Christ-Mass Time / Holi-Days (In an Image-Based Culture)

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[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!! These are our nation’s two most often used Christmas greetings. I have often thrown these greetings around to almost everyone during this season, yet what am I really saying?

Due to our rampant image-based culture, the emphasis on words and rhetoric is all but gone. The metamorphosis of our society from a typographical-based culture to an image-based culture (Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death) has greatly affected how we use language and our understanding of it. Due to these effects, we cannot expect many people, or ourselves to fully understand the meanings of words and what we’re saying by them, as we used to. This requires work on our part to educate ourselves and return to the less popular typographical and word based age.

But an Image-Based Culture Can Be a Good Thing… right?

Due predominantly to technology, the prevalence of images has skyrocketed, as has our inclination towards them. For example, when you are on a website, are you more likely to read an article or watch a video? Our tendency towards images is in juxtaposition to the old out-dated typographical-based culture; when the emphasis on reading was dominant. Today, reading something takes far too long, especially when we can just watch a video. Words have now become associated with images, rather than definitions. This drastically changes conversations, meanings, and how those meanings are received or translated by the other communicator. Rather than a word meaning its definition; a word comes with a whole plethora of images. One thing that can be positive about images, is that they are powerful and Jesus understood that, evidenced by His choice to use the most gruesome image and way to die in that time. The image of the cross is to remind us of how gruesome our own sin is and God’s willingness to become sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). Having said that, think of the words or phrases that trigger an image in your mind. When I say “American Dream”, you no doubt have images flying through your brain of what that looks like to you. When I say, “The Church”, you instantly recall good and/or bad experiences that are connected to images. If I say, “Marriage”, that will yield some of the most varying images imaginable. Our experiences always factor in to how we define words and therefore, the image we draw from that is vastly different from someone else.

Wait! I Thought This Blog Was About Christmas…

Having clarified the implications of our image-based culture, what does that mean for us as Christians at Christmas time? Well, it simply means that within one day of wishing people “Merry Christmas”, whether to those in the church or outside of it, you will get vastly different interpretations, and the images people draw from your kind greeting will be about as different as Jesus is from Santa. Some may have an image of family time and food, others of rest, others of stuff and presents, still others of loneliness and depression, and hopefully, many will draw an image of Jesus, “wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). As stated in bold, people’s past experiences will dictate their experience in the present and in this case, their interpretation of “Merry Christmas”. I hope I am being clear here, because this should lead us to live on mission. Make your experience with Christmas, that of Jesus Christ!! By understanding how our image-based culture greatly changes people’s view of Christmas, let our own experience with the person of Jesus Christ fuel us to live on mission and testify about the reality of CHRISTmas and what it means for us as believers. “For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

The apostle Paul makes it clear in Philippians that he wants to experience Christ…

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. -Philippians 3:8-11

Given how much Paul had already experienced Christ, his desire to encounter him more is gnarly. We know that what he had encountered of Jesus already led him to say, in regards to the church’s concerns for him, “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:11-12). Paul’s experience with Jesus led him to being content. Now that is a message we need at Christmas! John Piper said, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” This beautiful truth makes gifts a fun add-on but nothing on Jesus, so regardless of what material items we get or don’t get over Christmas, we are content, because we experience Jesus.

How Do We Experience Christ?

Experiencing Christ has everything to do about what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, which is why he came to earth, which is why we celebrate Christmas! Let’s return to my first, forgotten question. –> When I throw around the greetings, “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays”, what am I really saying and how do we view that in light of experiencing Christ? Well, the word Christmas is literally, Christ Mass, or Christ’s Mass, and it is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Let’s break it down more. Mass is defined as “the celebration of the eucharist”. Well, what’s a eucharist? The Eucharist is a “Christian ceremony commemorating the Last Supper, in which bread and wine are consecrated and consumed.” So Christmas is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ, which is essentially a celebration of the eucharist, which is a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross. So when we celebrate Christmas, we are celebrating his birth and his death. This is evidenced by Luke 2:11: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” He was born to be our Savior. He is our Savior because He died for us. We experience Him through the Holy Spirit because He tore the veil (Luke 23:45) by dying for us, enabling us to have a relationship with Him. We are content in Him, regardless of gifts, “whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:12) because He said, “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9). We are enabled to experience Jesus because He came to earth, took the weight of our sin and rebellion and “having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). The pastor of the church where I attend, put it this way: “Think about Santa, as he keeps a list of everyone who’s naughty and nice. Think about Jesus, as he nailed the list of our naughtiness to the cross.”

Wow. That was a beautiful mouthful! This Christmas, I pray that we enjoy Jesus and the gift of God to “give his one and only Son” so “that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). So as you go through this CHRISTmas season, enjoy the Holidays, for the word holiday derives from the notion of “Holy Day”. And because of Christ and what He has done, these are the Holy Days and we remember the Holy One, who “humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).