The Merry Christmas Battle

Merry Christmas. It’s the statement that becomes the battleground of the season every year about this time. Jesus is the reason for the season, we Christians will cry out for the next 25 days or so. Some of us will go bonkers if we see a Christmas tree in somebody’s house. And Santa? Oh boy, a Christian better not tell that lie to his kids. If you do your kids will never believe in Jesus and spend eternity in hell.

I didn’t grow up in a Christian household. We didn’t go to church except for weddings, funerals, and sometimes for an Easter sunrise service. (Did I just call it Easter? Oh, my. Blasphemy I’m told.) Christmas was a big deal to me as a kid. Yes, Santa came to my house. We had a tree. We had lights, reindeer, and all other kinds of non-Christ related paraphernalia scattered throughout the house.

But you know what else we had? In spite of my mother’s self proclaimed atheism that went on through most of my childhood, we had a manger scene. It sat right there on the coffee table. It was awesome with cows and a donkey. It had these cool wise men and this man and this woman dressed in these cool clothes. And it all was centered on this other little thing. A baby. And somehow in the midst of this secular celebration of a season of decorations and gifts I learned that that little baby was named Jesus. I have no idea who told me the story. We quit going to church when I was little and I remember nothing about going there. Yet somehow in the midst of all that commercialism and secular stuff we all freak out about, I knew who Jesus was. I knew that Christmas is based on His birth. It would be many years later that I would come to know Jesus. But I did. And in spite of finally learning the truth about Santa, I still believe the truth about Jesus. I’d like to believe I would die defending that truth.

For many years as a Christian I have fought the “It’s Merry CHRISTMAS!” not “Happy Holidays” fight. But this year it hit me. This year I hear the whisper of the Holy Spirit speaking in my ear. Want to hear what he’s saying? Get ready; it’s not what you might expect.

This year I believe the message from God is this. Celebrate the birth of Christ every day. Celebrate the resurrection of Jesus every day. The world hasn’t captured Christmas. The world has convinced us we only need talk about it for 3 weeks. We only need to celebrate the resurrection of Christ on one Sunday. The message is the same as many Christians have about church. Church isn’t a place you go on Sundays; it’s us. We are the church everywhere we go and every day of our lives.

The message I believe God wants us to hear is to be His hands in the world. To be the light of Christ in a dark world so that people will see who Jesus is and want to know Him as well. We don’t need to take back Christmas. We need to be His light in the midst of it.

Jesus knew the world would not recognize Him for who He is. John 1:10 says that “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.” Jesus said this in John 9:5, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When Jesus left this world He sent His Spirit to live in us. He passed on the torch to us. In Matthew 5:14 He reminds us saying, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

So maybe the battle isn’t over a 3-week season. Maybe in our own hearts it’s a battle to live everyday as if it’s Christmas and Easter (there’s that word again) all the time. Then rather than go out and tell the world to stop the Christmas nonsense, we should simply be the light of Christ to them in the midst of the nonsense. Maybe we should simply be the manger scene on the coffee table in a house full of silly decorations.