Blue Christmas

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00:00:00:16 – 00:00:33:32
Michael Gewecke
Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Pastor Talk podcast. It is good to spend some time with you today as we explore a December topic. It is Christmas season as we are recording this more technically Advent season. And you know, some churches in the middle of Christmas have begun having a service sometimes called a blue Christmas service, sometimes a worship service somewhat dedicated to being present with and explicit for people who are going through difficult times.

00:00:33:32 – 00:00:57:05
Michael Gewecke
Of course, we know that life doesn’t stop in the Christmas season, and though our culture is full of these things like happiness and merriment and joy and all of these sort of popular kind of feel good sayings that life still happens and people still suffer loss and difficulty and grief and pain. And so there could be a real disconnect there this time of year.

00:00:57:05 – 00:01:24:57
Michael Gewecke
And some churches have the spent time and attention, tried to have worship services that sort of speak to that and honor that experience. And Clint, leading up to this discussion, we were talking a little bit about what we might want to talk about with you this week. And, you know, the conversation that came to me was, you know, I think it might help us all to be reminded of how we get to Christmas as we now celebrate it culturally.

00:01:24:57 – 00:02:07:35
Michael Gewecke
I think that that really does matter. And I think especially if you’re joining us this season or any season in the future, and this is for you a time where everyone around you is talking about being merry and bright and your life feels dark and may be quiet, then this is an opportunity for you to be reminded that the Christmas story, as the Bible gives it to us, the Christian Christmas story is for you, and we’re going to land on that as we move forward in this conversation and stick around, because I think it’s important that we remember that Christmas isn’t all of the trappings, that Christmas is a real story of God breaking into

00:02:07:35 – 00:02:12:15
Michael Gewecke
the world, and that is for you, regardless of how you’re experiencing Christmas this year.

00:02:12:19 – 00:02:42:48
Clint Loveall
I think it’s amazing when you stop and think, Michael, in our culture, it’s just amazing how big Christmas is and and what it represents. And so if you if you don’t fit that that mold of what we’ve kind of defined as the perfect Christmas, right? If you don’t have children or if you don’t have children at home or if you don’t get to travel to be home, or if you’ve lost somebody, the idea that you don’t fit into the kind of Christmas mold.

00:02:42:48 – 00:03:11:31
Clint Loveall
And I think that’s an important thing to think about. But I think, as you said, to back up and say, well, how did we get here? How did we get such expectations? How did we get such weight on this day that we supposedly celebrate the birth of Jesus, but also all of the stuff that goes with it? And you and I have joked through the years you love most everything about Christmas.

00:03:11:36 – 00:03:40:57
Clint Loveall
I’m a little more skeptical about a lot of Christmas. I do love Christmas, or at least the idea of Christmas, but so much of what goes with it, I sometimes feel I feel kind of challenged by and sometimes overwhelmed by. And sometimes I’m not the biggest fan of all the different aspects of Christmas. And so I recently did some reading a book that kind of traced the history of Christmas specifically through the lens of opposition to Christmas.

00:03:41:02 – 00:04:15:54
Clint Loveall
And you may know this, but for centuries the Christian church didn’t have Christmas. Christmas was not a thing in the early church. There was no recognition. I mean, part of that may be obvious to you because there’s nowhere in the Scripture that it tells us when Jesus was born. But over time, the idea developed of celebrating the birth of Christ, and it was most often set kind of nine months from the spring when Jesus was thought to have been crucified.

00:04:15:59 – 00:04:45:10
Clint Loveall
And this tradition arose that Jesus would have been conceived and crucified and born at the same dates on the same kind of seasonal dates. And so December 25th was a popular date. As Christmas began to be celebrated in the first instances. Also, January six was an important date. December 23rd was a Christmas date for a while in some places through the years.

00:04:45:10 – 00:05:18:58
Clint Loveall
Eventually, we landed on December 25th, though, a significant portion of the church still celebrates January 6th as the more important day, but not in the Western world. That tends to be more true in the Eastern world, In the Orthodox world. I think what’s surprising, at least what surprised me was that Christmas was not particularly well-received. Significant portions of the Christian church pushed back on the idea of Christmas as either idolatrous or even blasphemous.

00:05:19:03 – 00:05:50:21
Clint Loveall
The idea that we assign to Jesus a birthday, the idea that we celebrated a birthday, the idea that we were doing something, highlighting something that wasn’t in the Bible, that we were keeping a festival that isn’t in Scripture. This was problematic for early Christians, and it took a long time for those concerns to go away. In fact, for a significant part of its early history, Christmas was downplayed by the church and it was kind of grabbed by the culture.

