Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas?

After reading the following post on my wife's facebook page I had a thought:

So I keep seeing status posts flying around on Facebook about Keeping Christ in Christmas and "It's Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays," etc, etc. This made me wonder, aside from joining these groups and making these statements, do we do anything throughout the rest of the year that makes the world think that Jesus is, in fact, all that important to us? The rest of the year, do you celebrate who He is and what He did, or do you use his name as a curse word whenever the feeling arises? Do you think about Him, read what He said, DO what He commands? Do you love what He loves and hate what He hates? Do you complain that your kids can't sing Christmas songs and then not give a second thought to the rest of the year and what they're taught in school? Are you upset that they can't worship the Savior or is it just that they can't talk about Santa? If you want the world to respect you wanting to keep Christ in Christmas, how about keeping Christ in your life throughout the whole year?
For Christians, Christmas is a celebration of God the Father, in love, sending us the gift of his one and only son into the darkness of this sin-ridden world in order to be crushed for our iniquity.  And as much as it is a demonstration of his love and mercy, it is also the greatest testimony to the sinfulness of sin  that one could imagine.  If we really want to know how far we have fallen, one only needs to look at the price that was paid for our redemption.

But for those who reject Christ, for those who treat lightly his birth and sacrifice, perhaps we should not be wishing them "Merry Christmas."  Perhaps it would be better to share the story in all its detail so that instead of a "Merry Christmas," God would grant them a "repentant Christmas." A Christmas where their hearts are broken and their lives are changed.by the gift of faith in the Savior who we celebrate.


3 comments:

  1. Very well said my friend, as well as your wife!

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  2. Very interesting. To many, "Merry Christmas" means Santa Claus (who is portrayed as God, thus an idol), singing praises to Santa Claus (Jolly Old St. Nick), mimicking heathen idoltry, etc., all of which are designed to excite the carnal, not the spirit of Christ. For this reason, among others, I have stopped saying "Merry Christmas," but will say something like, "May God bless you as remember Christ in this season." At the Senior Center I go I usually read the hymn "The Old, Old Story," to remind them of Christ.

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