The ebb and flow of the oceans often create long stretches of quasi-land we call “sandbars.” For the adventurous, a sandbar is an open invitation to stand far from shore and to enjoy the view from a perch normally reserved for those on the deck of boats or ships. The rugged and rocky shores of Maine and Oregon or the heavily forested beaches of the Carolinas or the long white sands of Florida Gulf coast are even more extraordinary when viewed from midst of the waters.
Until the tide returns and the sandbar disappears.
What was once a leisurely walk, now is a frightening challenge. There can be no wishing a rescue from the shifted sands. Only firm resolve to get back to the beach without succumbing to the water’s power will now suffice. Panic is appropriate but not helpful.
Not even one generation ago, I stood on the sandbar of time and watched a culture celebrate the holiday long attached to the birth of Jesus, who was called “Savior of the World.” My family received mail from those who did not believe in Jesus’ claims to be “God with us” with good wishes that come only from that peculiar expression of God’s love: that He would come to us. “Merry Christmas” was appropriate even in the public marketplace and there was no offense taken.
I stood and watched a culture enamored with the coming of Spring mark with religious fervor the hope of resurrected life. People who confined God to the limits of the spectacular nature they saw all around them would come to church services to hear just one more time the story of sacrifice and death and the power of love conquering the grave.
I watched football games through a carbohydrate-induced haze and enjoyed the interruption of commercials reminding the Nation to give thanks in the tradition of our Pilgrim forefathers.
I felt the waters cover my feet, then sensed the quick movement of the sand beneath and knew almost instinctively the focus of my energy must be on survival.
Today Christmas is not about anything. Christmas is the season beginning sometime in late October where retailers try to make enough profit to keep their doors open and their shareholders happy. Christmas is the season when office parties are arranged (now on a much smaller scale due to the crummy economy) and when families are forced to endure their own company. Christmas is the season where the pressure to produce wonder is foisted upon parents who wonder themselves what it is they are trying to accomplish. Christmas is a big gripe-fest of unhappy people resentful of the “Happy Holiday” that really is not happy at all.
Easter is about bunnies and chocolate and eggs and bright colors and family meals. On balance it is a much more well-liked holiday because it is so much cheaper than Christmas and does not require the hanging of lights on the gutters in sub-zero temperatures. I remember quite well listening to a father berate his son for bad behavior one particularly warm spring day a few years ago. It was the Easter season and I was on the tennis court with a friend. Dad said to his 11 year old, “If you don’t %$*&#! straighten up so help me God I’ll make you go to church.”
Then there is Thanksgiving. I know most have not paid much attention to the shift in nomenclature. The holiday is now “Turkey Day.” The change in name is come because we know in our hearts being thankful requires two main ingredients:
The first ingredient is we must have something to be thankful for.
The second ingredient is we must have someone to be thankful to.
For me Thanksgiving is the last piece of firm ground as I desperately make my attempt to reach the safety of firmer sands. It is a yearly opportunity for me to declare that I am thankful for a place to call home, a family to love, friends, food for my stomach and clothes for my back, for labor to accomplish, and an environment stable enough that I do not consider whether today is the day I will be shot or blown up or will capture some communicable disease that will brutally and painfully end my life.
For me Thanksgiving is the yearly opportunity to publicly declare my daily practice of being thankful to a God who loved enough to become incarnate and to tell my species face to face, “I love you.” I am thankful to a God who remains sovereign over everything, yet allows me the authority to wreak havoc on my life and the life of others. I am thankful to a God who suspended the penalty for the destruction of the choices I make “as my own god” by paying that penalty Himself. I am thankful to a God who saw fit to give me more than enough for me and my family and who makes room in my heart to learn to share His resources with my neighbor. I am thankful to a God who is so big, so deep, so wide that even all our scientific advances cannot do anything but illustrate why God is all the more necessary if we are to be anything more significant than some speck of space dust.
It is my prayer that those who call themselves “Christian” scoop up these shifting sands and together we stand a thankful people on firmer ground.
