Every year Charlie Brown, the Grinch, Macaulay Culkin and Santa Claus show up on our primetime television networks, purporting to tell us the true meaning of Christmas.

There is talk of spending time with family, lending a helping hand to the poor and getting kisses under the mistletoe.  Meanwhile, churches stage large Christmas productions that usually include toddlers running around the stage in miscellaneous animal costumes with the intent of keeping Christ in Christmas.

Amidst all of these competing voices, I want to offer my own spin on Christmas and its meaning for us.

To do so, I have to begin with my dog, Molly. Molly was a black Labrador Retriever.  My family brought her home when I was seven years old.  She was so big that I would not even get out of the car to pet her.  But as time passed by she became both a friend and a sister.

Her dog years elapsed seven years faster than my own years, and, like all living things, age began to get the best of her.  This past summer she reached a point that she was in constant pain.  My family decided it would be best to euthanize her to end her suffering. So on a hot August afternoon my childhood friend was put to sleep. My hand rested on her back, stroking her soft fur as she took her last breath.

Molly’s death represents to me the death of all things on earth. Nothing is spared in this transient world.  For this reason, Paul tells the Romans, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”

The world is not at peace, but awaits its glorification in the universal Sabbath in solidarity with humanity.

Consequently, when I sing the lyrics of Josef Mohr’s hymn, “Silent Night,” I cannot help but imagine the true fulfillment of his words: “Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright.”

The coming of the Son of God to earth as Jesus may have resulted in the salvation of humanity, but it was meant for so much more. The angels’ proclamation to the shepherds—“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased”—calls to mind God’s own pleasure with creation at the conclusion of his creative activity in Genesis.

This leads me to hope that the incarnation was ultimately meant for all of creation. Humans may have been created in the image of God, but we still belong to the realm of creation. And so we have a very specific bond to nature.  We are not called to dominate it, but to be at one with nature, groaning in the anticipation of the all-encompassing renewal of the entirety of the cosmos.

As this Christmas comes near, I think of myself and Molly, of humans and nature, of Christ the Savior and Christ the Creator; and, in these thoughts I recall that our God has declared: “Behold, I make all things new.” This is my hope and meaning in Christmas: that in Christ all things will be made new, as creation rests in silence and holiness, calm and bright, adoring its creator and savior.