00:05:50:25 – 00:06:15:36
Clint Loveall
It happened during the winter solstice, so there’s a kind of large pagan celebration. So already you have a season that lent itself to wildness, to drunkenness, to kind of acting out. It’s the middle of winter, it’s dark, those kind of things in at least in significant parts of the world. And so Christmas was not particularly well thought of by Christians for a long time.

00:06:15:36 – 00:06:42:52
Clint Loveall
I mentioned this in a sermon recently in America, in Puritan America, Christmas was outlawed. The first generation to arrive on the shores of America made it illegal as best they could to celebrate Christmas. And I think that surprises people. Christmas has a far humbler origin than I think most of us imagine, given what it is now.

00:06:42:55 – 00:06:55:21
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, correct me if I’m wrong on this. I believe part of the book you’re referencing is right now, this is Christmas in the crosshairs. So if you’re interested in dialing in a little bit more on this, you might want to look into this book.

00:06:55:30 – 00:07:23:00
Clint Loveall
The only thing that that I would say as as an awareness for you, this is written by a historian. Yeah, it is very dense and it is very thorough. It is not simply America. He goes into history throughout the world. I would not call this an easy read, though. Parts of it are a very interesting read.

00:07:23:11 – 00:07:44:22
Michael Gewecke
So the reason I throw it up there is I think that title Christmas in the Crosshairs is really interesting because we currently live in this moment where people talk about this idea of the war on Christmas. I think it’s could be surprising to people to find out that in many cases the first shots in the war against Christmas came from Christians.

00:07:44:27 – 00:08:14:33
Michael Gewecke
That’s an inversion of what we think today, where you think you know that the culture is waging war on the Christian idea of Christmas, that actually at its inception, Christmas caused a lot of heartburn, a lot of concern, a lot of I mean, to use the word like heresy is a substantial claim by a Christian. And so I just it’s worth noting that Christmas is a fluid moving even in some points in time, very controversial celebration.

00:08:14:33 – 00:08:34:12
Michael Gewecke
And you don’t need to care about the history. If you’re not a reader. Don’t worry. You don’t need to read that book to enter into this conversation. But I think this one idea is so essential for us to be able to talk about this idea of having a blue Christmas. And that is to say that the Christmas that we have today is not a pure instantiated.

00:08:34:21 – 00:08:58:21
Michael Gewecke
In other words, 8071 Christians weren’t doing what we do at Christmas. And that’s an easy assumption to make, is that we’re essentially carrying on the traditions of hundreds and thousands of years. That’s not the case. And so if we can be aware that Christmas has changed and shaped, then we can also be aware of the ways in which it has been and hasn’t been faithful to the biblical account.

00:08:58:21 – 00:09:08:15
Michael Gewecke
And we can ask questions of it that may reveal to us some space in Christmas that we presently don’t celebrate as much as we might want to or need to.

00:09:08:20 – 00:09:40:40
Clint Loveall
I would go so far as to say, historically speaking, most of the efforts to silence Christmas have come from the church. It has been Christians, and not only with our fathers and mothers in the faith not recognize anything we do with Christmas. They would have significant reservations about the very idea of Christmas. And and I think, you know, it’s helpful to know that that’s not that’s not Grinch, that’s not Scrooge.

00:09:40:40 – 00:10:24:32
Clint Loveall
It’s just to say that this thing that we experience as now, right, a six week season that comprises religion and culture and characters and biblical references and songs, this thing that has grown into these enormous proportions has a fairly humble beginning and a fairly checkered history in many parts of it, at least the church’s story. And I do think that helps with some of the pressure when we feel, you know, that everything has to be just right, that we have to get the perfect gift, that we have to eat the right food, that we have to get the travel arrangements just right.

00:10:24:37 – 00:10:44:22
Clint Loveall
We we have to it helps to take a breather and realize we don’t write. The Christian church and society survived for millennia not knowing exactly what to do with Christmas. And so if we still don’t know exactly what to do with it, that that’s perfectly fine. We’re okay.

00:10:44:27 – 00:11:13:30
Michael Gewecke
I think an important point to come to as we talk about the difficult parts of Christmas is to first recognize some of the artificial good that has been injected into Christmas. And I was interested to learn, and I’d love if you would share with us a little bit about the artists and the poets and the people who took what was a rough Christmas and turned it into more of a family and sort of happy sort of season.

