A letter from Charlotte Blackburn in Indonesia
Christmas 2011
Charlotte with her tree.
This year was the first Christmas in my life that I have ever spent away from my family and away from my daughter. Additionally, I spent what is arguably one of the most significant seasons of the Christian year in a country with an Islamic religious majority and Christian minority. I knew it would be different and it was, but not in a bad way—just a different way—consistent with the way Indonesia often is. Different. That's all.
In the United States we celebrate Christmas the entire month of December. Christmas parties, events at church and work, and opportunities to give generously mark the season and it's veritably impossible to escape the seasonal joy. Of course some of my friends were envious of me—how lucky I am to be away from the overbearing commercialization of the season!
When the stores start putting out the Christmas items in October, that's irritating. When radio stations start playing Christmas music 24 hours a day before Thanksgiving, that's irritating. When the season that acknowledges the birth of Christ is used for selling anything and everything, that's irritating. But let me tell you. Seeing hardly anything at all, well, it's not irritating, but it's surely different. It requires introspection...a closer look inside at beliefs, faith and traditions. One has to tap into the source of the season, and I did.
The first thing I did was visit the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s website and find the lectionary for Advent through Christmas. Every morning and evening, with rare exception, I read the passages. It felt as if the passages early in the month focused on praise, worship and FEAR! Highlighting the power of God's wrath and His mighty vengeance seemed odd to me this time of year, but I continued reading. Around December 22 the tide began to change as I read the passage from Galatians 3:23-26 (now among my favorites):
23Now before faith came,
we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.
24Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.
25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,
26for in Jesus Christ you are all children of God through faith.
I then understood why the focus on God's wrath seemed so out of place to me; we Christians know we are free. We are a "Resurrection People"—we focus on salvation...and sometimes we may forget from what we were saved. The passage from Galatians, and the earlier passages, reminded me. And we need to remember. We need to be thankful. And we need to be joyful! John 3:17:
17For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through Him
That is the message of Christmas. And that is what we need to remember, regardless of whether it seems quite easy or quite...different.
Charlotte
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 189
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