We see at this time of year clearly that without Christ, things fly apart, but in Him they hold together. Look at the secular Christmas observances. There are cultural forces pushing you to indulge yourself like an oriental despot. And on the other hand, there is this pressure–in the Hallmark movies and pop-philosophers–towards radical self-renunciation.

And without Christ, that’s what the world does, it veers wildly between extremes.

But in Christ, things hold together, disparate things meet, tensions hold. You could express this as a negative exhortation: Don’t do this, don’t do that, there are two ditches to avoid, etc. But I would rather express this as a positive: you may, you can, what glory!

Here’s the thing: In Christ, you are free to enjoy the good gifts of God and you are also free from being enslaved to your appetites. You are made for God alone, and he is the source of all your joys, but in his good pleasure, he chose to mediate his love for you through all sorts of physical things. God took on flesh to redeem your flesh and to pronounce a resounding confirmation of the “It was all very good” spoken at creation. Christmas marks a new creation, the beginning of the healing of all hurts.

So, the exhortation is to gratitude for the good gifts of God and generosity towards those you have been given to love. You don’t have to grab everything for yourself, as if God were going to run out of blessings later in the week and those who didn’t get all they could are hosed. Remember the folks who gathered extra manna, because they were worried God wouldn’t provide it the next day? Worms. Full of worms. But at the same time, you don’t have to turn your eyes upward away from stuff of earth towards the luminous realm of spirit in order to be pleasing to God. He has given you the whole earth to enjoy, or more accurately, he has given you himself expressed in every inch of creation. Receive it as such with joy.