00:11:13:42 – 00:11:37:44
Clint Loveall
Yeah. So in the early 1800s, particular in the East, in a place like New York, Christmas was a day in which the tradition was for essentially gangs of people to roam the streets and to break into houses, to take things. There was a lot there was some violence, there was a lot of theft, there was a lot of drinking.

00:11:37:58 – 00:12:08:33
Clint Loveall
It was not considered a family holiday, really, by any by any stretch, by any reasonable definition. And there were people thinking, we need to get rid of this. Well, it coincided with a time in the early 1800s where some notable poetry, one that everyone would probably know, Twas the Night Before Christmas. Right? This is one of the early evidences of this kind of movement you have.

00:12:08:33 – 00:12:43:52
Clint Loveall
Until then, you have this idea of Saint Nick, Saint Nicholas. There are other regional Christmas figures scattered throughout the globe, but this movement, this songs, poems, stories, they really center on this term, this title and this character, Santa Claus, who who doesn’t exist in any way that we would necessarily recognize until that point. And it’s really at that point, you know, Saint Nicholas is kind of a a stoic saint thing, got kind of serious.

00:12:43:57 – 00:13:07:05
Clint Loveall
But now in the aftermath of of this movement, you get the idea of Holly Jolly, you know, his he he shook like a bowl full of jelly and his eyes sparkled and twinkled and he’s off in a flash. Even the even the language of just that poem kind of helps you see the transition that gets made. And really from then on, it’s a snowball rolling downhill.

00:13:07:10 – 00:13:39:22
Clint Loveall
Prince get made of Santa Claus, a big jolly round figure, the red, the white, the idea of gifts, the idea of coming down the chimney. A lot of this gets reinvented and popularized in a pretty short window of history. See, 20 to 30 years or so. And from then on it, Christmas changes, changes dramatically. And you begin then to see the stores getting involved, you begin to see decorations.

00:13:39:27 – 00:14:06:06
Clint Loveall
It also coincides with a time where the economy is doing pretty well, at least in America. So people have the discretionary income to buy gifts. And and that begins to happen. And so you have this one of the things that gets lost, you know, in most places, along with whatever figure it was that gave gifts, there was a figure that children were afraid of.

00:14:06:10 – 00:14:30:04
Clint Loveall
They for the naughty children. Right. They come and snatch you from your bed right there. My favorite is is named the I forget her first name. She’s called the disembowel her. And so she comes in and splits kids open who are naughty right. And removes their their intestines. And so now you have you get that reframed reframed for a family story.

00:14:30:09 – 00:14:56:24
Clint Loveall
We’re about the worst thing that happened to Santa brings you coal right? You know, so that you don’t have that punishment idea anymore. And you have the American family kind of leaning into this narrative of giving children gifts, making them happy. And it really does well for Christmas. And since then, you know, obviously the mid 1800s is long ways away.

00:14:56:29 – 00:15:34:13
Clint Loveall
But since then, Christmas has kind of been on a steady rise. There have been some bumps, There have been some regimes, the Nazis, the communists, who really, in their own way, tried to either co-opt Christmas or get rid of it completely because it had religious overtones. But really, from that point, it becomes possible to celebrate what we would call a cultural Christmas, a Christmas that isn’t entirely wrapped up with Jesus in manger and story, because now you have Santa Claus and elves and you have this alternate story that lives a little more comfortably within the American culture.

00:15:34:13 – 00:15:57:02
Clint Loveall
And I really think, at least for me, the most interesting history in the church is early in Christmas, but from a Christian cultural standpoint is kind of the last hundred years or so as Christmas has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger through the years and we’ve created this thing that now seems impossible to get a leash on.

00:15:57:07 – 00:16:25:55
Michael Gewecke
Well, and so what makes this so important and maybe this is anti intuitive to you because we told you we’re going to be talking about how Christians respond to the stuff that makes Christmas difficult. And you think, well, this a lot of history, but this is a critical turning point because so much of what we think of as our cultural celebration of Christmas is rooted and embedded in some of these merry, bright, joyful.

00:16:26:02 – 00:16:43:49
Michael Gewecke
It all works out in the end kind of themes. Like, for instance, you think of a classic Christmas movie like White Christmas. Well, even though there’s a drought at the very end, it’s going to be a white Christmas, right? There’s no snow and the movie is going to end with snow. Or you have every time a bell rings, the angel gets its way.

