Such is the chaotic nature of how we celebrate Christmas in America.
I am aiming for a less Chaotic Christmas this year and a more Kenotic Christmas.
Kenotic? Yes, my spell-checker is still working. My Greek-speaking readers (no, not those from modern-day Greece, but those who read biblical or Koine Greek) know exactly what I am talking about.
The Apostle Paul uses the Greek word that I am transliterating as kenotic in Philippians 2:6-11 when dramatizing Christ’s incarnation.
“Christ Jesus, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing (emptying himself, kenosis), taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name tat is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father.”
Having a Kenotic Christmas, according to this passage, means two things.
First, a Kenotic Christmas focuses on thanking God for His gift of His Son and praising Christ for His gift of Himself. It contrasts with the Chaotic Christmas and its focus on what gifts I’m getting and giving.
Second, a Kenotic Christmas focuses on giving the gift of self. “Your attitude,” Paul says in Philippians 2:5, “should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” A Chaotic Christmas focuses on giving material gifts. A Kenotic Christmas focuses on giving relational gifts–the gift of being Christlike with and toward people.
While shopping, a Kenotic Christian might give up a place in line to the person behind who seems stressed beyond repair.
While engaged in family time with extended family, a Kenotic Christian might joyfully listen to Uncle Billy’s twelfth retelling of how things were “back in the day.”
This Christmas, let’s focus away from the Chaotic Christmas of giving material gifts (not that that is all bad), and focus on the Kenotic Christmas of giving the gift of sacrificial living that offers others a small mirror of the ultimate Christmas gift, Christ Himself, who emptied Himself that we might experience eternal fullness of joy with the Godhead.
Merry Kenotic Christmas!