10 December 2007

Secular Reminders of Why We Need Christmas

Every Decmeber, I struggle in search of a fresh understanding of Christmas. I get so frustrated with the commercialism of Christmas and fight to keep from becoming swept into what Christmas means to our culture. This weekend, I was surprised to find two reminders of why Christmas is so incredibly important to our current culture.

The first was through watching the movie Children of Men. While I don't endorse the prevelant violence or continuous profanity, (or the ending for that matter!), the overall idea of the movie makes it a powerful"Christmas" movie. The main plot of the movie is that there has been infertility in the planet for the past 18 years and the world has become chaotic and basically anarchy in most places other than England, where life is also extremelly bleak.
But in the middle of the grayness and depression, a woman is found to be pregnant! As people learn of this miracle, they are in awe and full of HOPE! This baby may change the course of the world. There is now a chance that life will return to the way it used to be. Laughter could return, the sunshine might be noticed, and people might once again connect.
When Christ was born, he brought this same kind of hope. Relationships can be restored through Him, we can experience true joy even in the middle of suffering, and our eyes can be opened to the world as He created it.

When this baby was born, the gunfire, swearing, shouting, and even the running stopped. Everyone paused as the little girl was carried by and for a minute, faces became less hard and all eyes looked at the baby.

This December, I hope to remember what that would be like to keep my eyes focused on the Christ child. To look at Him for hope and all of the promises that His incarnation means.
I know many of you who read this blog (are there many who read? anyway...) have your own precious little babies to remind you of the hope in children and especially in the baby Jesus, but thought I would share a sweet picture of Asher when he was a month old. What hope and joy he has brought us too.
(Oh yeah, I was going to share two reminders...I'll save the other one for another time.)

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