Christmas... So during the Christmas Eve service, listening to our pastor discuss the meaning and significance of Christmas*, it occurred to me that Christmas is the "easy" religious holiday. No wonder happyness and joy are asscoiated with this holiday (and subsequent importance). Set aside the commercialization and the child-like lust for toys and presents (which doesn't really leave when we become adults), the religious community seems to place a great deal of import in Christmas. Example, when is the last time you received an Easter Card, or heard someone say "Remember the reason for the season" for Lent? Perhaps it's the fact that Christmas is anchored to a certain date. December 25, last year, this year, and next year. All I can tell you about Easter this year is that it'll be on a Sunday. Like it's not important enough to bend vacation days around it. But I think it has more to do with the fact that Christmas is guiltless and requires very little from celebrants. Easter has all the guilt associated with thinking about someone (well, not just anyone) dieing because I mess up on a daily basis. Lent requires some sort of sacrifice from certain beliefs. Speaking of which, why on Earth do we celebrate the 40 days *prior* to Easter. This has no direct relevance to anything prior to the actual crucification as far as I know. It seems to come from the 40 days that Moses, Elijah, and then Jesus spent in the wilderness, or the 40 days and nights of rain for the Flood, or the 40 years the Isrealites spent in the desert. But none of those occurred directly prior to the events commorated by Easter. However, for 40 days after the resurrection, Jesus walked the earth and met with his followers and prepared them for the explosion of the Holy Spirit to come at Pentecost. No common observance of this in today's churches. The Ascension of Jesus up to Heaven to sit at God's right hand until His appointed time of return. Nothing. Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was loosed on the Earth and made available to all people. Maybe a sermon. But no celbration. Each of these, in my mind, are more critical to the Chritian Faith than Christmas. But hey, babies are cute right?


* And by that I mean the orignal meaning of Christmas, not the nonsense, happy/good-time, nostalgic meanings ascribed by so many tripe "Christmas" songs (see White Christmas, Chestnuts Roasting..., Rockin' 'round the Christmas Tree, Jingle Bells, etc, etc, etc). For a while I was concerned that I didn't like Christmas music. But I realized that it wasn't Christmas music that I opposed, it was Christmas-time music. Give me In Excelsis Deo, or Little Drummer Boy, or even Little Star of Bethlemhem.