You Can’t Find Christmas Under A Christmas Tree.
Christmas is as obvious as blood-red clouds gilding the morning sky. Christmas is the bright Red elephant in the room that you can’t ignore. But here we go again, schools and city councils say they are afraid to permit Christmas concerts and Nativity Scenes in the public arena because of a few shrill voices yelling “law suit,” “separation of church and state.”
I am amazed at the persistence of these vocal minorities even though each time they are challenged in court they lose thumbs down. But the madness continues in areas where school districts and city councils are ignorant of the law (which is hard to believe) or are willingly playing the ignorance game to keep Christ out of Christmas. But it’s as naïve as saying on a cloudy night, “There are no stars in the sky.” Christmas is here to stay! The efforts of those who would like to banish it from all public places are as futile as trying to build a fence around the wind. They are not unlike King Herod who tried to stop the first Christmas but failed miserably.
I’ve had more people publicly and unashamedly wish me a “Merry Christmas” this year than I can remember in a long time. It is especially heartening to hear people on radio and TV unabashedly doing the same. The Christmas carols in the malls are as clear as silver bells. The songs about the Savior’s birth will be sung all around the world this Christmas, even in secret meeting places like China and N, Korea and Sudan and Egypt and the Middle East. Let the Christmas kill-joys keep trying to sweep the tide out with their little brooms. Their ‘Happy Holiday,’ Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Festivity and ‘Holiday Tree’ replies are as hollow as their inflated Santa Clauses.
This ongoing battle will not end until the last “bah-humbug,” secularist-Scrooge-curmudgeon who is afraid of anything miraculous and supernatural, has the lid of his coffin closed over him. That is why we must not lose heart and keep fighting the good fight. Like pesky-contrarians they are not going to go away because being contrary is what they love to do. Iconoclasm is in their very blood stream. These Grinchs who try to steal Christmas every December are as relentless as hungry-cranky bears coming out of hibernation. That is why we must not become weary in well-doing in challenging them. They will continually try to steal Christmas from the public domain as surely as they are now trying to steal BC (Before Christ) and change it to BCE (Before Common Era) and AD (Anno Domini, Latin for, The Years of our Lord) to CE (Common Era). It’s all because they’re afraid of the miraculous the supernatural and that is what Christmas is all about.
Regardless of what they say in response, this is not a make-believe war. It’s a cultural war and it’s as real as light versus darkness war, truth versus error war , goodness versus evil war.
Christmas is more than a family time of food, fun and fellowship. These things are wonderful but peripheral. Take Christ out of Christmas and our reason to celebrate is short-lived.
May Your Christmas be as joyful as that of angelic choir that sang on that first Christmas.
“Joy to the world The Lord is come
Let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room
And heaven and nature sing.”
He Is the Reason for the Season.
Pastor Robert Bryant