Image by Patrick Mahoney as it was displayed on
The Christian Christmas Celebration Dilemma
Celebrating Christmas is wrought with concerns for the discerning Christian. On the surface, Christmas is the King of holidays. What better holiday can you have than one that celebrates the birth of our Savior? Jesus gave us the perfect gift of eternal life and taught us to love one another. So to express our love that we have for Christ as well as what we have for one another, it stands in perfect reason that we would also carry out the act of gift giving as a way to emulate Christ. So with that being said, where is all of the concern or better yet, why should we be concerned at all?
If you ever conduct a brief research on holidays in general, you'll find that most, if not all, of them have pagan roots.
Easter, for example, has references to pagan fertility festivals, hence the egg symbolism, etc. Over the centuries, Christians have adapted/altered pagan rituals/holidays that were commonly celebrated in their culture. As time goes by, symbols and meanings associated with a particular holiday are lost and forgotten. Most people, for example, probably do not know that the
holly we hang in our homes during the Christmas season originated from a superstitious belief; it protects from pagans and witches. Inspite of questionable/discerning symbolism, Christmas nevertheless has been adopted on a wide scale by believers and non-believers alike. Through long term observance, the Christmas Holiday has been blended and sewed into the tapestry of a collective and cultural conscience that defines the mores that we use as the infrastructure for our social/civil contracts. Now that we have a coveted event that carries righteous connotations, one runs the risk of being ostracized if they dare speak against a problematic cultural practice that is not commanded by God through scripture for us to observe/practice. One can only imagine at the flared tempers of people in church if you dared suggested that we should stop observing the holiday. Childhood memories as well as personal convictions and loyalties would not dare stand for it. It can, for example, be argued that since the original symbolism has been lost, that we have in essence transformed the holiday. If I'm not aware of the superstious powers of holly, for example, then I can't be accused of practicing witchcraft by merely hanging it in my home. My intentions were innocent. Hanging the festivial brush in my home, being in a different spirit than the one of it's origination, places the act in a different context alltogether. Paul tells us in Romans that one of us observes one day over another (
14:5) and as long as each is living for the Lord that we are not to judge one another (
14:8) because who are we to judge another's servant (
14:3)? The whole point of
Romans 14 is to instruct us to follow our conscience and to not judge our weaker brother and present a stumbling block. With
Romans 14 in mind, it is neither right nor wrong to observe or to not observe Christmas. Each person needs to follow his/her own conscience and to not judge one another for the personal decision they have decided to follow. This in of itself, however, does not free the Christian from the dilimmas that plague the Christmas Holiday. There is a tendency, for example, to trivialize the concerns associated with Christmas i.e, lying about Santa Claus, promotion of materialization, hypocritically helping the needy when we ignore them for the rest of the year, presenting a watered down Gospel so that it is more palatable and practicing in a holiday with roots in Romanism and paganism. Some Christians have never considered any of these issues and therefore they are not concerns at all.
As Christians, we shouldn't ignore or trivialize the things that are truly problematic. By now, if you have read this far, I'm hoping that you are taking each of the aforementioned concerns into consideration. Mark Dricoll has a piece in the
Washington Post that discusses the different options that a Christian has at his/her disposal when addressing the Christian dillema pertaining to Christmas. Driscoll says that we can either reject it, receive it or redeem it. Rejecting it obviously means that you have decided to not observe the holiday. Receive it means that you continue to practice the holiday the same as you have always done, etc. Redeem it means that you take everything pertaining to the holiday and place it in a proper context. Driscoll's piece is concerned with what parents should tell their children about Santa. A lot of people consider a little lie about Santa to be innocent. A little lie and what to do with one, however, is never addressed in the Bible. A lie is a lie and it is secular pragmatism that teaches the nobility of telling "little lies". Driscoll's concern is that if we lie to children about Santa Claus then it destroys our credibility when we tell our children about Jesus. In a child's mind, they may doubt our trustworthiness pertaing to anything we say about Jesus since we lied to them about Santa. Driscoll articulates and elaborates the matter between parents and children better than I do. I recommend his
article for further reading in reference to this subject. In it, you'll find a brief history about Santa and possible explanations about how some of the myths pertaining to him may have made it into the mythology of Christmas. Driscoll recommends for parents to tell their children the truth about Santa. He says for parents to explain that Santa was a real person and that now people for fun dress up like him; although I doubt Kris Kringle ever dressed up in a red fuzzy suit.
In the same spirit as Driscoll's "redeem it" mantra that he has prescribed, I also believe that we should redeem the holiday. I suspect that if a campaign is set out to persuade others to abandon the holiday, it would present a stumbling block as well as stir dissension. The best possible way to redeem the holiday is to submitt ourselves to Christ and remain in Him at all times. With this, we won't have to worry about hypocritically caring for the needy once a year (twice if you count Thanksgiving) because we'll be caring for everyone all year long. Although we may not keep our wallets maxed out with gift giving all year long with items purchased in a store, we can continue to give gifts by giving the gift of ourselves as we help and love others for the rest of the year. We should pray for the world to give Christ their affection all year long the same as they do in their words during the festival season. May our lives remain to be a festival season in giving Christ praise!
Blessed be to our beloved Father that gave us Christ out of the great love He has for us.
Forever we are indebted.
Grace & Peace to you this season and all to come,
W.
