Silly Season?

In Australia the term "silly season" is often used as a reference to the Christmas season, where Christmas is associated with sun-soaked beaches, family barbies (BBQ), seafood, mangoes, and drunken revelry.  With kids and adults on holiday the potential for silliness reaches new highs or lows, depending on your perspective!  It is silly to go into debt for the whole year to purchase gifts.  But I think to gloss Christmas as "silly" goes way too far.  The commercialism of Christmas should not stunt our wonder or dull the glory of Christ's coming.  There's nothing silly about my Saviour.

Christmas is celebrated in different ways and for widely different reasons across the world.  Some may celebrate Christmas merely from family or cultural tradition.  It is an opportunity to gather with friends and family over special food and give gifts.  Others see it as a huge waste of time.  There are some who see it as a Christianization of a pagan holiday.  I see Christmas as an opportunity to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah sent to seek and save the lost.  As far as I can see, Jesus is the reason for the Christmas season and all others.  Jesus is the Giver, and He has given Himself as the Gift:  providing forgiveness, righteousness, and eternal life for all who repent and trust in Him.

The Bible describes a future event when the world will rejoice over the death of the two witnesses sent by God.  After their testimony is complete, Satan will slay them.  Their dead bodies will lie in the streets of Jerusalem and everyone will rejoice, refusing to bury them.  Revelation 11:10-13 reads, "And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. ¹¹ Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. ¹² And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here." And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them. ¹³ In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven."

When the people on earth saw God's witnesses were dead, what was their response?  They rejoiced, made merry, and sent gifts to each other.  After three days, however, God will raise the dead men to life and ascend to heaven.  When Jesus came to earth, wise men brought gifts in worship.  If even heathen people rejoice over death by giving gifts, it is certainly not silly to rejoice and worship Christ - the Giver of Life to all who will believe - through giving gifts to one another.  It is not silly to give!  The end result?  May our celebration begin and end with giving glory to the God of heaven.

However you celebrate Christmas, may you do it as unto the LORD.  Romans 14:5-9 says, "One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶ He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. ⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. ⁸ For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. ⁹ For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living."  As long as we live, let us live as children of the Most High God!  Jesus is not dead, but alive!  He came to set the captives free, open the eyes of the blind, and deliver mankind from sin and death.  Sound it from the mountains, spread the Good News in the valleys:  "Joy to the world, the LORD is come!  Let earth receive her King."

Reign this Christmas, LORD Jesus.  Reign now and always!