Red, Green, and White

Today after reading my Bible, I'm thinking of the not so traditional Christmas reds, greens, and whites. And they're not very pleasant either.

I'll start with the story I read this morning-

2 Kings 5, Here's my long-story-short version:

Elisha heals a guy of leprosy. The guy is super thankful and offers the prophet money. Of course Elisha is a stand-up guy and doesn't take it. Elisha's servant, Gehazi [his name sounds like a sneeze] however, is full of greed and runs after the richy healed guy and says "oh hey dude, these guys came to us and they need some stuff so Elisha told me to come ask for those changes of clothes and money." Then Gehazi takes the stuff to his house and hides it, and then goes to Elisha. Of course, his master is a prophet, so he knows everything that just happened. Elisha asks Gehazi where he was, and the servant was just dumb enough to deny ever leaving. Because of the greed in Gehazi's heart, Elisha tells him this, "'Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever.' And he went out from his presence leprous, as white as snow."(vs. 27)

Not quite the white snowy Christmas you or I are dreaming of is it? Yuk.

I picture Gehazi being all three colors, 

RED with frustration and anger at the extreme stupidity he finds Elisha to be overflowing with. [I've NEVER gotten angry about someones choices]

GREEN with greed. [Duh, I'm sure you saw that one coming]

and WHITE with the fruit of the first two, leprosy. [again, yuk]

And now for the fun part of this post, a clip from one of my favorite Christmas movies as a child. Just watch the first two and a half minutes, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.

 

Pretty sweet chair, huh? When I was kid I thought that would be thee coolest thing. Our culture has a lot of learning when it comes to Christmas. But apparently, anger and greed are nothing new.