00:16:43:58 – 00:17:08:39
Michael Gewecke
You have these Christmas miracle stories. And these miracle stories lead to these ever increasing levels of everything works out. If you just believe, then all of the bad will will turn away and there will be light and they’ll be good at Christmas. And so what you have is you have the cultural Christmas story teaching us how Christmas is supposed to feel.

00:17:08:43 – 00:17:41:07
Michael Gewecke
This is the emotion that a true Christmas experience should elicit within you. And this may sound obvious. I hope it doesn’t sound overly elementary. I think it bears repeating and it bears reminding that that is not inherently coming from the Christian Christmas story in fact, if we’re to zoom in on the story of Christmas, what you’re going to find is a very sparse telling of Jesus’s birth.

00:17:41:07 – 00:18:03:45
Michael Gewecke
It’s only in two New Testament gospels. The stories themselves are very limited. They include a limited cast of characters of Mary and Joseph. You have shepherds and with them some angels. Of course, you have Wiseman. But as you know, Christians are off to tell they’re not included in the Christmas night story. That’s that’s a whole sort of epilog to the story.

00:18:03:45 – 00:18:35:00
Michael Gewecke
So the point being here is we made up characters that saw fit the story, things like the shopkeeper. That’s not in the Bible. We’ve made up the idea that they’re surrounded by animals, so we would like for that to maybe be true in our nativity scenes. But the Bible is not interested in these sort of trappings conversations and instead introduces us to people at some really difficult, pivotal life turning type moments.

00:18:35:00 – 00:18:47:12
Michael Gewecke
And for us to see that God is able to come into the midst of their lives and break into their world, even amidst that difficulty and struggle.

00:18:47:16 – 00:19:31:17
Clint Loveall
I think that again, one of the struggles that we’ve kind of created, Michael, is that we we chase this. I, I don’t know if you’d call it perfection. Right. But we want to get our houses just right. We we we go all in. So many people go all in for Christmas. And so if, if you’re at a point where you don’t feel particularly engaged, if life isn’t such that you’re feeling peace and joy on Earth and all of that stuff, we don’t always know what to do with it.

00:19:31:17 – 00:19:45:32
Clint Loveall
And so to to your point earlier, you know, the idea that we would need some kind of special invitation for people who might be struggling like that, we would do Christmas for them separately.

00:19:45:32 – 00:19:46:10
Michael Gewecke
Right.

00:19:46:15 – 00:20:18:29
Clint Loveall
Because there’s so much idea wrapped up in Christmas that it should be perfect and joyful. And and we all know it isn’t right, but we love we love that idea that there could be the perfect gift in the perfect moment and the perfect little window of togetherness for our family. And if you get those, obviously those are tremendous blessings and you should be deeply, deeply grateful for them.

00:20:18:34 – 00:20:52:21
Clint Loveall
But they can’t be manufactured. And so what do we do? Why did we think reading a story about a displaced poor couple bowing to the whims of the power of their day and of a bloodthirsty ruler who who kills children in the aftermath of a threat to his power? And we got from there right to all is calm, all is bright.

00:20:52:33 – 00:20:52:53
Michael Gewecke
Right?

00:20:53:07 – 00:21:05:31
Clint Loveall
And it doesn’t always leave room for everyone. The first Christmas is very messy. And if you read those stories.

00:21:05:45 – 00:21:06:36
Michael Gewecke
Right.

00:21:06:41 – 00:21:14:06
Clint Loveall
It’s all room for for people who don’t know what to do with it, because that’s the only people there are. Yeah.

00:21:14:11 – 00:21:41:11
Michael Gewecke
I think a biblical example of this and this is a small illustration, but I think it helps serve the point that just comes from the Christmas story in Luke chapter two. And you know, we have this song Joy to the World, which if you’ve ever been in a full sanctuary and you’ve heard joy to the world and you’ve got a loud instrument behind it in the congregation singing because it’s a well-known song, there’s an energy, there’s an enthusiasm, there’s a joy to it.

00:21:41:11 – 00:22:21:55
Michael Gewecke
Right? And look at Luke chapter two. Here it says very simply that the angel, the Lord stands before the shepherds glory, The Lord shines around them. The shepherds were naturally terrified. The angel says to them, Do not be afraid for See, I’m bringing you good news of great joy for all people. Isn’t it interesting that the first joy to the world was reassurance for the terror and so our lives are lived in rhythms and cycles, and there are some Christmases, and I’ve had these and I cherish them.

