Discovering Christ in Christmas
by Brayden King
Brayden King is a 3rd year Biblical Studies student. He also serves on StuCo as the Spiritual Life Committee chair.
Coming from a non-Christian family, Christmas often looked more like a shopping spree than a gathering of the people of God. Though I was often with family, my desire was more often to see what expensive gifts I would find under the tree rather than the people I was sharing these gifts with. If someone were to have asked me what the Christmas season was about or why we celebrated it, I wouldn’t have been able to give them an answer. I find this one of the biggest lies our culture tells us today: that somehow the material possessions we accrue over the years will satisfy our souls and quench that thirst for something more. But it never did.
Even as a young child, I found that each Christmas I desired more: more gifts, more candy, more food. There was no satiating the need for more than whatever life gave me. Even worse, someone decided to attach this endless desire to moral upbringing! I knew that if I was not “good” for my parents, I would surely receive fewer treats in my stocking. But soon it became just that, a morality based purely on taking, only doing good because I knew I would receive good in return. Devoid of faith, of Jesus, this is all Christmas could truly amount to for me.
But now I am here, wrapped in the arms of the Father and part of the family of God. How much greater is this, now that I see the Christ in Christmas! Jesus makes this season so much more meaningful than any monetary gift could. He gave us the greatest gift, his blood, that we may be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven.
More than receiving, for I have received all that I need, I can give wholeheartedly with a love that comes from the Father. More than doing good to gain, I can do good because of the Holy Spirit inside me changing my every desire into the form of Christ’s character. More than a season of waiting for gifts under the tree, it is a season of waiting for the Lord, for his blessed return and subsequent glory shining upon us. If there is anything I am excited about this season, any tradition I hope to pursue and pass down to my children, it is Advent: the season of waiting. How much joy do we have, that though we wait in the present suffering, we do so in the greatest hope of Jesus’ return? I thank God every day for this great grace, that our hopeful waiting is not done in vain. Praise Him, from whom all blessings flow.