Radical Christmas

Trailing behind its more glamorous, more popular twin…

…After most of the western world has already moved on with life…

…Curbs lined up with stripped down, unadorned, waste pile ready trees…

…Crumpled up wrappers and empty boxes filling the garbage cans…

… The healthier, more organized, more fit New Year’s resolutions in full swing…

…comes Orthodox Christmas.

If one didn’t know they came from the same playbook, it would be easy to conclude it was two completely different holidays celebrating birthdays of two completely different persons in two very different styles.

Whether it’s cultural or personal, we each gravitate towards one or another.

Some find the energy and pageantry of one exhilarating others exhausting.

For some the soft-spoken unobtrusiveness of the other is boring and so-last-century, while others feel it's refreshing and restful.

Clearly each of us sees Jesus through our own lens, welcoming the aspects that suit our taste and preference, while if not shunning then simply (or barely?) tolerating the rest. 

Some of us can turn this into an argument, or even a war of words.

The US Jesus vs. the THEM Jesus.

Jesus for the shallow and superficial and Jesus for the deep.

We pigeon-hole Jesus for ...Catholics, protestants, sinners, saints, prodigals, hypocrites, missionaries, atheists, married, single, divorced, with and without kids, with and without dogs, cats, guinea pigs, iguanas... homeschooling, public schooling, fat, skinny, black, white, gay, straight, artists, engineers,  in shape, out of shape, democrats, republicans, independents, organized, scatterbrained, healthy, sick, American, Russian, Greek, ... 

But, whatever our label, whatever our fascination, whatever our pet obsession, it's not so much that we get to pick 'our' Jesus, but that there is room, ample room for all of us – the us and the them - inside Him. 

Now, that's the kind of radical Christmas the world might be still waiting to celebrate...

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. John 1:12-13