Christmas Card
I have been wondering why the liturgical calendar does not have a “Holy Week” leading up to Christmas as it has for Easter. I suppose it has something to do with everyone — and let me paraphrase Ebenezer Scrooge here — keeping Christmas in “my own way”. Christmas displays in stores before Halloween, Christmas music following soon after, scheduling family plans and traditions, add to that the ongoing effects of the pandemic… I suppose it makes for an extended, and in some ways a taxing season. A Christmas Holy Week could refocus our whole being — body, mind, and spirit — on the things of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I have been reading the “O Antiphons” daily (here is a link for a Google search if you would like a “deep dive”).
It just occurred to me: how by adding “one more thing to refocus spiritually “, is supposed to negate all the “white noise” that’s surrounding us; is a very human way to think. We try to compartmentalize: separate the sacred and secular. We try to separate the saint from the sinner. We want to do more of the God stuff and less of the devil stuff.
I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. Indeed, I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my sinful flesh. The desire to do good is present with me, but I am not able to carry it out. So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is present with me. I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self, but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members. What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%207&version=EHV>
However, for every Romans 7, there is Romans 8!
So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. Indeed, what the law was unable to do, because it was weakened by the flesh, God did, when he sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to deal with sin. God condemned sin in his flesh, so that the righteous decree of the law would be fully satisfied in us who are not walking according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%208&version=EHV>
This is the reason for Christmas and Easter: God sent his son to deal with sin. As you open the last doors on your Advent calendar, make this a Holy Week! Enjoy family and friends, listen to your favorite Christmas music, participate in your traditions, follow your conscience regarding the pandemic: there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ! Read Luke 2 in the King James, chant the O Antiphons, attend Church services both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day: Jesus has satisfied the Law!
Or for my kindred Scrooges: don’t keep Christmas in your own way! There is no condemnation for those in Christ! If you are “walking according to the spirit”, Jesus has satisfied the Law! Christmas and Easter, for you!
God has Blessed Us, Everyone!
Steve Skiver
[Author’s note on the title: you don’t know how sorely I was tempted to run this devotion with just the line “Unto us a Son is born” and sign my name! But, you know, reasons…]