Bring Religion Into Everything: Fourth Thursday of Advent

Just a hurried line...to tell a story which puts the contrast between our feast of the Nativity and all this ghastly "Xmas" racket at its lowest. My brother heard a woman on a bus say, as the bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, "Oh Lor'! They bring religion into everything. Look - they're dragging it even into Christmas now!"
~ C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady, Dec. 29, 1958, p80

It's hard to imagine how this British woman could have gone her whole adult life without seeing a Crib in front of a church. What kind of world did she grow up in that had sheltered her from the religious heart of Christmas? Her response is very illuminating: it assumes that Christmas is an obviously secular event, and that the church's involvement in it is a disturbing development.

What is the problem with bringing religion into everything? What's behind this woman's comment? Maybe it's because the church enters into an issue with too much authoritarianism and not enough servanthood? Maybe the church has developed an attitude of superiority instead of an attitude of helpfulness? Maybe the church has developed a reputation for being irrelevant instead of a reputation of healing?

By bringing religion into everything, we're not talking about lots of traditional rules and legalistic proclamations. What we're really talking about is bringing God into everything. But even then, it's with an attitude of joy and hopefulness, not judgment and condemnation.

When we bring God into everything, we raise both our expectations for what is possible, as well as bring expectations of how our lives can be ordered and expressed. God gives good gifts generously, but he is also at work to form our character and shape our ethics towards goodness and love and truth. True religion focuses on caring for widows and orphans, as well as living unpolluted in the world.

This Christmas, bring as much of God into it as you can. Not in a preachy, protesting kind of way. Rather, let everything you do be done to the glory of God. Everything you say, everything you think, everything you decide, everything you buy, everything you watch, everything you serve, everything you participate in can be done to the glory of God.

God's already present. God's already giving good gifts. God's already loving you with a tremendously generous big heart. God's always at work in your world. God knows you. God loves you. God wants the best for you. And God does everything His way.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

1Corinthians 10v31 (NIV)

If Christians are going to insist on keeping Christ in Christmas, on making the holiday a true "holy day", on bringing religion into the celebrations, it ought to be done in joy, not judgment. By remembering Saint Nicholas, we are bringing religion into the character of Santa Claus. By remembering the Magi, we are bringing religion into the tradition of gift giving. By remembering the Nativity story, we are bringing religion into the family event of putting a star on top of the Christmas tree.

Bring true religion into everything. Bring a generous God into everything. Bring love into everything. Bring truth into everything. Bring thankfulness into everything. Bring joy into everything. Bring holiness into the holidays. Bring Christ into Christmas.