00:22:22:00 – 00:22:48:00
Michael Gewecke
Our moments where there’s a sense of closeness, the family, the traditions, the the meal, the music, the church, all of it comes together and it makes a beautiful memory. And when we get those, we cherish them. There are many, many moments in which our stories look far more like the biblical story than they do like the cultural Christmas story.

00:22:48:10 – 00:23:21:18
Michael Gewecke
Moments of doubt, moments of fear. We both know, and we’ve been with church people who have lost loved ones right before Christmas. I’ve been with people who Christmas is the moment in which their financial lives dropped out from under them and their job is gone and they have no clue what’s going to come next. And in those moments, that feeling of terror, the reassurance of joy to the world, there’s good news of great joy that the savior has come.

00:23:21:23 – 00:23:57:03
Michael Gewecke
That’s a radically different story than if you’ve been good all year. Then you get to get presents and you get to eat lots of food and spend time making memories, doing the same thing you did last year with your family. We have to be able to pass between these things because I think it’s ironic to me, Clint, that people would come to a Christian church and that they would feel like they would need to go to a different service that would represent their experience because the biblical story is that Jesus Christ invaded the world.

00:23:57:03 – 00:24:24:01
Michael Gewecke
God took on flesh so that God himself would know humanity to our fullest, that God would come in to the darkness, that God would bring light into the place where light was not before. And so this idea people should come to our sanctuaries every Sunday to be reminded that the good news is for them, regardless of what their experience is.

00:24:24:01 – 00:24:57:52
Michael Gewecke
And so this word is for those of you who may find Christmas to be maybe a burden, maybe Christmas is hanging over you. Maybe you’re trying to work yourself up to get to what you think Christmas should be. And I think at this point in the conversation, I would encourage you that maybe this is a good year to return to the Christmas stories of the Bible and to look into the life of Mary, for instance, who is told that her entire life is going to be disrupted.

00:24:57:57 – 00:25:20:07
Michael Gewecke
And she responds with faith. She says, let it be done. And and that may be your invitation. This Christmas is to invite God in your own life, to be open to God and say, Lord, let it be done. Well, may your will be done in my life. That’s an incredible testament of faith from a very young woman. And that is what Christmas is about.

00:25:20:07 – 00:25:44:24
Michael Gewecke
It’s about God bringing good news into dark places, God disrupting the things that we thought we knew for something even better. And we’re going to miss that if we inject a need that we’ve been given to make Christmas feel or think or act in a particular way, because we’re by definition going to be caught up in that stuff rather than what God is doing in Jesus Christ.

00:25:44:29 – 00:26:10:37
Clint Loveall
The Christmas stories, you all may know this, or basically found in two places in the Bible, Matthew and Luke, and the most commonly repeated phrase among the two versions of the story is Be not Afraid. Don’t be afraid that that’s the most common greeting to all the people of Christmas. God keeps showing up to announce this good news and people keep reacting with fear.

00:26:10:42 – 00:27:09:13
Clint Loveall
And so the reassurance of Christmas starts off being not afraid. And, you know, that’s telling because that’s the fundamental problem that Christmas seeks to solve, is fear is unsettled and this is disconnect. And as as wonderful as our cultural Christmas is, as fun as Santa Claus and stockings and lights and gifts and tinsel and all the rest, as wonderful as that stuff can be, it doesn’t mind the depths of human experience enough to be able to say to us in our moments of fear, Don’t be afraid that God is here, that God is at work, that Christ has come, that that there’s a child born to all great joy for all people.

00:27:09:18 – 00:27:37:41
Clint Loveall
And, you know, this needs to be and it needs to continue to be the foundation and the cornerstone of Christmas for Christians. Sometimes the church has fought itself over Christmas. Lately we’ve been fighting the world over Christmas a lot. And some of that’s fair. The world has co-opted a lot of our story, but if we stick to the heart of it, Christmas is a reassurance that God is at work.

00:27:37:46 – 00:28:05:36
Clint Loveall
And so if you find yourself in a Christmas season struggling with life, you’re not the first. And the idea that we need to sort of have separate experiences of Christmas for those who things are going great and for those whom for things you know aren’t going well. I understand what churches try to do with Blue Christmas. Michael and I and I, I respect it and I understand.

