It has been the
call for many years that materialism has taken over the festive season. The
ring of the church bells has been echoed by the rings of shop tills – or it did
until shopping on the internet took over.
The definition
of a ‘good Christmas’ for many people is determined by how much is spent, in
gifts, food and drink. There are countless tales of people who have experienced
financial difficulties after Christmas because they have overstretched themselves,
as their expenditure exceeded their income and savings.
From my
earliest memory, at the Christmas church services, the children were always
encouraged to bring their gifts to the front of the congregation and display
them in some way. In our house, we were encouraged to open one present before
we went to church so that we could have something to show.
However, as the
years have rolled on, the seed of doubt about the way that we have treated the
season has grown so that I am now uncomfortable about how the spirit of
materialism has managed to ingrain itself into the Christian celebrations. Somehow,
we have ingrained our consciences so that we perceive that event is all about us
rather than the Christ child, who He is and what He came to do. The hewn manger
leads up the dusty road to a cruel cross, where sin was dealt which included
the individual sins of pride, greed, selfishness, covetousness and uncaring.
Part of this
realisation came about when I walked past an unopened package and thought that
I had been given this present for my birthday and still had not used it. It is
symptomatic of the disease of the West where we do not need for anything and
our wants can become fleeting shadows – what we thought that we desired and
only found out that it was fuelled by an illusion.
We have become extravagant
in our materialism and yet so contradictory. There was applause for the outcome
at the recent climate change conference in Poland (however limited the actual
resolutions were in reality), yet there are many houses in the United Kingdom
that are covered with decorations on the outside that can only be
environmentally unfriendly. Modern western society sees the festive time as a
matter of excess, as illustrated in the overload of food (in the United
Kingdom, it is estimated that at least £3 million worth of cheese will be
thrown away). There will also be the consumption of much alcohol, where getting
drunk is considered as part of the social norm.
It is the time of the year where it is considered to be respectable to
waste the earth’s resources, which were given by God in the first instance. It
did cause me to consider that I do not want lights outside (where it is an
auspicious display), but that I want the Light of God to shine brightly within.
Somehow, we
have managed to construe a situation where we impoverish many as they seek to
have the ‘perfect Christmas’ Erica Sweeney has encapsulated the situation in
these words:
‘For many, the
pressure to spend on holiday gifts can lead to overspending or even debt. Last
year, Americans spent an average of just over $800 on holiday gifts. According
to Discovery’s 2018 holiday shopping survey, a quarter of people are planning
to spend more this year, with 38 per cent using credit cards to pay for most of
their holiday gifts.’
In a 2017
SunTrust Banks survey on holiday spending, almost 70 per cent of respondents
stated that they would stop exchanging gifts if their family and friends were
agreeable, and 60 per cent thought that they would spend more time with family
and friends if they were not so preoccupied with the gifts. The same survey
revealed that almost a half of the respondents were feeling the pressure to
spend more than they could afford.
Although many
people worship something on 25th December, it may not be the Son of
God who came down to be a man. They could easily echo the words of Charlie
Brown (a character who could be the subject of a thousand psychologist’s
dissertations) to his friend Linus (in ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’): ‘Christmas
is here but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel. I just
don’t understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending
Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I’m not happy. I always
end up feeling depressed.’
It will be costlier,
maybe not necessary in material terms, but in the things that really matter
like time and reputation. It will be contrary to the ‘cultural Christianity’
that is so prevalent and is not expected to have an impact on the rest of a
person’s life. This veneer of the true thing leaves the baby in the manger and
does not want Him to grow up to show His mission in glorifying God by redeeming
people.
We are
developing adults and children with a grasping attitude, it is as though
Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ has modern day
adherents who need to be reminded of the lessons that the character learned the
hard way. It appears that ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want’ are very much alive and much
of the western world are blocking their ears so that they cannot hear them. The
words of Randy Acorn are true: ‘With no vision for the joy of giving and of
investing in eternity, they can’t see that God’s purpose for prospering them is
not so that they can live in luxury, but so that they can help others, support
their churches, aid the poor, and reach the lost with the gospel.’
It is
indicative of our culture that we become so self-centred. There is the reminder
in the film ‘Chariots of Fire’ where Eric Liddle the Olympian champion remarks:
‘I believe God made me for a purpose…and when I run, I feel His pleasure.’ We
are so gorged with filling up on our own delights that we can barely waddle to
help others, let alone run. In fact, Eric Liddle gave up the glory that he
could had as a champion to serve as a missionary and die in a Japanese
concentration camp in China, serving people made in the image of God to the
end.
There is no
better time that in this season we seek the welfare of others. We have
volunteered to help those who were lonely on Christmas Day and sought to walk
alongside those who are older. Others have served those people who are
homeless. It epitomises the attitude of the One whose arrival on earth we
celebrate (Matthew 25: 31 – 46). Jesus too held lightly to the material things
of this world: ‘Foxes have holes and the birds of the earth, but the Son of Man
has nowhere to lay His head.’ (Matthew 8: 20)
We were made by
God to be reach out to others in acts of altruistic generosity. When we fail to
do that, it has been shown that selfishness has a reciprocal relationship with
loneliness. It is in looking up to see others that we have a broader outlook –
far wider than any present of a drone could possibly give us. It has also been
proved that serving others leads to the server having a greater sense of
meaning and purpose.
It is reflected
in the nativity narrative where the emphasis is on the giving. The shepherds
gave their worship, the magi their gifts and, more importantly, Christ gave of
Himself.
In going back
to the church services, children could be asked instead of ‘What present did
you receive?’, the question could be ‘What have you given?’ It is a more
challenging question, which will impact them for the whole of their years and
not just on a day in December.
Andrew Drury is
the author of ‘Christmas: How the Gift was given’ (published by Day One),
available on Amazon
Sources;
Randy Alcorn, ‘Raising
our children to be givers in a culture infected by affluenza, www.epm.org/blog,
14 December 2018
John T
Cacioppo, His Yuan Chen, Stephanie Cacioppo, ‘Reciprocal Influences between
loneliness and self-centredness: A cross-lagged panel analysis in a population-based
sample of African, American, Hispanic, and Caucasian Adults,’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
13 June 2017
‘Kindness
Health Facts’ (www.randomactsofkindness.org)
– kindness increases: oxytocin (the love hormone), energy, happiness, lifespan,
pleasure and serotonin; whilst reducing pain, stress, anxiety, depression and
blood pressure.
Jerf W K Yeung,
Zhuoni Ahang and Tae Yeun Kim, ‘Volunteering and health benefits in general
adults: cumulative effects and forms,’ BMC
Public Health, 2018, volume 18 issue 8
John Elliott, ‘The
Joys of Not Gifting at Christmas,’ Intellectual
Takeaway, 11 December 2018
Erica Sweeney, ‘The
case against giving holiday gifts,’ https://medium.com,
10 December 2018
Comments