Noon on Christmas

It's noon on Christmas here in the suburban midwest.  You know how that feels, right?

The kids have hours ago shredded the last vestiges of wrapping paper.  They're now buried in piles of plastic or immersed in vast video games - quietly pursuing mastery over their newfound treasures.

Of course that leaves us parents padding softly through the house, packing trash and wandering amid the opened boxes and half-assembled amusements.

It's over way too soon, isn't it?  I mean, for all the fuss and for all the energy spent procuring piles of plastic so adamantly petitioned and pined for by our petite progeny - it ends so abruptly as to be absurd.

I overheard one mom say to her impatient and unruly child, "Just sit still and imagine what you've got under the tree.  Focus on that, Johnny, an' git yer mind offa yer problems." 

Of course that mother's words came back to me a moment ago as the silence crept back into the house.  All that hustle and energy and focus and wind and fire and attention - now spent, now over, now done.

I think we model the abridged version of Christmas for our kids - a truncated, frail, materialistic and emotional skeleton now abbreviated "Xmas".  

But then just a moment ago, as I installed a wireless network card in Josh's new computer - I remembered something.

I remembered (and then thought to remind you) that Christmas is really all about something so revolutionary, so radical, so subversive - so long lasting - that it couldn't be further from what the plastic amusement industry, and we their willing accomplices, have made it into.

Truth is, endings have no part of Christmas.  Christmas is all about beginnings.  In fact, it's all about The Beginning.

In theology, we call it "inaugurated eschatology".  In everyday life, we call it "the coolest thing ever."

Messiah Jesus came a few millenia ago to kick off a New Kingdom that would grow and touch every nook and cranny of the planet - a Kingdom that will one day make everything (and I mean Everything) brand-spankin' New.

Yep, it's been a few thousand years.  The human race is somewhere in the middle now - perhaps one might say it's noontime.  But unlike today's Christmas Noon at my house - not all the presents have yet been opened.

Like I did today - Messiah's saved the best for last.  He's got the good stuff comin' for those that are looking for it.

Christmas is just the Beginning.