00:28:05:36 – 00:28:37:35
Clint Loveall
I mean, I certainly feel like I know a little something about a blue Christmas kind of season. But I think what it what it unfortunately communicates is the same thing that people feel that there’s not room for me in quote unquote real Christmas and we’re here to tell you and the scripture certainly tells you that it is exactly the opposite, that Christmas is big enough for all of our life experience.

00:28:37:35 – 00:29:02:51
Clint Loveall
And if it’s ever communicated that it isn’t from the church, then we have failed to do it well, The church has failed to communicate that, Yes, candy canes and sprinkles and all the rest. Hot chocolate, that’s all good. But sometimes there are tears and struggles and loneliness at Christmas and Christmas is about that too. In fact, that’s where it starts.

00:29:02:51 – 00:29:20:37
Clint Loveall
That’s its origin. And so I think we need to do better than, hey, join us on this particular day. And that’s where we really lean into the hard parts of Christmas. It needs to be a part of the human story because it’s a part of the divine story.

00:29:20:42 – 00:29:48:30
Michael Gewecke
There’s there’s this deep feeling, I think, that that Christmas, Christmas needs to connect us to something timeless. And I’ll not go long down this road, but I was reflecting with Clint before recording here. You know, it strikes me the cultural Christmas stuff that I turn to this time of year. This is literally the only time of year I listen to Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra.

00:29:48:30 – 00:30:06:14
Michael Gewecke
I, I don’t mind their voices, but that’s the only songs I listen to. And it’s the only time of year I watch black and white movies. It’s it’s a fascinating sort of moment in time that has captured the attention of of Christmas. And these are the things that I make part of it. And I’m not gonna lie to you.

00:30:06:21 – 00:30:52:55
Michael Gewecke
I like them. I like doing it. It’s a fun part of the celebration for me. That said, that’s not Christmas as it is, and enjoying a singing is different than living into a reality of us saying and forgetting that that’s not the real thing. And this is absolutely essential because at the end of the day, Christmas is a story about God coming into the world, disrupting the powerful, lifting up the poor and the weak and proving that God doesn’t need a pedigree to do the thing that will save the world, that God doesn’t need announcements at the palace.

00:30:53:00 – 00:31:32:38
Michael Gewecke
God doesn’t need approval from the human powers that be that when God chooses, God chooses who He will walk through and and ultimately He will accomplish his purpose. And so by way of summarizing Clint’s words, I think in my own words, it’s just simply to say when we practice Christmas and we’ve done it for a long time and we built up traditions and habits, yours too might look like listening to some particular music artist or watching a particular film, or maybe more powerfully celebrating with a particular person or doing a particular thing.

00:31:32:38 – 00:31:58:31
Michael Gewecke
And maybe you can’t do that any more. Or maybe you just find yourself in a season that you think you’re supposed to be high and excited and emotionally lifted up and you feel down and you feel blue. If that’s you, then I think the question that Christmas affords you is how is God broken into my life? How is God present even in the dark places?

00:31:58:31 – 00:32:33:21
Michael Gewecke
Because the beautiful imagery that comes from the third gospel that talks about Christmas, the Gospel of John is not what we think of as the traditional Christmas story, but John frames Christmas or the coming of the Christ as light breaking into darkness. And maybe in this conversation that helps us, this idea that sometimes the dark places of our life become the places where it’s easiest to see the light of Christ that is shining because that darkness being dispelled by the light makes the lights presence so clear.

00:32:33:21 – 00:33:03:40
Michael Gewecke
And that may be for you the place to lean into this Christmas. Instead of feeling beholden to what you have done, the question for you might be Where is God in this season? What light can I see? Even honoring and recognizing the darkness? And that’s not you being a Grinch. That’s not you being a person who is giving up on the spirit of Christmas, whatever that means.

00:33:03:45 – 00:33:32:52
Michael Gewecke
That’s you honoring the life that you are presently living with, the awareness, the faithful awareness that wherever we are living our life, Jesus Christ promises to be with us. And that is what Christmas is. God taking flesh, God Emmanuel, God breaking into our world, God breaking into your life. And if all you get from this is two pastors reflecting on the history of Christmas and maybe offering a little contextualization of what that means.

00:33:33:07 – 00:33:50:21
Michael Gewecke
If you get anything, I hope you get permission to invite Jesus Christ into this season of your life because he wants to be there and you don’t need another version of Christmas to get there. That’s the version of Christmas that we’ve been given.

