Upside-Down Christmas
Have you seen the latest Christmas trend? It's an upside-down Christmas tree. If you don't know what that is, it's pretty self-explanatory. The tree is hung from the ceiling, trunk facing up and the point (where the "tree-topper" goes) facing the ground.
Actually, the upside-down tree is not just a cool fad. It has been around for hundreds of years, and may even date back to the 7th century. Apparently, a Benedictine monk named Boniface saw a group of pagans worshipping an oak tree, and in response he cut down a fir tree and turned it upside down, using its triangular shape as a way of explaining the Trinity to the pagans.
But it got me to thinking, what if you took almost everything you know about Christmas and turned it upside down? That’s what it would feel like if you and I spent Christmas in Australia or New Zealand. December is summer time "down under," and instead of singing of snow and winter wonderlands and sleigh bells--they will more likely celebrate Christmas with beach parties and cook-outs. Next week when we have the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, they will have their summer solstice and longest day.
To be honest, I have never really understood all of the winter-related songs that are associated with Christmas in the United States. It's almost like we are celebrating winter more than Christmas sometimes. Even if you are willing to go with secular songs to celebrate the season, it just doesn't seem to fit for us here in the deep south. For me--an official card-carrying snow lover--I regularly dream of a white Christmas, because I dream of snow just about every day of the winter. I will sing "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow," but not because it's Christmas time, I just want to see snow any time. And like most of you, I have never dashed through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh, and doubt I ever will. And what does that have to do with Jesus' birth anyway?
Okay, enough of that soap box. But while we're on the subject of Christmas music, I wanted to share some lyrics of a Christmas carol you've probably never heard before. It is included in hymnals in New Zealand and Australia, and was written by Shirley Erena Murray. It is entitled "Carol Our Christmas."
Carol our Christmas, an upside down Christmas; snow is not falling and trees are not bare. Carol the summer, and welcome the Christ Child, warm in our sunshine and sweetness of air.
Sign of the gold and the green and the sparkle, water and river and lure of the beach. Sing in the happiness of open spaces, sing a nativity summer can reach!
Right side up Christmas belongs to the universe, made in the moment a woman give birth; Hope is the Jesus gift, love is the offering, everywhere, anywhere here on the earth.
Regardless of the weather, or the hemisphere we live in, we might all do well to make sure we go against the grain of a secularized and commercialized holiday, and have our own version of an upside-down Christmas this year. If we just read the gospel accounts of that first Christmas, it's not hard to realize how upside down it was compared to the Disney-fied version we make it out to be today. From a scandalous "unplanned pregnancy," to the unlikeliest of central characters--a single teenage mom, lowly shepherds and pagan astrologers--it was the picture of paradox that would define Jesus' life as Immanuel, "God with us."
The reality is, we’re so accustomed to Christianity and Christmas being mainstream that we forget it all began as a revolutionary threat against the powers of Rome and the authority of the temple. If we dare to see the story for what it was, instead of the air-brushed, sanitized version, we will see how radical Jesus' coming was, and is. The birth of a baby in an unvarnished manger turned our world upside down, which is why He came.
You don't have to put your tree upside down, or even go to New Zealand, to understand the radical difference Jesus has made in the world, and hopefully in your life. That is certainly worthy of our celebration, even if we never see snow!
I pray that the reality of the incarnation will be the center of your Advent and Christmas this year. I look forward to seeing you on Sunday, morning and evening, as we celebrate the coming of our Savior.
--Pastor Ken
