Don’t Be a Grinch
“Christmas is so commercialized nowadays.”
“Everyone is so materialistic, all they care about is getting presents.”
“Christmas is starting earlier and earlier each year. Can’t we at least wait until Thanksgiving?”
If you have found yourself saying these words recently, you might be a Grinch. “But I’m a Christian!” you protest. Yes, some of the worst Grinches are Christians.
Grinches Vs. Scrooges
Grinches and Scrooges are not the same thing. Scrooges take issue with the special mercy and charity that the Christmas season asks us to bestow upon others. When Christmas calls us to help the poor, a Scrooge cries, “Bah! Humbug!” and insists that the poor should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Grinches, on the other hand, resent the decorations, presents, feasting, music, and general hullabaloo of the Christmas season as too extravagant, garish, and wasteful. In Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch scoffs at the celebrations of the residents of Whoville and thinks that if he steals away all of their presents and decorations, he will show what a big farce the whole thing is. Yet to his surprise, the town still gathers to sing and celebrate, even without their material possessions, causing his heart to triple in size.
What the Grinch misses is that the elaborate celebrations of Christmas aren’t in competition with the Incarnation. They are an outworking of it.
Christmas Changes Everything
Christmas is the one time of the year when everything changes. There are not only Christmas movies, but there are Christmas comedy movies, Christmas romance movies, and Christmas action movies. There’s not only Christmas food, but there are Christmas meats, Christmas breads, and Christmas cookies. There are not only Christmas clothes, but there are Christmas sweaters, Christmas ties, and Christmas socks. All of the normal stuff of life is inescapably subject to Christmas’ transforming influence.
What do we celebrate at Christmas if not that Jesus entered into our world to transform it? To transform not just the nation of Israel but all nations. And not just part of our lives, but every aspect of our lives, right down to the socks on our feet.
The Incarnation didn’t just happen 2000 years ago. In a miraculous way, it happens again every year. Christ didn’t just come to inhabit ancient Israel. He’s coming to inhabit our culture, right here, right now, in a physical, tangible, embodied way. Not some other culture where Starbucks and Amazon don’t exist. He even comes for ours.
Is our ugly and commercialized world worthy of this? Worthy of Jesus humbling himself and entering into it? Nope. But that’s kind of the point.
Our Longing for Transformation
As for why Christmas gets started earlier and earlier every year? The Grinch answer is that corporations want to start selling Christmas stuff earlier so that they can make more money. But maybe, just maybe, it’s because our world is desperately longing to escape the flat, drudgy materialism that pervades it. Longing for transformation. For re-enchantment. And somewhere deep down, longing for the coming of the One who will, one day, totally and utterly transform our world for good.
*For this article, I am deeply indebted to a wonderful essay (“On Grinches”) written by Joshua Gibbs found in his book The 25th: New and Selected Christmas Essays.
