Curious Customs

We have the some pretty odd traditions during the holidays. On Easter, the holiday that I thought was intended for celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, has turned in to a radically different character. A large, sentient bunny gives baskets of treats to little children. However, there is a catch. The baskets are full of plastic grass that you find in your vacuum for months to come and the treats are incased in plastic shells and foil. After receiving the baskets, the children have to search for colored eggs that were hidden by the bunny. To top it off, the children are dressed like tiny executives and characters from Little Women and they have to wear these costumes to church. Christmas also tends to leave me dumbfounded. To elevate the memory of the birth of the Christ within our minds, we cut down evergreens and put them in our living rooms. We cover these trees with easily broken glass spheres, statuettes of totally unrelated subjects like gingerbread men and deer, and potentially delicious cookies we turned in to plastic in third grade. Then, we hang large socks from the fireplace mantel and fill them with candy? Really? Last night, we removed the innards of large squashes and carved shapes in to them. Then, we put tiny candles in the squashes and took photographs of them. Do we seem completely insane to the parts of the world that don’t follow these traditions?
Christians have to be different from those who don’t follow Christ and don’t recognize sin as harmful. We really do need to be separate, as stated in 2 Cortinthians 6:17. This doesn’t mean we belong to an exclusive cult where we do whatever we can to exclude outsiders. It means that we have to make major improvements in our lives when we decide to call ourselves Christians. Attending church services is one of our greatest rights but it only serves to bring us together, sharpen us, and give us the opportunity to worship together. Do people know you are a Christian when you exit the building? Are you participating in the same conversations, actions, and thought processes of everyone else or do you reflect the person of Jesus? 1 Thessalonians 5:6 states that we can’t be asleep any longer. We have to be alert. The commands of God and the teachings of Christ aren’t always going to make us the most popular people, but they will make our lives great.