12.8.2021 Normalizing the Abnormal

    The Christmas season is different. It is a culturally significant holiday. The Christmas shopping season has a disproportionate impact on local and national economies. We drag shrubbery (sometimes fake, even Avant-Garde) into our homes and decorate said shrub with colorful baubles and an increasingly sophisticated array of luminaries. People who are insular throughout the rest of the year find themselves filled with good cheer whispering…nay shouting “Merry Christmas!” to total strangers. Gifts are fretted over, purchased, hidden, and ultimately given. 

    I love it! It was awesome as a kid, of course, and like many, there was a time in early adulthood when it lost its luster. Twenty-somethings are always rediscovering what the elders have known for years. It’s one of those phases we all go through. Then, when raising children Christmas is transformed. As parents, it dawns on us that we are responsible for their (the kiddos) magic. And Christmas becomes a stressor. Don’t even get me started on some of the histrionics Mrs. Beckman went through to ensure that each child was treated with equitable magic. As one settles into middle age it is possible to embrace the magic again for its own sake. 

    Let’s face it though. How we behave during the Christmas season a.k.a “Advent” is not exactly normal. A fictional alien intelligence, if asked to summarize how we behave during Christmas might say something like this: “They blow their budgets, destroy their diets, and wreck their homes.” The same observer might also be led to add: “They pursue all of this out of the ordinary, abnormal behavior with a remarkable amount of good cheer.” 

    In other words, during the Christmas season, we have learned to normalize what would otherwise be pretty abnormal behavior. People have houseplants, yes, but non-native fake trees with blinking LED lights?  Putting pretend antlers and a red nose on a perfectly content dog, all so that you can take photos of the poor animal to post to social media or to send in cards to friends? Again, not normal. Why do we behave this way and what bearing might it, perhaps, maybe, have on how we apply the Gospel the rest of the year?

    Rightly or wrongly, Christians have the reputation of being outside the cultural norm. Yet, Christmas is a distinctly Christian celebration which has become culturally normative. To talk about Jesus during Christmas is not considered abnormal by our culture anymore. Sure, Jesus now must compete with Rudolph and Santa, but He is more than holding His own. 

    Our fallen culture is waiting for Christians to embrace their abnormality. The world needs us to proudly take our place as a “third race” defined not by race, culture, social standing, or economic status, but defined by our allegiance to Jesus. Fallen people need hope. Fallen people need encouragement. Fallen people need compassion, grace, goodness, and love. In its infancy, the Church functioned that way everywhere it was planted. Christian behaviors, attitudes, and actions that should be our “normal” are viewed as “abnormal” by the culture. And that is OK. It is the most normal thing to be imagined. Peter seems to have understood this when he wrote the following

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (1 Peter 2:11–12 ESV)

Because typical Christian conduct is not what the world expects it will not understand why we do what we do and Who it is to Whom we answer. The key is faithful perseverance which elicits a faith response from those who feel the impact of our deeds and who are blessed by our words. 

    A real key to this process of normalizing what our culture considers abnormal is that we cannot define our behaviors by the strategies or tactics of the world. If we do, we will be rightly viewed as hypocrites who do not believe the peace-making mandate of our Gospel. Maybe the reason the world questions what we say and do is that we have abandoned Peter’s mandate to keep our conduct honorable. When we are no different from the world when their normal is our normal, the first to notice our fecklessness are those who need our message the most.

    The power of the Christmas season is unleashed when we, the Church, remember that every season has been transformed by Christ. The culture may latch onto our coattails during Christmas, that just increases our visibility and expands our opportunities. Christmas will soon give way to the Easter celebration of Resurrection—the most outlandish and abnormal of all the claims which lie at the heart of our faith. How we conduct ourselves largely determines how we will be heard. 

    Christmas is a season of Joy. Be joyful! Christmas celebrates the Prince of Peace. He requires of His people that we be peacemakers. So, make peace. Christmas is a season of hope. Be hopeful. Christmas proclaims God’s love for all mankind. Love all mankind. Some will think these behaviors peculiar, even abnormal. We who wear the name of Christ call it faithful living.