Happy Boxing Day!

I was listening to a podcast today and “Boxing Day” came up.  I’d heard of it before and hadn’t given it much thought, but when the person who brought it up said “Boxing Day is the day when everyone packs up all of the Christmas stuff,” it made me think about something, so I looked it up.  From what I can tell, that doesn’t seem to be the intent of the day at all (and here she was, Canadian!), and yet I can still see that. Especially since it came up when one of the podcast guests (a Christian) said “I’m glad when Christmas is over.” You would think that an odd thing for a Christian to say, but there’s a lesson in that.

The Christian speaker went on to make the observation that as children, Christmas was full of magic and delight; but for adults, it’s just one event after another: the hassle of shopping, the hustle and bustle of the season – all so your children can live the most idyllic story-book Christmas they can.

So of course we need the rest.

The history of Boxing Day isn’t entirely clear.  From what I can tell, it could have gotten its name from the alms box at the church being opened for the poor on the day after Christmas.  Or it could be because it was the day after servants spent the whole day waiting on their masters (and Christmas, at that!), so they were given a box and sent home to be with their families. Nowadays it appears to be a day for shopping – I’d think because so many people were already spending it taking back stuff they’d just gotten, but maybe there are other reasons to shop that day.

Regardless, I’m all for it: Boxing Day should be a holiday for the adults.  Let the children have Christmas. Boxing Day is when Mom and Dad get to take a break.  Send the kids outside (or to their rooms, or wherever) to play with whatever they got the day before. Taking down the tree and decorations is optional, but resting from the previous month is mandatory.

I’m good with that, but that’s not my entire intent here. I’m writing this to give you more than just a day of rest.  I want to give you a break from the stress of fighting in the “war on Christmas.”  To be honest, that war has been over for a long time. Christmas is a secular holiday, even to Christians.  Sure, we overlay the trappings of the birth of Christ, and we well should.  We should never forget “the reason for the season.” But by and large, the World has taken Christmas and done with it what it does to most other holy days – gentrifies it and makes it a product palatable to the common man so it can take their money.

Is this a call to give it up? Of course not.  But as usual, I feel the need to bring to the attention of anyone who’ll listen the need to understand and live in the world as a Christian.  And here, the Bible gives us plenty to think about. 

It’s there that we read what John writes in his first letter: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” As he wrote that, I’m sure he was remembering the words of his master and teacher (words that John recorded in the gospel he wrote) when Jesus said, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  The world is a difficult place – a place in which the thinking Christian may struggle to understand or feel at home (as opposed to those who, as I’ve quoted from a New York Times article before, are looking for “a religious environment that [does] not clash with the rest of their lives”). John writes in his letters and the gospel that carries his name that this struggle is just a reality that comes with being here and being human.

But when it comes to working through this as a Christian, Paul helps us out a bit when he writes to the church in Corinth, “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.”  It’s true. If we were to disassociate ourselves from everyone who doesn’t live the Christian life, we wouldn’t have anyone to talk to…in some cases even ourselves.

Again, don’t get the idea that I’m saying Christians should just throw in the towel and stop celebrating Christmas as the birth of Christ. I’m just questioning whether we should put so much stock in singular days of the year – with the side effect of producing a “Christian” red and white (poinsettia and lily) sub-culture – to the point that we feel we have to war with our neighbors just to give a day its “due.” The world doesn’t owe us that, and we should by no means expect it.

And I think Paul helps us here again when he writes to the church of Rome: “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord.” This isn’t just about days – Paul talks about what and how we eat too. But his point is not in the days or in the food. It is in the acknowledgement that we should do all things in good conscience and with a mindfulness of God, and in doing so we can be confident in how we live.

Now, I’ve written before about the dangers of “checklisting” our lives and the legalism that comes with that, so I’m not suggesting that we just add this to the list. I’m saying what we’re seeing here is simply that if we live our lives in faith and with a love for the one who saved us, those things we esteem will become that which honors the Lord just by the nature of how we are living. Paul, again in Romans: “The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”

Yeah. That.

And this brings me back around to Boxing Day.  Because sometimes we can be overcome with the trappings of Christmas – the parties, the food, the shopping, the decorating, the whole, “let’s make this a ‘Christmas to Remember’™” deal – that we lose ourselves and the meaning of the day.  But this isn’t a reason to give up. No.  We can loudly and joyfully proclaim and celebrate the birth of Christ.  We should do the same for his life, death, and resurrection too – even as we rest on Boxing Day.  If we remember this lesson correctly, it can be as much to the Lord as is Christmas – and a day to reflect back on what everything that day, and every other day, really means to us.

So yeah – I wish you the best and happiest of Boxing Days.  I hope you use it well.