Christmas Time
A child is born
I am typically not a big celebrator of Christmas. I was born in Taiwan and grew up there. Christmas is not a big holiday in Taiwan, or in Asia generally. The Chinese New Year is the major holiday of my culture. Only when we moved to America in 1988 did Christmas become a big thing.
Yes, the message of Christmas is the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, over 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. It is not just a cute story. It actually happened. And praise God He came as a man to save us all!
Today in American culture Christmas is more about creating a fun, festive atmosphere (Santa, snowman, reindeers, Elf, Christmas trees, presents, beautiful lights in dark nights, parties, Christmas Eve services, holiday music, etc). This post is not about judging that culture, whether it is good or bad, praiseworthy or condemnable. Personally I think there is a grace for all the extracurricular activities. It is an enjoyable way to get through the miserable cold nights until the New Year. If you can’t avoid Christmas, you might as well enjoy it!
For many years I tried to get away from Christmas as much as I could, because I got burned out by Christmas! What do I mean by that? After I graduated from college, for almost 2 years I worked at a Christian bookstore. Right after Thanksgiving we start playing Christmas music in the store from opening until closing time. So each day at work I had to listen to Christmas music for at least 8 hours, with the same songs repeating throughout the day. Trust me, you get tired of Christmas really fast after a month of this endless loop. I couldn’t wait for January to come fast enough!
After I left that job, it took me over 10 years to choose to listen to Christmas music again. I was just so sick of the Christmas “tradition.” I had to get the Christmas culture out of my system because I was so saturated with it at the books store. It was truly a cultural overdose!
From 2012 to 2015 I lived in China with my wife, Ammi. Finally, in China, where they don’t celebrate Christmas, I was totally “detoxed” from Christmas. Not the acknowledgement of the birth of Christ, just the commercialized Christmas environment.
After we came back to the US, suddenly I felt ok to celebrate Christmas again. I was not repelled by Christmas music anymore! Ammi never celebrated Christmas growing up, so the American Christmas festivities were all new and fresh to her. She enjoys Christmas very much. Also, now that we have kids of our own, Christmas has become like a children’s holiday for us.
My kids love Christmas! They love everything about Christmas—the music, the lights, the trees, and most of all, the gifts! I do have to remind them regularly that Christmas is centrally about the birth of Christ, and not about all these other “stuff!”
As a parent, you want your children to be happy. And you are happy when they are happy. As a musician, I dislike playing Christmas music. It is just not my preferred musical style. But my kids love singing Christmas songs. It is interesting, that nothing warms my heart to hear my children joyously sing these Christmas songs at the top of their lungs (really a big distraction especially when I am driving, but I do enjoy it!)
This is the mystery of having children. I don’t know why I love my children so much, but I just do. It is so automatic. I think I am wired to love them, and I don’t have to force myself to love, it just comes so naturally. And the interesting thing is, they love me back, fully, unconditionally. Their love for me may be even greater than my love for them! Because their love is so pure and innocent and automatic. It feels so great to experience the love that my children have for me.
My children drive me and Ammi crazy—they are so loud, energetic, and they fight amongst themselves all the time. We really have to “parent” them. But they are one of the greatest blessings in the universe.
We cannot think of children as a burden, but only as blessings. God gives them to us as blessings. They are God’s reward to us for a life well-lived.
Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. [ Ps 127:3 NLT ]
If we believe that they are a burden then they will become a burden. When we believe a lie, the lie then becomes real to us. The lie manifests itself as our reality. But when we believe the truth—that children are a gift and a reward, a tremendous blessing to us, a beautiful way that God expresses His love to us—then this reality will manifest. We will express great joy and love as a result of receiving this gift, this reward, wholeheartedly.
In the world there are parents who hate their children (sad but true), and there are married couples who vow that they will never have children because children are a financial burden to their lives. To these couples, have children will mean the loss of their freedom to do whatever they want to do in life—go on exotic vacations, learn new hobbies, binge watch Netflix, etc.
The parents who hate their children, seeing them as burdens, have believed in the lie of the enemy. What they need to do is to repent and believe in the truth of God’s Word. Once they believe the truth and practice the truth, then the truth will set them free (John 8:32). They will cease to experience their children as burdens but as producers of great joy in their lives!
The couples who choose to not have children, because of their love of money and personal freedom, have also believed in the lie of the enemy. Holding your own baby in your arms is infinitely more rewarding and satisfying than any luxury vacation one can go on. You say, Samuel, how do you know? Have you been to all the top vacation spots in the world? No, I haven’t, but I have been to enough beautiful places on earth, and enjoyed enough luxuries, to know that this gap truly exist.
This is how God created the order of the universe. The poorest couple, by having a child, can experience the same reward as the most wealthy. Everyone has the opportunity to receive the same “peak” blessing. It is fascinating how the greatest physical blessing on earth is to have a child and to experience life raising a child.
Isn’t that similar to the central message of Christmas? Jesus was born as a baby and raised up by his parents. He didn’t come as a full grown adult. Jesus’ greatest acts were His crucifixion and resurrection, but He came as a baby first, to the joy of His earthly parents, as a reward to them, as a blessing to them. It’s so beautiful, just the way God intended it to be.
May we never lose the wonder of it all.
