This Christmas Life

Life in the Garden of Eden was an invitation to Christmas every day.

The Garden had two Christmas trees: one for now, one for later. And the place was piled up high with presents: fruit and plants and animals, sunsets, natural springs, and love, all wrapped by our loving Father with the glory of the Spirit.

And when we rebelled, when Adam and Eve disobeyed, we rejected this Christmas life. We rejected the gifts, rejected the joy, rejected the merry life. We scorned our Father. We grieved the Spirit.

The Christian faith is an invitation back into this Christmas life. The Christian faith is an invitation back into the Garden, back to the Christmas Tree of Life, back to life piled high with gifts and joy and merriment.

This is not because Christians never have anything bad happen to them. We do not live in a different dimension. We do not pretend to live in a different universe. No, the Christian faith merely recognizes that every human being naturally rejects this Christmas life. We are all like Adam and Eve, insane rebels, and we daily scorn the gifts of the Spirit. We pretend that life and health and happiness are random, automatic, or that we deserve them, and we shake our fists at the God who continues to graciously give them. We refuse to give thanks to the Giver and refuse to read the instruction manual that came with this mind-blowing gift we call life.

The Christian faith recognizes that the only way out of this dead end existence is not by looking at our problems, not at our failures, not at ourselves, but looking to Jesus who suffered and died to put everything right and who was raised from the dead proving that it will be. Jesus suffered and died to free every slave from the prison of this rebellion. We love our sin, and we hate the God who made us. But He is still intent on Christmas, still intent on Christmas for this entire sorry world.

This is the good news of the Kingdom, the good news that the Christmas life begins by faith, by trusting God, the original Father Christmas, who gives us every good and perfect gift. And who has proven this through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ and the gift of His Holy Spirit.

This is Pentecost: Merry Christmas in June (and every day).