I get you, really

It is just a couple of days until Christmas. Soon each of us will be celebrating, engaging in familiar traditions and making new ones. Rachel and I didn’t grow up in families that had a great deal of Christmas traditions. About the closest we came was the tradition of Rachel’s family eating tamales on Christmas Eve, one which I have been happy to continue. So, when we got married we decided to start some traditions of our own. Every year we each buy a new Christmas ornament. Every year we open one present on Christmas Eve, which is always pajamas! Over the years, these and a few other traditions have been inserted, but my favorite tradition has to be our annual birthday party for Jesus.

Every Christmas Eve I whip up a batch of cupcakes which the kids get to decorate any way they like. If they want a pound of sprinkles, they get to put a pound of sprinkles on their cupcakes. We decorate the table complete with party hats, noisemakers, and birthday themed plates and we throw a party for five. That’s right, five: Addison, Hayden, Rachel, me, and Jesus. Jesus gets his own plate, his own hat and party favors. He even gets his own cupcake, often complete with one pound of sprinkles! We sing and laugh, and have a great time with Jesus. It is his birthday after all.

Over the years, we have invited people to join us in our birthday celebration. I always get a kick out of watching their reaction when we set that one extra place and pull out that one extra hat. It is always fun to see visiting children eyeing Jesus’ cupcake, perplexed that a perfectly good cupcake with a whole pound of sprinkles would be wasted on a plate sitting before an empty chair. But for us, the chair isn’t empty. For us, Jesus really is there, laughing and carrying on, taking a good ribbing about being over 2,000 years old.

For my family, this birthday party is our way of saying, “We welcome and receive you, Jesus.” In the mix of what Christmas has become, we find it hard to make room for Jesus. Somehow Jesus doesn’t seem to fit neatly under the tree. I haven’t found a way to put him in a stocking, and with him being a good Jew, it just doesn’t seem right to serve him our Christmas ham. Yet, we realize that Christmas is about Jesus, and not just about Jesus but about receiving Jesus. According to John, Jesus came as God-in-the-flesh, came to join in our humanity so that we might receive him (John 1.12). He didn’t come to condemn; he came to be received. He didn’t come to scold; he came to be embraced. The one who created my body took on a body so that I might hold him. The one who created my eyes, took on a face so that I might see him. The one who made my lips gave himself a name so that I might call out to him. God came to be received, for it is in my reception of him that I find my own rightful place as a son of God. So every year we receive Jesus. He is welcomed into our home. He is given his rightful place at the head of the table, and we tell him just how much we love him, just how much we need him, just how much we want him in our lives. We throw a party because in our mind, parties are the best way to say, “You are welcome here.”

A fellow traveler,

Blake

What’s my next step?

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your family.

Throw a birthday party for Jesus: Jesus came so that we might receive him. This Christmas season consider creating a tradition that fits your family that states your desire to receive Jesus. This could be your own birthday party for Jesus. If you choose to throw a party for Jesus, have fun with it. Make it something the whole family can be involved in pulling together, and don’t forget to invite and make room for Jesus. It is, after all, his party.

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.

Receive Jesus:  God desires to be with us. It is in recognizing and receiving God that we find our rightful place as his children. Receiving God begins with a conscious choice to open our lives to God in the person of Jesus. However, receiving God is not a solitary act but a way of being, a daily way of living. In a daily receiving of Jesus we acknowledge our continual need for and relationship with the God who made us to be with him. You might consider receiving Jesus as a way of being by daily welcoming Jesus into your life. This could be as simple as saying the following throughout the day or between tasks, “Jesus, you are welcome with me. I want you to be part of what I am doing.”