Ninjas and Christmas …

Ask 100 people what they would like to be and likely a few among the group would respond, “I’d like to be a ninja.”

For some reason, there is a growing fascination with these aloof, highly agile warriors. Even the corporate world has taken up the use of the term “ninja” for highly specialized positions. And now, there is a growing audience for the popular television show “American Ninja Warrior.”

I just recently discovered the show, which draws masses of highly skilled amateur athletes to participate in a series of rigorous obstacle courses to earn the title “ninja warrior.” The competition is made up of three stages. The first stage starts with 100 challengers, most of whom will fail to complete the obstacle course and will quickly find themselves in a pool of water after falling in their attempt. The few who make it through the first stage will advance to the second stage, featuring an even harder set of obstacles to commandeer. Fewer make it through the second stage, but those who do move on to the third and final stage. Almost no one has the physical strength and agility to complete the third stage. You really have to be a “ninja” to conquer stage three.

While watching the show, a challenger who had made it to stage two on three different occasions was favored to advance to stage three. But he rushed his effort during stage two and fell, knocking him out of the competition. After his fall, he stated to the television commentator, “I became careless because I’m so used to this stage.”

His comment reminded me of how we often approach Christmas.

We have heaped multiple personal, family and other “traditions” onto “Christmas” that it has become something we’re so used to that we just rush through the experience, often failing to achieve out of it what God intended. We’ve made Christmas so laden with identical experiences that they have become wooden.

The Christmas tree goes in the same corner, to be decorated with the same ornaments while singing the same carols and partaking of the same snacks. We watch the same holiday programs and shop at the same places and go to the same parties.

On January 1, we already know much of what we will be doing for Christmas at the end of the new year.

We’ve become “… so used to this stage …” of the year we run through it on auto pilot and miss the wonder and glory of the purpose behind the season.

That purpose was God offering Himself as a Savior to the world. How does that fit into your Christmas?

Scotty