Everyone is talking about Christmas. Everyone is “looking for recommendations” for the best Christmas concert and bazaar to attend. Billboards advertising pop artists’ Christmas concerts fill the streets and social media outlets. But are they really celebrating CHRISTmas? What has Christmas become?
“Come on,” you might object, “it’s just fun. After all, ‘tis the spirit of Christmas.” What is “the spirit of Christmas?”
While Christmas and Easter are not mentioned in the Bible as feasts to be celebrated, I’d like to take a quick look at the concept of feasts in the Bible and why God Himself instituted them.
Why did God command His people to have feasts? To remember. Each feast served to remind the Israelites of a significant milestone in their journey with God. Forgetting them would mean forgetting one’s past, which is an essential part of one’s identity. They also served as reminders of God’s faithfulness for generations to come.
Why do people need to be reminded? Because we forget. As one of my dear professors taught me, “We forget the things we need to remember and remember the things we need to forget.”
Now imagine what would happen if we gradually removed Christ from His birthday celebration and removed Christ from His resurrection celebration, putting Santa and his elves, and bunny rabbits and eggs in their place. What would generations from now (or maybe even generations today) learn about the original meaning of the celebration? Absolutely nothing. They might even be shocked if they came across an “ancient book” that explained the true origin of Christmas and Easter!
My friends, we better watch out! Not that Santa Claus is coming to town, but what we’re doing to our Christian witness!
Our Lord Jesus Christ’s ministry spanned only three years on Earth, and then He entrusted the Church, His Body, to reflect Him, to be so united with Him that we carry His presence and light to everyone we meet. We are supposed to be salt and light to a tasteless and dark world. We are supposed to light so much that people are drawn to ask us for the reason for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15).
And this certainly won’t happen if we’re just going along with the tide! Remember the boys who were stuck in a dark cave inThailand for several days this past July? All they wanted was someone to bring a light and get them out. What would you have felt like if the rescuers reached the children and got them a really neat toy and just sat there and played with them?
Isn’t that what we’re doing?! Millions of people around us are stuck in this kind of darkness and all we’re doing is joining them in their Christmas “celebrations” while hiding the Light of the World under a bushel!! We have the light for their darkness and the freedom for their imprisonment, yet we remain silent. We have lost the sense of “necessity” for sharing the Gospel that the Apostle Paul felt (1 Cor. 9:16).
Imagine what would happen if we shared the true spirit of Christmas at every event held in the name of Christmas. It would be like the Apostle Paul who told the Athenians all about their altar to an unknown God (Acts 17:23-31).
People are hungry for the true spirit of Christmas, for a savior to rescue them from their self-imprisonment. Nothing except the true Light of Christmas can break the chains and open the prison doors.
Let us take our loved ones by the hand and together allow the Star of Bethlehem to lead us to the manger where it all began.
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”(Isaiah 9:6).
Christmas is the story of the Eternal Son given to a desperate humanity through the birth of one amazing little baby, who would forever change the history and eternity of mankind.
Merry Christmas.