Green and Red. Purple and Pink.

Christmas. It's most peoples' favorite time of the year. Sure, your wallet deflates faster than it inflates this season, but in most peoples' heads, the spending is worth it to celebrate the love and camaraderie that exists between all men. We celebrate our friends, our family, the fact that we're alive, and of course we celebrate the birth of Christ. He was born to save us. We're celebrating the fact that a child, born most innocent, would knowingly someday suffer and die for us. There's something wrong with that thought. It's barbaric.

Here we are, buying gifts for our friends, celebrating with our families, preparing lush feasts, decorating our houses with the brightest of lights, all in the name of a prophetic slaughtering of an innocent. Sure, the slaughter brings our salvation, but instead of celebrating the prophetic slaughter, shouldn't we be feeling ashamed of ourselves? What have we to celebrate anyway? That a child was born in a manger, in a stable, in the coldest of nights. We forget all too easily that Christ was not merely born to die for us, but rather he was born to show us who we could be. He chose to be born not in the humblest of settings, but rather under the most opressive of settings. Being born in a manger isn't simplicity, but rather the fact that he, being the child of a couple married in unlawful circumstances, mother pregnant even before the marriage, they weren't sent to the stable because there were no rooms available. If ever, the innkeeper could have offered his room to a laboring Mary. This was the effect of society looking down on these "sinners." They were opressed. The Christ chose to be born in opression. This would be the initial look at the life that would be lived out rallying against that same opression.

So all in all, I learned to see something differently this Christmas. If there is anything to celebrate, it isn't that Jesus was born to suffer and die for us, but rather, I celebrate that he gave us our life's meaning. I celebrate my capacity to do something for the world. I celebrate the fact that I can, and hopefully will bring about social justice and love in all men.