Going out and about right now—meaning the weeks leading up to Christmas—the velocity of activity to prepare for the holiday seems to accelerate. People are driving more aggressively. The advertisements in the media feel more relentless than usual.  The effort to create a festive atmosphere is pronounced. Light shows and sales, wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukah—or Kwanzaa, the pulse of commerce and the sentiments for mutual kindness; all focus on the progress of the “holiday season.” Christians are in the middle of it and our churches are attempting to focus on the traditional, and the biblical, dimensions of the season. The biblical dimension is more or less intact. Meaning that what the Bible has to say regarding the birth of Christ hasn’t changed, at least not for those Christians who still accept the authority of God’s word. It’s the traditions associated with Christmas that are more fluid. The activities that are attached to the season vary from place to place and are informed by both the Bible and the culture in which Christmas is being celebrated. In a country as big and diverse as the United States, the traditions associated with Christmas vary among the diverse communities within our country. And if the community is relatively new to the country the celebrations reflect more of their homeland’s features and less of the impact of Americanization. This was the case when I attended a Christmas gathering in a Polish community in Chicago. There was a play presented that reflected a Christmas theme. The only problem for me was that it was conducted in the Polish language. Even so it was still festive and very touching.

However for most of us the influence of American culture on our community’s celebration of Christmas is evident and pronounced. One obvious impact is the commercialization of Christmas. The focus on the giving and receiving of gifts is front and center in our country and discussion on this topic has gone on for decades. Our modern America thrives on commerce and the tradition of gift giving at Christmas is pivotal to that commerce. During the early phases of the pandemic, when people weren’t able to gather at Christmas, the impact was clear. Many businesses are dependent on the Christmas season to keep their enterprises afloat and when the tradition of gift giving was curtailed during the holidays the impact became dire for many of those enterprises. This facet of our culture continues to influence the traditions surrounding our celebration of Christmas. Specifically the advertisements promoting commerce during the holidays work to enhance the impact of gift giving. In keeping with the profit motive commercial advertising links the price of the gift with its value; the more expensive the gift the better it is; that just makes sense for business. The question is, Does it make sense for Christmas?

For Christians questions arise concerning how to practice their faith during this season. If you’re not a church-goer but continue to identify yourself as a Christian, the influence of culture on your Christmas celebration is probably not an issue. You may go to church at Christmas just to stay connected to your Christian heritage, but the extent to which the culture impacts your celebration of the holiday is not really a problem. For evangelicals who are invested in the practice of their faith, it’s more of a dilemma. How much is too much or not enough? Whether we’re talking about attending Christmas church services, gift-giving, watching sports on the television, eating special meals…whatever; the question remains, How should we properly celebrate the holiday?

A specific answer to that question is elusive, and I don’t think it’s the question that needs to be asked. What is more to the point is to consider where our practice of the faith fits into our lives as a whole. Is our faith in Christ and the practice of our faith through affiliation with a church, something that balances our involvement in other activities? Or is it central to the way we do life? The answer to that question is going to affect how we celebrate a holiday, how we spend our money, and how we use our time. It seems to be the case that too often “conversion” to Christianity is reduced to a way of avoiding hell. Even for evangelicals the impact of repentance can focus on the reassurance that when we die we won’t be condemned. That’s wonderful news, and it’s true, but it’s only an introduction. What I mean is: the Bible has a whole lot more to say about salvation. Failing to recognize that renders this diminished version of the Gospel incomplete. The apostle Paul illustrates my point when he said:

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:7-14)

That’s an amazing statement when we consider where and when the apostle wrote this letter. It had been 25 or 30 years since his Damascus road experience when God confronted him in a very dramatic way, verifying the resurrection, and then calling him to reach out to the Gentiles with the truth regarding Jesus. (Acts 9) Since then he had engaged in two missionary journeys, experienced the Lord’s supernatural deliverance from prison, saw people rise from the dead after he had prayed for them, and had a host of other experiences in which the Lord revealed Himself in very dramatic ways. (2 Corinthians 12:2) And when he wrote this letter to the Philippians he was sitting in a Roman prison waiting for his case to be presented to one of the most powerful men on earth: the Emperor of Rome. All of this and yet he says he is pressing on to know the Lord!

What hinders us from following after the Lord as Paul did? When I ask this I’m not talking about becoming a missionary like Paul. He was called to that service whereas our missionary activity is usually engaged in the testimony we present to those around us: at work, at school, at the grocery store. What I’m talking about is, What hinders us from pressing forward to know the Lord in the manner that Paul did? I would say it comes down to two things: either we don’t know any better, or we don’t want to pay the price. The reason we don’t know any better is we don’t study the scriptures. Christians in other places may not have access to the Bible; they come to the faith hearing excerpts from the Bible but they don’t have the means of studying it in depth. But in America we have ready access to the Bible and I’ve been emphasizing our need to study it in order to progress in the faith. However studying the Bible presents a dilemma because the Bible prompts us to hear and respond to what it says, and that often requires sacrifice. Notice what Paul says at the beginning of the above excerpt.  He starts out by saying that the things that he regarded as “gain” prior to his encounter with the Lord he now regarded as loss. Meaning that what he used to think was valuable he now regards as “rubbish” because his values have been dramatically altered. Primarily his recognition that righteousness before God comes through faith in the Christ has rendered his previous benefits derived from keeping the law to be of no value at all. But that blessed gift comes with a qualification. Paul’s goal is to know Christ Jesus, the one who has provided this righteousness; but really knowing Him involves something else: “the fellowship of His sufferings” and conformity “to His death” in order to be “perfect,” meaning Christ-like in every way possible. He’s not there yet but he’s pressing on.

That’s the challenge for us all: to follow after Jesus at all costs. To give up what we used to value in this life and shift our focus to the Lord’s agenda, letting Him inform every aspect of our lives. This is the journey He has set before us. But this journey requires us to take risks and experience discomfort, to let Him inform how we go about doing life. And the effort often goes against the grain of what American culture emphasizes. The result is that American Christians are faced with the dilemma of choosing what is of greatest value to them: either this life or the life to come. It’s sort of like climbing a mountain. When climbers are trying to scale a really big mountain like Everest they have to do it in stages. Before they attempt to get to the top of the mountain they have to get far enough up so they can reach the summit and get back down in a day. Once they get to that point they set up camp—they call it base camp—and rest in order to regain the strength they’ve expended getting that far. Then when the conditions are right they make an assault on the summit. In the same way people who’ve come to the faith are challenged to press on toward the “upward call of Christ Jesus” but they often don’t choose to do that. They become comfortable in their Christian surroundings: their Church, their Christian friends, their Christian schools; but they don’t press on to know the Lord and become increasingly familiar with Him. It’s like a mountaineer getting as far as base camp, and choosing to remain where they’re comfortable rather than taking the risks and suffering the discomfort of climbing to the summit. To do so is to miss out on the opportunity to really know the Lord and experience the dynamic nature of the Christian walk that He’s made available to us all.