Pastor's Message

SPIRIT STEPS/ December2009

“Put Christ back into Christmas”.   You have probably seen the poster, or the bumper sticker, or the bill board.  The slogan begins to pop up in various places this time of year.  It’s one of those catchy phrases to which good Christian folks say “Amen”.  We get on our high horses about the commercialization of this sacred celebration and point to the greedy capitalists as those responsible for the marketing of the Xmas season.  We might even make some small gestures of making our celebration of Christmas less commercial. 

As Christian Churches are losing ground in the United States I have heard talk of those who do not want the word “Christmas” to be used in reference to the Holiday that is celebrated on December 25th.  I have heard that it is politically incorrect to wish someone you do not know a “Merry Christmas”.  If you want to wish them something it is politically correct to wish them a “Happy Holiday”.  In response to this I hear Good Christian folks fire back, “I’ll wish people a “Merry Christmas if I want; I don’t care whether or not the other person is a Christian, Jew, or Muslim.  Christmas is about the birth of Christ.”

Christmas for the Christian is about the birth of Christ, God incarnate in human form, but before we get too carried away with greeting all with a “Merry Christmas” instead of a “Happy Holidays” we might want to take a closer look at our own practices of celebrating Christmas, in that we might need to remove the log from our own eye, before looking to our neighbor.

Now, I’m a romantic, a sentimental romantic at that, and I love all the sentimental romantic stories and carols that surround and make up our Christmas celebration.  Having said that, I need to question myself as to whether I have so romanticized, so sentimentalized, Christmas that I have lost the true meaning.   The Gospel of John tells us that a light has come into the world.  A light has come to shine on our prejudices.  A light has come to illuminate the self-centeredness of our lives.  A light has come so that we no longer stumble in the darkness of lives apart from God.

The candles and lights of the Christmas tree give off a soft glow and it is nice to spend a little time basking in that glow, but if we allow Christ back into Christmas, that soft glow gives way to the bright light that shines on our greed and corruption and allow us to see the dead end to which this path leads.  That same light allows us to see a path of love and service, a path that leads us home.

So maybe rather than being concerned about putting Christ back into Christmas we should be concerned with putting Christ back into our lives.

Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas!

Pastor Bob