Every year I hear about Christians who hear the "Happy Holidays" greeting given to them at stores to mean there is a full-on war against their faith. I find it funny that the person checking out their big screen TV on Black Friday somehow is thought to have some power to destroy Christmas. Yet some believers get absolutely hot about the fact that we don't keep Christ in Christmas as far as the world is concerned and want to blame somebody as the result.
What they fail to understand is that culture didn't remove Christ from Christmas. We Christians did. We transformed the period from late November until December 24th, from a time of holy watching and waiting to one of hyper-consumerism and cultural observances. So much so that when we go to a big box store and don't hear "Merry Christmas" we see it as an attack on our faith-but we let it happen!
Let me explain what I mean.
I believe that Christmas is under attack, but I don't think the stores who have "holiday sales" are the attackers. I don't think it's towns that remove Nativity scenes from parks. I don't believe it's public schools that insist that Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist kids not be asked to sing songs affirming a faith different from their own. I believe the greatest attack on Christmas has come from within our ranks. It has come from those of us who claim our greatest hope comes from the fact that God became a person of goodness, kindness, justice, and love, and who then act nothing like that person did.
When Jesus called his followers up to a hill and preached to them, he told them who the "blessed" were. These were the ones whom God has looked with favor upon and will grant joy. The ones Christ calls blessed are often the same ones we as a culture are the quickest to condemn or criticize. We blame them for their own situation, and we refuse to help them. We somehow forget that when God became incarnate and preached a sermon about who was most blessed by God, these are the ones who were named: the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the peacemakers, the merciful, the mourners, the pure in heart, the gentle. If Christmas is about the incarnation of God, and this is what God incarnate saw fit to tell us, then this is the ultimate Christmas message.
So how do we keep Christ in Christmas? Worry less about the holiday policies of non-religious institutions, and think more about whether we are actually listening to, and then doing, what Christ has told us to do. In short, keep Christ in Christmas by acting like Christians not just for a season, but 365 days a year. How many times have we told God by our actions that we could care less what Christmas means? Because if we don't take seriously the words of the man who was that baby born on Christmas, we have no idea what it means to keep Christ in Christmas.
If you want to keep Christ in Christmas live like He did every day. It won't be a seasonal celebration you receive, but one that is eternal and will never cease.
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