To be clear we are in the season of Advent, not Christmas. Even if we were in Christmastide, the question would still remain relevant.

We sometimes mistake the practices of faith with the substance of faith. We make the outward signs meant to bring awareness to inward experiences, more important than actual having those experiences. We make the rituals of religious holidays and the people in the stories more important than the experience those stories are inviting us to explore.

What’s more important the person of Jesus or what he stood for and against? Let me ask it another way. What’s more important Martin Luther King Jr as a person or what he stood for and against? When we peal back the layers of reasoning for the holiday season, we can see beyond the person to what made him worthy of being given the title Christ.

Religiously speaking, we can make baptism about exclusion, about who is and isn’t Christian. We can make Christmas about exclusion, too, about who uses the name Christ and who doesn’t. We can do that and not even realize that by doing so we have ignored the very character of Jesus that led people to call him Christ in the first place. We become un-Christlike, bent out of shape about identity instead of birthing hope, peace, joy, and love into the world.

Our dogmas of belonging also create the exclusions that subtly shift the Divine Spirit of love beyond us. We fail to see how we actually cut ourselves out of the reign of God when we act as judge, when we proclaim others don’t belong unless they adhere to our rituals and use our titles. We sit behind walls of tribal identity unaware of the joy that burns beyond our tribal rituals and tradition’s narratives.

The Spirit of Christ is the reason for the season. The real question is whether one embodies that spirit, irrespective of whether they identify as Christian.

We, in effect, ignore the real reason for the season, preparation for God’s spirit to become alive among us, within us. May you be part of the advent of divine love living among everyone, regardless of whether others observe any of your holiday rituals of belonging.