00:33:50:25 – 00:34:20:51
Clint Loveall
Check me here, Michael. But I feel like for a lot of people, the signature moment of Christmas, at least outside of their home, is the Christmas Eve service and the moment we sing Silent Night by Candlelight. And, you know, I’ve talked to many, many people over the year who say that their favorite part of Christmas services. And I’ve I’ve spent a little time thinking about all what it is about that moment.

00:34:20:51 – 00:34:44:00
Clint Loveall
And hey, it’s the last thing that a lot of people have to do in the Christmas season. I mean, the next day is Christmas. That night is Christmas Eve, whether they’re morning families or evening families in terms of their own gatherings. But so there may be a sense of relief in it. But but I believe it to be deeper than that.

00:34:44:00 – 00:35:08:04
Clint Loveall
I think it is that moment where with the candlelight, a silent Night, a good song. But it’s not it’s not a it’s not the kind of song that if you hear it driving in your car, you have to pull over because you’re overwhelmed. You know the song, it’s fine. But in that context, it it feels like the closest approximation.

00:35:08:04 – 00:35:52:35
Clint Loveall
And I think many of us get to piece to a moment of light in the darkness of the noise going away. And the idea that there is something represented by the candlelight that is pure, that is true, that that is sacred might even say holy. Having said that, we now start Christmas, culturally speaking, somewhere out around mid-November, I saw Christmas candy and Halloween candy sharing shelves.

00:35:52:44 – 00:36:09:46
Clint Loveall
So we we now have I’m I’m going to be conservative in, say, a six week run up that’s conservative. If in six weeks of Christmas stuff and four weeks of hardcore Christmas stuff.

00:36:09:46 – 00:36:12:56
Michael Gewecke
Hardcore Christmas.

00:36:13:01 – 00:36:15:52
Clint Loveall
If the minute and a half of Silent Night.

00:36:15:57 – 00:36:16:59
Michael Gewecke
Yeah.

00:36:17:04 – 00:36:51:21
Clint Loveall
Is the only moment you felt some connection to the comfort and stillness and peace of the season? I’m glad you did, but you missed some opportunities. We we missed some opportunities. There needs to be more than just that moment where, oh, this is church Christmas Church. Christmas needs to work its way into all the rest of our Christmas.

00:36:51:21 – 00:37:10:55
Clint Loveall
And I don’t mean to replace it. I’m not one of those wore on Christmas down with all of it but I it gets a little bit much for me and and I’ve admitted that a lot but I think we need to make sure that we don’t experience it as two different things or we have cultural Christmas over here.

00:37:11:06 – 00:37:36:21
Clint Loveall
But then I get these few minutes of of church Christmas and it’s really nice and then back to the other one to get the gifts open and let Christmas the full breadth of it, the joy to the world and the do not be afraid. Be a part of your entire preparation and expectation and experience of Christmas. I think ultimately that’s our goal as Christian people.

00:37:36:34 – 00:37:58:30
Michael Gewecke
That’s really well said. I want to give just a short little practical example of that, because I think in one way that the words are maybe easy to talk about, maybe it’s hard to understand and live that out. We being a pastor means that the Christmas season is a busy work time, and so you fit Christmas in amongst your family traditions, all this kind of thing.

00:37:58:30 – 00:38:22:41
Michael Gewecke
And it was not long ago that we say we’re going to go to family after our Christmas service, and so we needed to get our presents done beforehand, blah, blah, blah. Long story short version, there is a thing that happened at church that I need to run in for. At the time we thought we were going to open our presence in my girls now, like, you know, five years old, nine years old, whatever.

00:38:22:46 – 00:38:44:31
Michael Gewecke
Dad had to leave just as we were starting presents. And it was like their entire world crumbled around them, right? The walls collapsed, the earthquake was happening, and they were devastated because, of course, they were looking forward to opening presents. Yes. All of these things. We took it as an opportunity as best as we could, and no lesson was actually learned.

00:38:44:31 – 00:39:07:48
Michael Gewecke
I understand. But we tried to take this opportunity to say, we’re going to get interrupted. It’s okay. There’s no perfect Christmas, guys will will open our presents. We’re going to have a great time. But but Christmas isn’t about making it perfect. Christmas is recognizing that as we live life, we’re going to have to be flexible. And whether a child understands that lesson, I don’t think they do when presents are hanging over their head.

