By The Rev. Alan Farquhar
In recent years two predominate notes sound as Christmas approaches. The one is that stores and agents of modern advertising move into high gear to push Christmas sales to a record high, I must confess this note seems to begin earlier each year.
The slogan “Do your Christmas shopping early this year,” has brought the Christmas merchandise into sight early in November, when it seemed not too many years ago you thought very little about it until after Thanksgiving. The comparison each Christmas season is with the business of the previous season and each year lately we learn that sales are at an all-time high.
The other notes come from clergymen and concerned laymen who raise the cry that Christmas has become almost completely commercialized; that it has become nothing more than a pagan holiday. The fervent plea is “To put Christ back in Christmas.” So sermons are preached and articles are written on the general theme: “What’s wrong with Christmas?” Yet I wonder if it is not about time we pause and ask ourselves the question, “What’s Right with Christmas?”
First of all, there is a spirit of giving, a generosity and concern towards other people that is prevalent in so many people, and to such a greater degree than you find at any other season of the year; giving that includes more than just our close personal friends, or family, but giving that also includes the unknown to us who are in need.
The next thing that is right about Christmas is that it is a season of great joy. For most of us it is a time of happiness and pleasure—and in many ways this is what motivates much of our giving; we want everyone to be happy, to be joyful on Christmas Day. This is not a pitch: to eat, drink, and be merry, that the most important thing is to let yourself go and get a bang out of life. But it is a plea to recognize that joy and pleasure have a place in life; and that life without joy is not worth living; that at Christmas time, we are perhaps more aware of the real Christian joy of living than at any other season.
We speak of putting Christ back in Christmas, but is that truly the issue? Charles Dickens wrote the immortal “Christmas Carol!” extolling the spirit of unselfish generosity—and then complained bitterly because the story did not sell well enough to give him the expected profit. These to whom we give our toys for tots, our Christmas baskets, what becomes of them after Christmas? This joy and happiness of Christmas Day, does it remain with us? Do we pass it on to others? This feeling of hope, what becomes of it… and the enemy with whom we sing carols on Christmas Eve, what becomes of him?
The real problem is not to put Christ back into Christmas, he was, and is always there. Our problem is to get Christ back into the other 365 days of the year. Thank God for Christmas! For on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day all the world is a better place, and men and women are more lovable. Love itself seeps into every heart, and miracles happen. Then, we know that God made us to laugh, to enjoy life as we sing “Joy to the World, the Lord has come.”
You know what’s right with Christmas? It is the day of “Good news of great joy… for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” May He truly be born in your heart this Christmas, and abide in you in the days to come.