Keep Christ In Christmas

My take on the "Keep Christ in Christmas" battle cry.....In case you can't read it, the top phrase says, "A Free God Is A Dangerous God" and the bottom "Keep Christ In Christmas." Christ is unhappily imprisoned in Mammon Mall. I drew this in about 30 seconds this morning. I am not an artist. It was inspired in part by my sermon preparation for the fourth Sunday in Advent as well as the movie What Would Jesus Buy?. And also by all the "Keep Christ in Christmas" crap available online. My personal favorite vacillates between the "Keep Christ In Christmas Inspirational Journey Handbag" and the "Vintage KKK 1950s era Keep Christ in Christmas Greeting Card". I only wish I was making this stuff up. Yeah, we keep Christ in Christmas alright. We keep Christ in Christmas by importing (pun there but not intended) him into our consumeristic narrative and then baptizing him into our faith in commerce by dunking him in a bowl of eggnog. We keep Christ in Christmas by making him captive and servile to “our most sacred holiday”. When I really stop and think about it, the statement, “Keep Christ in Christmas” is nonsensical. It does not compute, which is why answers to the question of “How can we keep Christ in Christmas?” are so very ineffective. You know the old saying, “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.” And even if I was to try and answer, sometimes I wonder which Christ it is that we would like to keep in Christmas. Is it the same Christ that we celebrate when we participate in the Eucharist? I would like to propose to you that we are asking the wrong question. I would like to go even further and propose a few, ahem, more pertinent questions Christians should be asking ourselves this advent season. We celebrate more than anything, I believe, God’s faithfulness to his covenant people, to his promises given through the prophets, and to his own redemptive purposes. So.... 1. What kind of lives are we to live in light of God’s past, present, and future faithfulness to his promises? 2. What kind of lives are we to live in light of God’s redemptive mission? 3. How can we, as David Bosch brilliantly puts it, prolong the logic of the life and ministry of Jesus? Not complete. Not perfect. This is just how my brain works when I muse on the misguided phrase, "Keep Christ In Christmas."