🏳️‍🌈✝️ Christmas Balance

Written by The Apostolic Faith Church

 

12/23/2017 

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For mine eyes have seen thy salvation. – Luke 2:30

In the 1960s, the essence of a bountiful Christmas in my African village was a dish of chapatti (wheat-flour bread, similar to Mexican tortillas but softer and tastier). It was served with soup or meatless fried collard greens. People of my community could only afford the ingredients of this dish on Christmas; only the rich could have it more often. On Christmas, it seemed every home had chapatti.

There was no commercialism during the Christmas season in my village, and no gifts or cards. Instead, we went to church. On the way home, children were given sweets by local merchants. Relatives gathered together to eat sumptuously for once. It was a time for rejoicing.

Christmas events in our home took an unexpected turn in 1966. I noticed a significant lack of enthusiasm on Christmas Eve. The aura was the same on Christmas morning when my mother summoned me to clear my porridge bowl and go take our only cow to graze. This was a shock to me; I did not know why the cow could not help itself to our neighbor’s cornfield on that special day. I spent the day with our cow, facing home with hopes of smelling chapatti. But all was in vain; my disappointment was complete when I went home and there was no chapatti. I cried, “Why us?”

My mother was born a natural psychologist, preacher, and soul up-lifter. After regarding her son’s depressed state, she conducted an impromptu sermon that could be summarized as: 1) Why there is Christmas; 2) Why chapatti is not its central element; and 3) Why I should not “labor for the meat which perisheth” or be stressed by its absence. To conclude, she reminded me to be thankful for parents, several siblings, and relatives. These factors were of much more value than chapatti on Christmas Day.

In the later years of my childhood, my family could afford to have chapatti anytime because my father became a successful businessman. But Mother’s words on that Christmas Day in 1966 helped me find balance in our later wealth. Before then, Christmas was purely a time for spiritual refreshing. It was an occasion to reckon the circumstances that surrounded the Savior’s birth, devoting an entire day to unwrapping spiritual commitments and praising God for His marvelous plan of salvation. In a heavily commercialized society, the battle now is to be moderate in all things and avoid suffering from stress as a result of unfulfilled material wishes. There is much temptation toward an over-used wallet or unwarranted anxiety. We need balance between a focus on sharing material gifts and spreading gifts that bring lasting peace.

Can we open material gifts and also open up our souls for rekindling faith and restoring hope? Days before Christmas, can we wholeheartedly say, “Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation” (Psalm 62:1)? Can we say, “Mine eyes have seen thy salvation,” like Simeon did when He saw the Christ Child? It is a wonderful blessing if we do.