As a culture, we are easily obsessed. We simply go overboard and take things too far. We can't get enough of sports, celebrities, Facebook, and reality TV. I think we can add Christmas to this list.

Our stores set up Christmas displays even before Halloween in hopes of encouraging a head start on Christmas shopping. We have Christmas specials on television. We have Christmas outfits and Christmas pictures, Christmas decorations and Christmas dishes, Christmas music and Christmas traditions and, of course, everyone's favorite: Christmas gifts! So as Christians, how do we handle our culture's obsession with Christmas? Do we embrace this Culture of Christmas? Do we hide from it? Do we fight it? What is the appropriate response?

Growing up, I loved Christmas. Each December, my family would have a beautiful advent calendar with a little mystery door to open each day leading up to Christmas. It was a magical time as we counted down the days to our presents. We'd spend countless hours looking through the Sears and J.C. Penney catalogs, making notes and adding things to our wish lists. On a December Saturday we would go out to the mall and our parents would give us each $20 to buy presents for the family. There was something fulfilling about searching for the perfect gifts - ones that would both please and surprise each family member. Coming home from school to find the outside of our house covered with lights, the inside of our house filled with decorations, and a tree surrounded by presents, I knew something special and exciting was just around the corner.

Our family had many other fond memories and traditions that I instinctively now want to repeat with my own children. But how do these fine traditions relate to our cultural obsession with Christmas? As a Christian, can I keep these traditions and still focus on the true "reason for the season" or will all these superficial customs distract me from the true gift of Jesus, who was born in the simplest of settings?

Surprisingly, the Lord's Prayer gives us some helpful insight. The fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer is "Give us this day our daily bread." In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes that "God gives daily bread to all, even to the wicked, without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that he would make us aware that these gifts come from him as a gift and enable us to receive these gifts with thanksgiving." The common practice of giving and receiving gifts makes it appear that Christians and non-Christians alike are caught up in the Culture of Christmas, but Christians have a double blessing because they can see the Giver behind the gift.

In the fourth petition we ask God to make us aware that these Christmas gifts come from him. But aren't my parents the ones who purchased the gifts? How is God involved? Well, who gave you your parents? God. That is exactly how God chooses to work - through people! In Genesis 2:15 we see that God uses his people to take care of his creation, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it." So whenever any gift comes to us we can be aware that God himself is the Giver behind the gift.

Back to our original question: What shall we do with our Culture of Christmas? We can ask our Heavenly Father to send us the Holy Spirit so that we might see Christ in our Culture of Christmas. We can ask God to give us eyes to see that he is the Giver behind every gift - a Giver who gives generously to his children and to those who are not, because he loves us all. What freedom we have as Christians! Thanks be to God who has revealed these things to us! He allows us, living in this Culture of Christmas, to see the Giver behind the gifts.

How may we see the Lord in the Culture of Christmas? Christmas presents remind us that God provides also for our daily needs. Christmas lights and decorated houses remind us that he provides us with the shelter of our homes. When we gather as families, we are reminded that, through our families, God has provided not for our physical needs such as food and shelter, but also for our deeper needs - identity, security, and protection in this world. Even those too-early and over-the-top Christmas displays in department stores can remind us of the anticipation of Christ's initial arrival and his eventual return.

The greatest blessing in seeing God as the giver of all gifts is that we are reminded of his most precious gift to us, the true focus of Christmas, Jesus. These physical gifts, all good gifts from God, serve as signs that point us to Christ.

Counter-Culture Christmas:
Seeing the Giver When We Don't See the Gifts

For some of us, the Culture of Christmas does not inspire obsession, but rather depression. We're not excited about new gifts, because Christmas time reminds us of something or someone we've lost. It's painful, rather than joyful.

Christmas can be a time of financial stress and the feelings of helplessness and failure that go with it. It is a reminder of celebrating another holiday without a beloved family member. It is also a time when the dysfunctions of our own families are seen so clearly. We hear the familiar words of the Christmas story and we think that there is not peace on earth and goodwill toward men. So instead of counting down the days until Christmas comes, we find ourselves counting down the days until Christmas goes. We wonder how we are going to make it through another Christmas season.

The question we are really asking is, "How can we see the Giver, when we don't see the gifts?" or "How can we find Christ in the pain of Christmas?"

When Jesus first came to this world as a human baby, he wasn't born in a palace - he was born in a barn. He wasn't welcomed by the rulers of his day. Herod sought to kill him, forcing Jesus' family to flee with him to Egypt. It was the story of Jesus' life. His life on earth didn't end in triumphant victory; it ended at the cross in pain and in death.

But his loss was for our gain. It was into a world of pain and death that Jesus was born, it was for a world of pain and death that Jesus came, and it was through his own pain and death that he redeemed this lost and dying world. By his wounds we are healed.

Just as much as the gifts of Christmas point us to Jesus, the pain of Christmas also points us to Jesus. As we realize that this world is not how it is supposed to be, we also know the reason for which Jesus came - to give his life to redeem us. Could it be that it is in our suffering and pain, rather than the glitz and the glamour, that we see Jesus most clearly?

In both gift and pain we are reminded of the first words of the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father" who wants to give us all good things - even Christ!

Pastor Adam Berge serves Bethesda Lutheran Brethren Church in Westby, WI