Archives For Christmas

This was originally posted last year on Christmas.  Not much has changed, and it’s still the best Christmas carol I know.

Over the last few Christmases John and Yoko’s Merry Xmas (War is Over) has become my favorite Christmas carol.  It asks us all, do we want to live in peace?

As I’m writing this blog post, I’m sitting and watching Braveheart with some friends.  I love a good, violent war movie as much as the next Y chromosome, but I can’t help but think that even the most inspiring heroism of war is a twisted misrepresentation of the promise that came into earth at the birth of Jesus Christ.

In our world, we can’t seem to get out of Iraq or Afghanistan. I’ve been living paycheck to paycheck. I know people who are sleeping on the streets and in mud huts. The best that our most creative minds can imagine is blue cat-monkey people fighting our wars for us. It’s hard to imagine the truth of Christmas:

War is over.

If you want it.

I have chosen to trust the counter-intuitive promise of the gospel: a Jewish child, born the son of oppressed peasants in a cave full of animals, is the Prince of Peace.  His birth heralds the end of all wars.  I want it.

Believing in this prince means living in and for peace: seeking peace between within yourself, and between you, God, and your world.

As you come together for Christmas this year, you have to ask “So this is Christmas, and what have you done?” By next year, I hope answer: “I lived for peace.”

And so this is Christmas (War is over)
For weak and for strong (If you want it)

For rich and the poor ones (War is over)
The world is so wrong (Now)

And so Happy Christmas (War is over)
For black and for white (If you want it)
For yellow and red ones (War is over)
Let’s stop all the fight (Now)

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear


That’s My Kind of Baby.

Chris —  December 25, 2009

The people who walk in darkness
will see a great light.
For those who live in a land of deep darkness,
a light will shine.

For a child is born to us,
a son is given to us.

The government will rest on his shoulders.
And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

His government and its peace
will never end.
He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David
for all eternity.

Blessings on you and yours.

Marantha.

War is Over (If You Want It)

Chris —  December 22, 2009

Over the last few Christmases John and Yoko’s Merry Xmas (War is Over) has become my favorite Christmas carol.  It asks us all, do we want to live in peace?

As I’m writing this blog post, I’m sitting and watching Braveheart with some friends.  I love a good, violent war movie as much as the next Y chromosome, but I can’t help but think that even the most inspiring heroism of war is a twisted misrepresentation of the promise that came into earth at the birth of Jesus Christ.

In our world, we can’t seem to get out of Iraq or Afghanistan. I’ve been living paycheck to paycheck. I know people who are sleeping on the streets and in mud huts. The best that our most creative minds can imagine is blue cat-monkey people fighting our wars for us. It’s hard to imagine the truth of Christmas:

War is over.

If you want it.

I have chosen to trust the counter-intuitive promise of the gospel: a Jewish child, born the son of oppressed peasants in a cave full of animals, is the Prince of Peace.  His birth heralds the end of all wars.  I want it.

Believing in this prince means living in and for peace: seeking peace between within yourself, and between you, God, and your world.

As you come together for Christmas this year, you have to ask “So this is Christmas, and what have you done?” By next year, I hope answer: “I lived for peace.”

And so this is Christmas (War is over)
For weak and for strong (If you want it)

For rich and the poor ones (War is over)
The world is so wrong (Now)

And so Happy Christmas (War is over)
For black and for white (If you want it)
For yellow and red ones (War is over)
Let’s stop all the fight (Now)

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear


For hundreds of years, Christianity was organized by a calendar of fasts and feasts and their corresponding texts, called the Liturgical Calendar. Luther’s reforms trimmed some fat off Christianity.  Americans, with a limited sense of our place in history, have often separated themselves from liturgical traditions to distance themselves from  religion, and seek a purer relationship with Christ.

However, in recent years, many evangelical Christians have found that adopting traditions from ancient streams of Christianity helps them order their lives in a way that brings them closer to God.  I first learned of Advent a few years back from Kester, and have found that commemorating it helps me realize the importance of Jesus in my own life.

Some records may indicate that by the second century A.D., the great missional church in Antioch may have celebrated the Feast of the Nativity on December 25.  Constantine made Christmas official and the council of Tours noted Advent in 567 A.D.

Advent is the beginning of the Liturgical Calendar, which leads Christians through the story of Christ and his Church. The four weeks prior to Christmas are spent imagining what it must have felt like to be a Jew, waiting for Messiah to come.  The lectionary contains readings from the Psalms, prophets, gospels and Revelation.  By identifying with what it felt like to wait on the first coming of Christ, we deepen our desire for his return.

Advent traditions you may be familiar with include candles, wreathes, colors and calendars.  You begin greening up the place, placing wreathes and other greeneries in the church to symbolize new life (beautifully ironic in the dead of winter,) and draping the cross in blue.  The Advent wreath includes five candles, often four in blue and one in white.  The first candle is lit on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which is spent focusing on Hope.  Subsequent Sundays might be spent on other gospel stories like John the Baptist of the angel appearing to Mary.  Some families use a calendar that has a reading for every day of the month and a piece of chocolate.

The beauty in Advent is that it is a very visceral reminder of the importance of waiting. As calendar teaches children the value of delayed gratification it reminds me that God is not finished, with me or this world.  There is much in store; in the mean time we must learn to wait, and wait well.