“The enemies of Christmas have succeeded in making Christians feel as if we are bad and intolerant to wish someone a ‘Merry Christmas.’ This is political correctness run amok. We have reached an all time low point in our nation’s history when human sensibilities are elevated above offending Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is long past the time for Christians to stand firm in our faith.”
I pulled that quote off of: operationjustsaymerrychristmas.com. This war on the war Christmas is really starting to distract people from the true meaning of X-mas. Let’s step back and re-examine our relationship with this blessed holiday for a moment, shall we?
Christmas originally belonged to pagans—Jesus was a Jew, yes, but December 25th wasn’t always our Lord’s birthday. Romans celebrated the god Saturn with gift-giving and merry-making until December 24th, and then they praised the sun-god on his birthday: December 25th. What an interesting coincidence that Christians started celebrating the birth of the Son of God on December 25th in the fourth century, as Hellenism was pressing its spear into the Church’s side… We’ve been fighting the “secularists” for Christmas for 1700 years. This is no new battle. No one is taking something from us by pinning Santa and commercialism on our good Lord’s day. Christians have just been fighting an uphill battle for two millennia.
Now, let’s put the “X” back in Christmas. Most people are familiar with the simple etymology of the Mass of Christ, but most Christians still take issue over abbreviating Christ with an “X.” This really shouldn’t cause much of a problem, though, because the early Church (that so many Christians love and adore—sometimes to an idolatrous point) abbreviated the Greek word Xristos (Christ) by using the first letter, X (chi—pronounced like the first half of “kite”). So X actually is the reason for the season, right?
Oh Christmas, the season of eggnog lattes and fighting with Jews over Hanukah. Okay, let’s talk about Hanukkah. According to the apostle Paul (with whom I periodically disagree, admittedly, on some points—call me a heretic if you’d like… Anyway, as I was saying, according to Paul…) the Church is grafted into Israel; it doesn’t replace Israel. According to the gospel of John (with whom I will much more readily agree), Jesus celebrated Hanukkah. WWJD, right? Why are we bickering over wreaths and menorahs? Hanukkah itself is the celebration of Jewish victory over religious oppression. Antiochus Epiphanes was forcing the Jews to accept symbols of foreign religions, so they revolted. Isn’t it interesting that Christians, who are supposedly grafted into the root of Israel, and who follow a Jewish Messiah, demand our rights to put up wreaths?
This whole issue does seem like an American political correctness ploy to me now that I think about it, but we Christians are the ones trying to fight for trivial distinctions. We have the right to say “Merry Christmas,” and we’ll beat the merriness into you. When we focus on our “right” to push our beliefs on people who probably won’t have a merry Christmas, we’re missing the mark. December 25th doesn’t bring me joy because of my right to wish the Muslim barista at Starbucks a merry Christmas.
It brings me joy because I’m reminded of the incarnation of God.
We have the liberty to celebrate that openly. Let’s stop bending that joy into anger over misguided battles instead of actively living out Christian praxis as the incarnate body of Christ.
