joyful celebration of the birth of Jesus, the temptation for a certain kind of Christian is to throw the baby out with the bathwater, put on sackcloth and ashes (metaphorically anyway) and seek to turn the celebration into no more than a sombre commemoration and a guilt trip about how messed up the world is around us.
I've always felt there's something strange about claiming to have good news for the world while we go out of our way to show the world that we Christians don't really want to enjoy ourselves too much. All pleasure is sinful after all, right?
The message of the Bible could not be further from this. I think Wilson gets it right when he says:
Do not treat this as a time of introspective penitence. To the extent that you must clean up, do it with the attitude of someone showering and changing clothes, getting ready for the best banquet you have ever been to. This does not include three weeks of meditating on how you are not worthy to go to banquets. Of course you are not. Haven't you heard of grace?Celebrate the stuff. Use fudge and eggnog and wine and roast beef. Use presents and wrapping paper. Embedded in many of the common complaints you hear about the holidays (consumerism, shopping, gluttony, etc.) are false assumptions about the point of the celebration. You do not prepare for a real celebration of the Incarnation through thirty days of Advent Gnosticism.
Yes exactly! As Wilson concludes, grace is what it's all about. And God's grace in Christ was not a stale mince pie and a lukewarm sausage roll in a cold grey room, it was a sumptuous, lavish banquet with Michelin star cooking, champagne, laughter and song.
That's why 'tis the season to be jolly as the carol says.
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