Julens verkliga mening

Filmen Bad Santa har haft premiär och kritikerna älskar den. Själv har jag inga planer på att se den. Så här kommenterade Prison Fellowship’s Mark Earley filmen efter att den haft premiär i USA förra året:

Are you in the mood for a Christmas movie? How about one where a department-store Santa swears incessantly at little kids, gets falling-down drunk, robs stores, and has a few graphic sex scenes? …

It [filmens ”fräscha vinkling”] just shows the damage that’s been done by our culture’s attempt to redefine Christmas. For decades, Christmas has been commercialized and secularized. Silly ”holiday specials” announce that the ”true meaning of Christmas” is spending time with family and friends, or buying special gifts, or feeling happy all the time. Christmas has been whitewashed and sugarcoated within an inch of its life. Really, is it any wonder that a season of relentless, meaningless hype is making some people feel crankier at Christmas than at any other time of the year?

I wonder what would happen if more people were willing to take a fresh look at Christmas. Could anything be more shocking than the idea that God was born into this world as a helpless baby? Or the thought that He eventually let Himself be murdered by His fellow human beings so that He could take the punishment for all the wrong we have done?

Jag längtar helt enkelt efter en riktig jul, en jul då vi firar Guds ankomst till denna värld. Det är större än alla julklappar i världen (inräknat denna och denna).