In Defense of Christmas

Dearest Readers,

Things have been different for me this year. I don't know what set it off exactly, but I suddenly just sat up and realized that...

Christmas seems to be dying.

A shocking statement, yes, I know. But I'm serious. Think of it. The stores overflowing with all that cheap, tacky plastic. Hideous decorations. The Grinch, who seems to have cast his reformation aside, products everywhere about his hatred for the season. Santa Claus, elves, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, awful music just blaring over speakers everywhere... "Last Christmas I gave you my heart..." (etc., repeat endlessly)... and "Baaaaby it's cold outside"...

And then there are the people from my church, who don't celebrate Christmas. The pastor ranting at us from the pulpit about "pagan, heathen practices" and how evil it all is...

And the two combined just cracked something in me.

I want you to close your eyes and picture something with me... Or rather, don't close them, because you have to keep reading XD, but picture this all the same.

A dark night, long ago, silver starlight filling the sky. And from all around, in every direction, the golden glow of lantern light. Perhaps the sound of sleighbells and laughter. And people singing... singing as they make their way to the village church. Perhaps they're all singing different carols at once as they come from their separate directions... imagine the words folding over each other...

"Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright..."

"Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King!"

"Oh come, all ye faithful..."

"Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King!"

It's Christmas Eve, sometime long ago. Long before tacky decorations and ugly plastic things. This is Christmas at the heart of it all, what it was meant to be, what it should be. People file into church, calling out Christmas greetings to each other across the sanctuary.

They read the Christmas story. They pray, they thank God for His unspeakable gift. They sing carols. 

Perhaps they start in a dark room. The minister lights a single candle. And as he speaks the opening words of the Christmas service, he steps down from the pulpit to touch his lighted candle to the candle of one of the congregation. One by one, they light their candles, going down row after row until the whole church is aglow with golden light... just as the Light of God came into the world on that first dark Christmas night.

They stay in church till midnight on Christmas Eve, and suddenly the bells begin to ring out in joyful chorus, proclaiming the coming of Christmas Day. The whole world must hear and know that the Messiah has come and because of that, we are joyful and we are grateful, AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID TO LET THE WHOLE WORLD KNOW!!!

This is the point where I feel like throwing my head back and spreading my arms wide, and just crying out to the whole world that it is Christmas, and this is what Christmas means!! Perhaps running down main street like George Bailey, screaming "Merry Christmas" to each and every person and thing I see. Wake up, world, wake up and TAKE NOTICE!!! OUR KING HAS COME AND WE ARE CELEBRATING IT ON THIS DAY!!!

I've heard it all, folks. Christmas is on the day of a pagan holiday. We don't know what day Christ was actually born. Christmas trees is a pagan, idolatrous custom. It's wrong to decorate. It's wrong to give gifts. You're following the ways of the world. 

No.

No, no, no.

I am so done with this kind of talk. It made me want to just stand up and scream, right there in the middle of church. 

I agree as far as we DON'T know what day Christ was born. Does that mean we should ignore His birth? Christmas is a day we have set aside to PURPOSEFULLY remember. To rejoice, to celebrate, to thank the Lord, to worship. We decorate because we're showing our rejoicing. We sing because we're praising. We give gifts to each other because we're remembering the Greatest Gift of all that was given on the first Christmas day. 

So what if the day falls on what used to be, long ago, a pagan holiday? We've redeemed that day, we've claimed it for God. Besides, if you want to take that route, look at this... every day of the week commemorates a different pagan god. Sunday is the day dedicated to the god of the sun, Monday to the god of the moon, and so on. Does that mean we should hide and pretend these days don't exist?

We live in a sinful, fallen world. So what better way to shine the light of Christ than to seize these times and take the opportunity to share the Gospel? Christmas is not just a day of feasting and bringing pleasure to ourselves, it's the perfect opportunity to show the world what it's all about! Why do we celebrate? Let us show you!

And while I'm on the subject, allow me to put in a good word for my beloved Christmas trees. They are NOT an idol. They are NOT a pagan tradition. They are a symbol of everlasting life in the midst of the cold and dark of winter, and we light them up to remind us of the light of the world. They were used as an illustration by Martin Luther in preaching the Gospel, and he started the Christmas tree tradition. Also, today I found out that they seem to be referenced in a scriptural prophecy about the coming of Christ.

The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious.
-Isaiah 60:13 KJV

From here, I'm just going to let my dear friend Charles Dickens do the talking, because he has laid out the true meaning of Christmas better than anyone else ever could (besides the Bible itself) in his masterpiece, A Christmas Carol.

"I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

"It is a time, of all others, when want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices."

"Mortal! We Spirits of Christmas do not live only one day of our year. We live the whole three-hundred and sixty-five. So is it true of the Child born in Bethlehem. He does not live in men's hearts one day of the year, but in all days of the year. You have chosen not to seek Him in your heart. Therefore, you will come with me and seek Him in the hearts of men of good will." -The Spirit of Christmas Present

"It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself."

This last bit doesn't completely work with the point I am trying to make, but let us read it nevertheless, because it makes me happy...

"Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and, knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total-Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!"

Come, come, all ye faithful, come! Let us adore Him! Don't let Christmas die. For if not today, then when? And if not this way, then how? 

There is a lot more I could say on this topic, but I'm in that rushing, harem-scarem mood in which I hardly think, just jot down my flying thoughts as they come, so I present them to you in this jumbled fashion, and I say a very Merry Christmas to you all, and God bless us, everyone!!