Opus 2015-477: Merry Christmas

Are you one of those people who say a “Bah Humbug!” to Christmas?  Let’s look at some of the reasons.

If you do not celebrate Christmas because you are not a Christian, I salute you for your consistency and honesty.  This would include Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and assorted atheists and agnostics.  Since Christmas is the day that the Catholic church decided to celebrate Christ’s Mass in recognition of Jesus’ birth, it would be strange to rejoice in something that you don’t believe.  It would be like me declaring Mohammad’s birthday a national holiday.

If you don’t celebrate Christmas because it is a pagan holiday, you might want to examine other areas of your life for the same consistency.  Maybe you should avoid cooked food since fire was used by pagans to sacrifice their children.  That would make fire a pagan religious symbol.  Or perhaps you should avoid using calendars with pagan names for the days and months.  Perhaps you might want to avoid products with names in foreign languages since you don’t really know what they mean.

If you don’t celebrate Christmas because it has become too commercialized then maybe you should stay away from hospitals for the same reason.  I would also suggest that you not watch TV or go to any web site that has advertisements.  Stop reading newspapers and magazines.  Get rid of all those articles you wear and carry that have logos giving free advertising to a product.

We have a saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”  We have purged our home of all Santa Claus images.  We don’t go into other people’s homes and make a big issue of it.  We are very much aware of what Christmas is about.  And keep in mind that the whole point of the coming of Jesus was the incarnation.  There was a need of a savior.  There was a need of redemption.  There was a need of change.  Think about how Jesus turned Saul into Paul.  He took the nemesis of Christianity and turned him into its greatest advocate.  If God can do that to a member of the Sanhedrin, I think He can do it to a Christmas tree.

But if you disagree with me, I still love you.  Celebrating Christmas is not like the Lord’s Supper.  Jesus did not tell us to do it.  Paul did not put it in with the gifts of the Spirit.  It is not rooted in the calendar like the resurrection.  It is not a means of grace.  It is a celebration.

Merry Christmas.

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