As we head into this advent season I wanted to reflect on Christmas and what it means to me.  And then I realised that it means nothing to me.  At least this year.  I'm bored.  I'd rather just head out to the lake with Peter and James and go fishing.  Jesus can come too.  I hear he's pretty good luck on the water.  If I found myself at the manger (of Christ, Orsiris, or Horus depending on your myth) I'd probably be too busy playing with the animals to care what's going on.

So I look over from the sheep pen (I'm playing with the lambs because their fuzzy) and there's some chick going into labour.  Some scared 14 year old who keeps saying "I never slept with anyone, I swear"  But for some reason the kid has a roman nose.  Which is odd...  Because they guy she's here with is clearly of semitic descent.  I guess from all of his pictures that this baby grew up to look very Norse...  Long flowing blond or light brown locks, fair skin, broad shoulders and piercing eyes.

All of a sudden a bunch of shepherds show up (the place really starts to smell) and start claiming wild and crazy things about this kid.  That's about when I get up and leave.  It was getting crowded in there anyway.

I can recite this story from memory.  I'm sure that all of us can.  But it's so backward thinking. If we accept it, than the incarnation is in the past, Salvation is in the past, the God moment is in the past, and nothing is left for today other than a sweet nostalgia for past events that we hope can change enough individuals for the better to allow us to retreat into the 'good old days.'  The view of Jesus as personal saviour is not only impotent to provide cultural change on it's own, it puts God's work as largely completed.  Now we just have to accept that completion and sit here...  Bored.  Waiting for the end of the world and all of our twisted fantasies about the death and destruction of our neighbours at the hands of God becuase they didn't believe with us.  And even if it's not carried to its eschatological conclusions we're still stuck celebrating a victorian Christmas that won't change a thing we do come boxing day morning.  I'll leave with a quote from Charles F. Kettering, "You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time."  I'm bored with staring into the past.  I'd rather wrestle with our future.