Christmas Done Right

By Rev. George Borghardt

I love Christmas. I’ve always loved it. I inherited that love from my father. When I was in sixth grade, I came home to find my dad sitting and listening to Christmas music with the tree up. It was strange because it was the middle of the summer!

I’ve always looked forward to Christmas year round. The saddest part of the day for me, though, was Christmas afternoon. After the presents were opened, family dinner was eaten, and the tree was by the curb, I realized the next Christmas was another 365 days away! I still loved Christmas even after I fell away from the faith in high school. The colors, the stories, the myths, and the family traditions—I loved them all!

Only after I became Lutheran in college did I learn to appreciate any deeper meaning of Christmas. The songs, the carols, and the symbols all pointed to the greatest kneedropping truth of the universe: God was born on Christmas for me. Unto us—for me—a child was born. For me a Son was given (Isaiah 9:6). The Virgin conceived and bore a Son and His name was Immanuel, God with us. God for me! My Roman Catholic upbringing taught me that Mary was a virgin and that Christ was God. But the Gospel that God was born FOR ME to die on a cross for my sins? I had never heard that before!

The Gospel that God is FOR ME showed me how wrong I was about the entire business of Christmas! My timing was all off! I was doing holidays like the world does holidays. They bounce from one holiday to the next. In the fall, the Halloween decorations come out, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas and the New Year, then President’s Day, then Valentine’s Day, then Easter, then Memorial Day, then July 4th, then Labor Day, then start over again. Holidays are about a day or two off of work or school; we decorate, visit family, eat, repeat. That’s the world’s way.

I was putting the cart before the horse just like the world does! What I thought was the Christmas season was really a season called “Advent.” I also had thought the Christmas season ended on Christmas Day, when it really is just beginning then! What great news! Christmas isn’t just a day that ends after presents are opened and dinner is eaten, but a whole a 12-day season just like the song says! Amazing!

Advent, from the Latin word adventus (He comes), is the season which begins four Sundays before Christmas and continues until Christmas Day. Advent is not Christmas, it’s the pre-game of Christmas. It’s the Lord’s getting us ready for Christmas! Consider this! The world’s “Christmas” isn’t even Christmas at all! The world is done with Christmas when the Church is just getting started with it!

“The Lord is coming.” That’s the theme of Advent! Jesus is coming in the manger on Christmas. He’s coming again to judge the living and the dead. He’s coming in His Gifts: the Word, the water, and His Body and Blood. All for you and for me.

Advent is a preparatory season. Like Lent, the traditional color is penitential violet. The Lord is preparing us for His coming by straightening up our lives, by repenting us. The mountains of pride and arrogance in our lives He lays low. The valleys of our sins—the evils we do daily and much—He fills with repentance and faith. He adds to our life more devotion. He bids us to be watchful and to fast in preparation for the arrival of the Savior of the world on Christmas. Advent is a watchful season of hopeful expectation.

Advent prepares us for the big deal: Christmas! Christmas isn’t the end of the celebration, it’s the beginning! It’s the Mass of Christ! Christmas is the Divine Service where we celebrate the incarnation, the becoming flesh, of God. God has taken on all that we are, to redeem all that we are, so that we would receive all that He is by faith alone. Jesus is God with us, God for us, God one of us! In the manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, God is born to save His people from all their sins.

Keeping Christ as the center of Christmas means keeping the “Mass” in Christmas. You’ll only find this ornament, this “Mass,” in the Church! The One who was born for us, who took on our flesh, gives His Body and Blood for us to eat and drink. The Divine Service is the delivery of Christmas to you. The Lord’s Supper is the delivery of Jesus’ Christmas FOR YOU.

On the sixth day of Christmas, New Year’s Eve, we learn how much God is for us. He receives the name Jesus, which means “the Lord saves.” On New Year’s Day, He first sheds His blood for us at His circumcision. We also learn of suffering and pain in the 12 days of Christmas. The day after Christmas, we hear about the Church’s first martyr, St. Stephen. He confesses and dies for His faith. The world hated Stephen because it hated Jesus first. We who are in Christ can expect the world to move on from us as well. The Lord reminds us of this on the Feast of Holy Innocents, December 28th, when the false King Herod destroys all the little babies of Bethlehem. Jesus has to flee Bethlehem to save us.

What joy! Christmas isn’t just a day. It’s 12 days! It takes 12 days to unpack all that the Lord’s birth means for you! The Christmas season begins on Christmas Day and lasts until the Epiphany of our Lord when the wise men arrive on January 6th. Twelve days to sing carols, to wish people a Merry Christmas, to sit in front of your Christmas tree, and to keep your decorations out. Twelve days to celebrate that our Lord was born to die, to save us!

I love Advent and Christmas! I love them more today than I ever did when I was a child. Now, before I can get sad that Christmas is over, the wise men show me how this Baby is even for us Gentiles. I live season to season with my eyes fixed on Jesus. You might consider doing the same! Start with Advent. Let the Lord unpack the gift. Let Him prepare you for Christmas and the coming of His Son. What’s after that? Epiphany, then Pre-Lent, Lent, Holy Week, and Easter! These aren’t just days to bounce through, but whole seasons which tell us more about Jesus and how He is FOR US. Each season is its own unique delivery of the Lord’s salvation to you. Each is its own present!

But first, Advent. The Lord is coming! Make ready! Repent! May the Lord grant you a watchful Advent as He prepares you for His coming to you on Christmas!

Rev. George F. Borghardt is the pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Bossier City, Louisiana and serves as the President of Higher Things.