CHRISTMAS FUTURE

Christmas. I don't think much of shopping, or presents, or all the hoopla centered around our present day version of commercial Christmas. Christmas helps me to think about a turning away from buying things; turning away from Herod, Caesar, Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, the Pharisees, purveyors of doom and lost hope, toward a new King. Born not in a grand hotel, but in a dirty, filthy stable; born not to rich parents, but to lower class citizens; born not to enslave people and make them work 60 hours per weeks, but to free them; born not to limit possibilities, but to increase them; born not to make the rich richer, but to praise the poor; born not to withhold health-care, but to make it available to everyone; born not to allow people to go to bed hungry at night, which one in four children do in Arkansas, but to demonstrate God's abundance to feed everyone; born not to praise government with senseless slogans and flags, but to confront a government and its leaders who have lost their way and are no longer responsive to its citizens needs and well being. Christmas is a time of change. It is really the biggest change that the world has ever seen. Nothing was the same after that first Christmas. There was a new King, not fancily dressed or living in a huge house, but one living on the street, feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, healing them, giving them hope. I like to remember Christ at Christmas, not all the fancy renderings. He was the greatest revolutionary to have ever emerged, demonstrating the power of a people who need to believe in themselves, but more importantly, believe in the power and guidance of God's abundant goodwill. So this Christmas, and the next, and the next, make sure we don't make it about buying things, but about changing things.