00:39:07:54 – 00:39:25:57
Michael Gewecke
But. But how are you practicing that kind of flexibility in your own families? How are you when things go wrong, even if you’re not in a blue season, Christmas, when things don’t go the way that you would like them to, What kind of attitude do you have about that? And are you teaching those that you love through those actions?

00:39:25:57 – 00:39:41:06
Michael Gewecke
As a person of faith? Are you teaching that Christmas is more nuanced and more rich and more full than whether or not it all goes to plan? Because I there’s a lesson in that. It may be a small lesson, but a meaningful one.

00:39:41:11 – 00:40:12:16
Clint Loveall
I think that it’s telling that the earliest Christians were a little skeptical of Christmas because they were afraid it could distract us from Jesus and they could not have imagined what Christmas would become. I don’t believe that our ancestors in the faith could dream of the Christmas we now celebrate and and the way in which it’s woven in to our cultural experience.

00:40:12:21 – 00:40:30:16
Clint Loveall
But their concern is still founded. Is there is there a theme of Christmas? Is there a thread of Christmas for Christians? You can you can comfortably have Christmas without Jesus in America, right? Millions of people do it.

00:40:30:16 – 00:40:31:00
Michael Gewecke
Oh, yeah.

00:40:31:04 – 00:40:59:43
Clint Loveall
We cannot do it in the church. We we cannot allow that to substitute for having a Christmas that is rooted in and upon the foundation of Emmanuel. God is with us. Joy to the world, peace be to all. These are the things that have to carry the way that we celebrate Christmas. Can we do the other stuff? I think we can.

00:40:59:43 – 00:41:29:16
Clint Loveall
Some Christians would say no, you can’t. I would say you can. I just think you have to do them thoughtfully in order to do them faithfully. Christmas as a cultural event raises lots of questions for Christian, raises more questions about materialism and finances and debt and lots of other things. But those, I think, can be navigated. I think we can do that well.

00:41:29:16 – 00:41:53:19
Clint Loveall
What we can’t do is let the world set our Christmas agenda for us and whether things are going well, great for you all is great. Wonderful. Be thankful or whether things are a struggle. There is still the promise of Christmas for you and the promise of peace, joy, love, comfort and strength found in it.

00:41:53:24 – 00:42:36:38
Michael Gewecke
That’s interesting that you end in that place, because I remind you that Christians have a word that we use. It’s shorthand that describes the idea of the good news. Remember that good news that the Angels proclaim, We call it the gospel. And so Christmas is the first telling of the gospel. The good news that God has come. And so I simply repeat, no matter how you find this conversation today or how you might find it in the future, may You know, the good news that God has come into the world and that that has been the inflection point of all time.

00:42:36:43 – 00:43:04:26
Michael Gewecke
No matter what season you find yourself in today, tomorrow, or eternity to come, that is the God who is chosen to break into the world, to save you and to be with you in the midst of all of it. So take hope in that. Find in that strength and courage and an opportunity, an invitation to faith. And we sincerely hope that that will be a part of your experience of Christmas this year.

00:43:04:40 – 00:43:35:42
Clint Loveall
Absolutely. Merry Christmas. Thanks for listening. And we enjoy having the opportunity to have these conversations with you and hope that they’re helpful. Hey, we want to thank you for listening to this broadcast. We’re grateful for the support and the connections, the relationships we get to make through some of these offerings. We hope that they’ve been helpful. We know that there are lots of choices that you have lots of things you can listen to We want to make you aware of some of what we’re doing and we greatly appreciate you being a part of it.

00:43:35:56 – 00:43:54:48
Michael Gewecke
Absolutely. We want to just thank you for being one of our audio podcast listeners. It’s amazing to have you with us in the midst of our conversations. Of course, I hope you know that you can find the whole archive of all of these conversations at Pastor Taco. We would love for you to join us there. You can find options for subscribing by email.

00:43:55:03 – 00:44:28:26
Michael Gewecke
You can easily share things there with other people who you think might appreciate recordings like this. And of course, we just want to welcome you. If you’re ever interested in joining us for the video podcast, you can do that on YouTube. It is YouTube.com slash AFP Spirit Lake there you can comment and engage with us, or if you would prefer to do that without going to YouTube, you can actually just click the link in the description of this podcast where you will be able to send us form and information and reach out to us.

00:44:28:39 – 00:44:37:42
Michael Gewecke
We’d love to hear from you and engage in conversation with you. Thanks again for taking time to be with us. We look forward to our next conversation and can’t wait to see you then.