A white Christmas

There is a famous song entitled "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas."  It plays on the radio and mall loudspeakers this time of year.  However, some people actually made an attempt to make Christmas white....not by the snow on the ground but by claiming that Jesus was white and Santa is white.  I don't really have an issue with claiming Jesus' or St. Nickolas' in the ethnicity or culture in which one resides.  As Christians we know this is part of our heritage and tradition in each place the Gospel has been planted.  The real problem with claiming Jesus and Santa as historically white is that it misrepresents the Jesus and St. Nickolas that are actually from history, a place and time embedded in time frame of our past.  To claim that Jesus, a Jewish male in the middle east, as a pale straight blond haired and blue eyed savior is inaccurate.  It does not help to make our Christmas white, in a way that we can shape and make Jesus into whatever we want him to be....including often mistaking him for Santa, the bringer of gifts to people who are good and giving lumps of coal to bad boys and girls.

Is this the picture we want of Jesus?  The power of the Christmas message is not that we get to make Jesus like we want him but that God brought Christ into the world to redeem all the world.  This message isn't as clean as we like it either.  For Jesus is born in a shanty to unwed parents while poor farmers come to witness and kings come to worship.  It is a scandalous message for sure.  but let's stop trying to make a white Christmas, it distracts us from the message the God is with us....all of us!  Merry Christmas in all colors!  Praying attention - Pastor Andy

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