I love watching the original Grinch movie. It's short and simple. At the same time, most people celebrate the Grinch and his change of heart. I love the example of the Who people. They exemplify consistency in their understanding of Christmas.
The Who families prepare for Christmas like every American family. They put up their trees. They wrap their presents and stick them under the tree. Their homes are decorated for the holiday. In anticipation of the day, they have their roast "beast" ready for early morning cooking.
Now we all know the steps the Grinch takes to foil the day. With his dog's forced help, he slithers into Whoville to steal Christmas while the families sleep with the joys of the day in their dreams. He even meets Cindy-Lou Who, only two years old, in his sabotage of Christmas. Without remorse, he continues with his evil plans. What he did not comprehend about the day was that its festivities did not mean Christmas for the Whos. The festivities, all the decor, and everything they did represented the love for each other, and absent of all of it, that love would go on.
The Grinch's expectation of heartache and tears was not what he was greeted with on Christmas morning. He looked down at Whoville and heard the day's joy in community fellowship and singing. Christmas had still come for the families with or without their temporary and surface martial goods. They appeared to have suffered no loss from their stolen items. Christmas would go on.
We can learn so much from that. I am one of the few who does not hold Christmas as a favorite holiday. It can be stressful with all the expectations of others and having to wade through the surface desires versus the real meaning of the holiday. I don't find myself adopting the character of the Grinch at all, but I'd be remiss not to say I also don't feel the freedom of the Whoville people.
How do we get to a place where the receiving of gifts and the giving of gifts are a small sample of the love for each other and not some obligatory demand to not feel guilty for showing up empty-handed? Each of the Who people had to choose that Christmas was about the spirit of it, not the materialism surrounding it. As a community, they practiced what each one individually chose.
How does the Community of The Body of Christ play into the demand of materialism that each individual struggles with? Most Churches play right into the hoopla that we also saw in Whoville. The difference with Whoville was when those things were absent, love and celebration were still fomented. I'm not sure how many people would celebrate in a church absent all the elaborate decor that says it's Christmas season.
I have so many questions about how the Who people came to such a place where their hearts were full of the real meaning of Christmas as the story goes on, their ability to overcome the materialism that is the modern Christmas impacts and changes the heart of the Grinch. How many of us have a story about how our choice to overlook the grandeur of the day for its true meaning changed the hearts of others can we testify about?
Then I remembered the story that impacted me so much is only a movie watched at a particular time of the year and then put away. However, I stop and reflect on the other 364 days the Who families practiced living in humility that allowed Christmas never to be stolen from their hearts. Oh, it is just a movie. No one has to do any of that, or do we?
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