What in the World????

Okay so I don't know that I have ever blogged about cultural or social topics before, but this moment I feel compelled.

So I was just changing our sheets while my sweet hubby was outside washing my gross car and I decide to flip on the television in our bedroom for some background noise, bad habit:( I turn to my favorite HGTV, nothing. Then I check out Fox News, again nothing, so I make the bad choice of channel surfing when I come across VH1. I notice that it is a concert, don't know who is singing at this point, but see that there is a big Christmas house in the background..."awww a Christmas Concert" is what my naive mind imagines. AND then I realize who and what I'm watching, and just what a complete atrocity, sickening display, gag-me, revolting display of shredding to pieces Christmas and the WHOLE point it exists truly is. I know that I am making so little sense as I vomit out my disgust!

I actually watched the rest of this spectacle to try and actually hear the words that Kid Rock was spewing out and it was appalling to say the least. I don't normally consider myself to be very naive, but I was shocked at the lyrics to the song he sang (if you can call it singing). I have no idea what the name of the song is...the lyrics contain lines such as, "I'm your rock-n-roll Jesus," "sex, drugs, rock-n-roll," "testify"! Okay so you get the point, and yes I very purposefully listened to the words to be sure that I wasn't misconstruing what he said.

So picture it...Kid Rock all dressed in white surrounded by girls with silver "band-aids" across their butts and chests dancing on poles and back-up dancers wearing pretty much the same, drummers and guitarists wearing cross necklaces, a huge house for the backdrop with Christmas lights glowing like crazy, and of course thousands of fans screaming for Kid Rock! And all I could think was "what in the world????" Then the best...they cut to commercial and they show the name of the concert "Larry the Cable Guy's Christmas Concert"....WHAT??? Are you kidding me?

And then I just became sad as I thought back to this morning and what I experienced at our church. 40 plus Christian men, women, and children that have fled their home country of Burma because Christians, including their own families and themselves, have experienced and endured things that my mind cannot even fathom. People that have watched their loved ones, their husbands, their children be raped, murdered, and tortured for their faith in God. Our God that sent His own son to die for us, to experience torture and pain like none of us will ever know...that same Son is the only reason that "Christmas" came about in the first place.

Why do so many people use Christmas as their opportunity to make money? Maybe I am taking this to heart way too hard...maybe I am just being my usual passionate self, but I think God wants us to be angry about things like this. I think it should stir something deep inside of us that screams how wrong it is! I just know that it solidifies even more my longing to "do Christmas" very, very different this year. I want to be radical for the God that came to save me in human form and suffered dearly for my sin. I want to celebrate Jesus Christ, the one that sets us free and loves us graciously and pardons all our sins!

The good that came from this is an increase in prayer for those that don't know Him, those that openly mock Him, and those that are today laying down their lives for Him in places where worshipping Him is not a freedom. I pray that those of us, including myself, that do know Christ as King will take seriously what we celebrate at Christmas and start walking in reckless abandonment for the One that saved our souls. May our God in heaven be lifted up by the worship of His people!!