I wrote this short piece for an Advent devotional booklet that my church printed several years ago:

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Colossians 4:6

I used to read my second grade classes the story by Laura Ingalls Wilder, “Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus.” The story describes Laura’s and Mary’s Christmas gifts in these words:

“They never even thought of such a thing as having a penny. Think of having a whole penny for your very own. Think of having a cup and a cake and a stick of candy and a penny. There had never been such a Christmas.”

I always had to try to explain to my second graders that Laura and Mary were happy about their gifts. I’m fairly sure that many of those seven year olds never did understand how anyone could possibly be happy about a Christmas where the gifts were, in their eyes, so pitifully small and insignificant.
I think there’s a similar communication gap between Christians and the rest of the world. When you get right down to it, the birth of a baby in a stable is a fairly insignificant event. The fact that the baby grew up to be a man, taught and healed people for about three years, and then was killed, is not all that impressive, especially when you ignore or disbelieve certain parts of the story such as the resurrection. We Christians say that the birth and life of this particular child, Jesus, was a unique event, the focal point of human history. The rest of the world, perhaps not taking much time to investigate the matter, is mystified over all the joy and hope we Christians say we derive from our faith in Christ.
It’s a matter of values and expectations. To make at least some of my second graders begin to understand Laura Ingalls’ Christmas, I asked them some questions: “What do you expect to get for Christmas? What gifts have you received before that made you happy? Why did those gifts make you happy?” I got some interesting answers. Maybe, if we want others to begin to understand our faith and joy in Christ, we could ask some questions: “What gives you joy? Why do these things make you happy? What do you expect God to be like? Who do you think Jesus is?” We might get some interesting answers–and close the communication gap just a little.