"Christmas isn't just about capitalism and candy. It isn't just about singing and Santa and fattening foods and toys," Jeff said.

"Wait a minute. Stupid me, I forgot. That's exactly what it's all about."

As I drove away from college last week, the words of one of my fellow students lodged themselves in my mind. Partly it was because I knew Jeff was paraphrasing a South Park- sentiment -- and I wondered privately how much of his worldview was shaped by Comedy Central. Does one evaluate the big spiritual questions based on SNL reruns and Daily Show sketches, or St. Augustine and Aquinas? It seemed a conundrum fit for a 400 level Philosophy course. As Steve Martin used to say, they teach you just enough in philosophy class to screw you up for the rest of your life.

There was something else, though; something there that I'd never noticed before this year. Something in those sarcastic words seemed to ring flat, pitiful, the hollow knell of a lonely soul.

I'd always dismissed those sentiments in the past. People who debate endlessly the "meaning of Christmas in a pluralistic age" always reminded me of those kids in Charlie Brown's Christmas who are more obsessed with the trappings of holiday spirit, from pageants to presents to trees, than the reason for the season -- and all they really need is a little recitation of the King James from Linus to show them the right path. My personal favorite is the quiet tinge in LinusÕ voice when he says that the shepherds were "sore afraid."

It's only the 19th Christmas I've seen, yet it is a Christmas unlike any other in my memory. This year, journalists tell us that more families are staying together, close to home. We are spending less time at the shopping mall, and more at the kitchen table. The shepherds feared what they did not know or understand; today, we fear things that are much the same, yet apparently without the message of hope that comforted the shepherds' hearts. We fear the loss of friends and family. We fear disaster and pain. Some of us fear for those who are fighting abroad. Others, that their loved ones' next plane trip could be the last. It is a time of uneasy farewells and sleepless nights.

Many people today are desperately searching for deeper meaning in this Christmas. Now, more than ever, they recognize they need it, not just for themselves or those they love. They need it for the sake of the thousands of chairs that will sit empty on Christmas Day.

For me, Christmas has always been about the bonds of family. As tied up in the memories of Christ's birth as it has been, Christmas has always marked a chance to let any petty arguments and clashes fade away in unity. Prayer, reciting Luke 2, lighting the advent candles -- I realized as I was driving towards home that I welcomed the chance to play football with my younger brother nearly as much as those traditional reminders of the babe in the manger. Thus far, the reunion has not disappointed. My brother had set up his Nintendo with a "Christmas" match ready for us both, with Mary, Joseph, The Babe, The Shepherds, and the Beasts of the Field as our teammates.

Perhaps it is not just the non-Christian that is searching for meaning. Perhaps it is those of us Christians as well, who have let something, anything, even a thing as precious as family prevent us from acknowledging the truth.

The meaning of Christmas this year is about two things. It is dedicated to the memory of those who are not with us -- and the fulfilled promise of reconciliation from the One who never leaves us, nor forsakes us. It is a solemn day. It is a day of rejoicing. It is holy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and martyr under the tyranny of the Third Reich, wrote against and lived against the "cheap grace that devalues sin and forgiveness alike."

"Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the Love of God taught as the 'Christian conception' of God ... Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance ... grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ."

Cheap grace comes as easily as the welcome holiday pleasures of family and friends. Cheap grace does not reckon what went wrong, does not judge the why and wherefore of the rift between man and God.

Cheap grace requires no cost for forgiveness. It requires no star, no miraculous birth, no manger, no angels, no shepherds, no cross. It requires no Christ.

The reason so many people are searching for meaning in this Christmas, more than others, is not because they have finally recognized the folly of my classmate's perspective on the holidays. It is because the events of this year have forced them to recognize that in the world, in our own lives, something has gone dreadfully wrong.

That deep-rooted wrongness, as Christians know, is the separation of God and Man. The sin that set our spirits so far removed would not be corrected by a mere wave of God's hand -- it would not do to merely overlook the wrong. Forgiveness is not forgetfulness, and God does not forget. Forgiveness is not ignoring the truth, or as Father Richard Neuhaus has noted, "a benign cooking of the books on tax day."

Paul wrote in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the word of reconciliation."

The message of reconciliation with Christ as the cost; or, put simply, atonement. Atonement -- Man and God at one -- the meaning of Christmas in a single word.

One of the oft-read passages during Christmas is God's promise of Christ, as written in Isaiah 9:

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government shall rest on His shoulders. And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end."

Yet there is another promise in Isaiah 25, one that seems just as appropriate today -- a promise for which we still wait. A promise of a world without suffering and death, a world of praise, a world reconciled:

"The Lord of hosts will prepare a great feast for all peoples on this mountain, a banquet of aged wine and choice marrow. And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, the veil which is stretched over all nations. And death will be swallowed up in victory. And the Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces, and He will remove the reproach of His people from the earth, for the Lord has spoken. And it will be said in that day, 'Behold, this is our God, for whom we have waited that He might save us. Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.'"

Merry Christmas.