As we get closer and closer to Christmas Day, we are surrounded by familiar markers of the season. Twinkling lights line the rooftops and wreaths are hung on the doors. Our communal color palette has been reduced to red and green. Radio stations have abandoned their normal genres and bowed to the seasonal demands for Bing Crosby, Mariah Carey, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
But while these symbols of the season remain, other traditions have fallen by the wayside in 2020. Christmas parties have been reconfigured beyond recognition, if not cancelled outright. Carolers have taken the year off—the once-heartwarming idea of unmasked strangers singing their way down the hallways of a nursing home would warrant a 911 call this December. Most significantly, many have made the difficult decision to stay home this year instead of spending the holiday with their families.
There’s no doubt, it’s a simpler Christmas this year, with fewer social engagements, fewer traditions to uphold, and fewer opportunities to come together. One could be forgiven for thinking there are few reasons to rejoice.
But for those disappointed by the pandemic’s toll on the holiday, the Bible offers us an important reminder that a simpler Christmas need not be a joyless affair. Bethlehem had no decorations to mark the occasion of Christ’s birth. Mary and Joseph had no family or friends with them to celebrate the day. Indeed, it took divine intervention—first a heavenly host’s announcement to a group of shepherds, and later a heaven-sent star followed by astrologers from the east—for anyone at all to commemorate the birth. But despite those absences, the first Christmas was a day of joy, not because of earthly extravagance, but thanks to the beautiful simplicity of a baby in a manger.
This will be a simpler Christmas than usual, no doubt about it. But if we keep our eyes—so easily distracted by lights and colors—on Bethlehem instead, it will remain a joyful one.
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