Christmas is drawers full of holiday tea your coworker got you and a pizzelle maker heating up slowly and While You Were Sleeping queued up and the Advent candle lit in the middle of the week because why not?!? We’re ALMOST THERE!!
I remember as a tiny intense evangelical kid getting very worked up when people said the meaning of Christmas was generosity, or kindness, or “the singing of a street corner choir.” NO! I insisted! The meaning of Christmas was JESUS, not these foolish secular things like “being nice” and “hot chocolate”! Outrageous! The Gospel is being reduced to secular frivolity! (I was a lot of fun at parties when I was sixteen).
I mean, yes, the Gospel can’t be reduced to being kind, living more generously, and being very cozy and grateful. The big redemption story MATTERS, so much! The big Advent magic of myth into fact, God into human, the thrill of hope when a weary world rejoices! So holy and so full of salvific power for the ends of the earth!
But what we miss when we don’t see common grace everywhere.
These very small moments are so holy. The lights on the tree are so soft. Mariah Carey hasn’t driven me crazy yet and I am singing along because what a fun song to BELT!!! Long hugs with our most dearly beloveds. Very fuzzy blankets. One candle lit as the night comes. Getting the giggles with a group of people you love and trust. That best Christmas movie.
There is so much common grace in fun and cozy and silliness and yummy and safety and all these “secular” Christmas celebrations. In all these moments, we can stop and say under our breath: “this is holy.”
The Christmas season celebrates when God was a person. This isn’t the time to be dismissive all the small, holy things that make being a person so lovely and so good. God is not scornful of these small things - He made them, and they give Him joy.
Jesus came to redeem our small human lives - in His own small human life, filled with its own small joys and silliness and comforts.
So many blessings on all your common grace joys these last few days of Advent. Prayers for grace to notice them, and to hear God call them holy.