A Christmas slide

It’s Christmas!

You know it from commercials, lights, tinsel, outfits and sales, sales, sales. America is manic about selling, apparently in a fevered attempt to make up for lost progress over the past three years.

“The crush of expectations of the modern approach to celebrating Christmas is burden we all should leave behind… the glitz, the overindulgence in food and drink, the overruling of stuff that never fills our hearts with real and lasting joy.” ^[1]No place for gloom

It takes tree-mendous (see what I did there?) focus to keep meaning central in our Christmases. The trite adage of “Jesus is the reason for the season,” doesn’t go far enough. Eliminating Jesus from this season (or any season) is treason.

It’s too easy to climb to the top of the playground slide of Christmas and mindlessly slide down. I remember teachers on the playground at school shouting, “Look before you slide!” Too many kids were slow to get off, or often they would ignorantly wander into the landing zone. A crash was imminent when that happened.

We have to look before we slide into Christmas – what are we sliding into? Once you let go of meaning, it’s hard to control your descent.

Do you see Christmas?

Christmas merges the transcendent with the ordinary. It’s not an event but a story. God as incarnate child is what the angels sit on the edge of their seat to behold in wonder. ^[2]“…angels long to catch a glimpse of these things.” (1 Peter 1:12)

Because we get caught up in “glitz” and “overindulgence,” we forget that Christmas should not be a reason to spend our way into oblivion, nursing our wounds with consumerism.

If we don’t keep our minds focused on meaning, we may discover that our capacity for innocent enjoyment has atrophied.

In Desiring God, John Piper said:

“…childlike wonder and awe have died. The scenery and poetry and music of the majesty of God have dried up like a forgotten peach at the back of the refrigerator.” ^[3]Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, by John Piper (Multnomah, 2011)

I stumbled across a story about a peach orchard in Reading, Pennsylvania that captured my imagination:

In the area of Reading, Pennsylvania that is now bordered by Oley, Douglass, Front and Weiser Streets, there used to be a magical place called “Paradise Peach Grove.” Today, this is very much an urban neighborhood with many homes, stores and even a gastropub. But in the mid-1800s… someone who ventured out of the metropolis and into the countryside would have glimpsed a tall fence. Inside, the traveler would have discovered a five-acre peach grove with over two thousand peach trees of “the finest varieties known to peach culture” at the time…

In the center of the “Paradise” was a little bungalow the orchard’s owner, William B. Schoener, built so that whenever he had free time away from his law practice, he could pass his leisure hours there. He enjoyed the beauty and quiet of the peach grove and the fragrance of the fruit wafting on the breeze.

His “many friends considered it a treat to be invited to spend an afternoon with him there,” says The Passing Scene. When the orchard was in bloom, people from the city flocked to Paradise Peach Grove “to see the pretty sight.” Schoener sold the peaches in the city of Reading, where his were considered the very best, and many people visited the little orchard during the harvest.

“This is truly a delightful spot,” wrote Major William Stahle in his “Description of the Borough of Reading,” quoted in The Passing Scene. “The air of seclusion which it possesses, the comforts of its shady walks and bowers, and its delicious fruit make it the favorite summer resort of the citizens of Reading.” ^[4]The Forgotten Peach Orchard of Reading, PA, by Rebecca Talbot (Weavers Orchard: July 23, 2018)

“Today, this is very much an urban neighborhood with many homes, stores and even a gastropub.” ^[5]Ibid. What once was a delight and magical and restful is now… commercialized.

May we learn the lesson of the peach from our perch on the slide. If we pause and peer beyond the glitz and lights (look before we slide), what we slide into will be safer for us and others and ultimately more enjoyable.

Christmas, of all times, should be contagiously joyful.

An angel told us so.