JR. Forasteros - December 14, 2014
Information vs. Transformation
Last week, Peter told us to “live holy and godly lives” as we wait for the End. But what does that look like? Christians often turn to spiritual practices like reading scripture or prayer, but just as often, those practices leave us feeling empty. If we learn to approach these practices for transformation rather than information, we will unlock the key to spiritual life: we must wait for God to make us holy. And we can trust that God will, because God is faithful to come to us, as the first Christmas proves.
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Last year, Amanda and I bought this Nightmare Before Christmas Advent Calendar. Every day, you get to open it to find a new little figurine from the Tim Burton movie.
That movie always sparks debate: is it a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie? (For the record, it’s a Halloween movie.) If you haven’t seen it, the plot revolves around Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town. He accidentally discovers a portal to Christmas Town and decides to replace Santa. Things go wrong and eventually Jack has to rescue Santa so Santa can save Christmas and Jack returns to Halloween Town with a new lease on, uh, afterlife.
The movie’s weird, to say the least, particularly because it combines Christmas with horror – something we don’t typically associate with Christmas (unless you’re a weirdo like me).
In fact, even though it’s a Disney movie, Disney released it under another studio brand – Touchstone – because they thought it was too scary for kids. But the movie went on to be a huge success and today enjoys a massive cult following (massive enough to warrant, for instance, Advent calendars!).
Why? What is it about the joy of Christmas juxtaposed with the horror of Halloween that resonates so strongly with us?
I want to suggest today that the success of The Nightmare Before Christmas is no accident. There is, in fact, a space between Halloween Town and Christmas Town were most of us live.
