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What if there were no more Christmas?
Opinionated Commentary
by Bryce L. Tomlinson
So the question is
asked. What if there were no more Christmas?
You go to the supermarket, buy your fruitcake, greeting cards, wrapping paper, and an artificial tree complete with fiber-optic lights. You wait through the mile-long line and make your purchase with your special edition green-and-red credit card. Your friendly department store clerk, clad in Santa hat and ringing with pigtail-hung bells, chimes with a smile, "Thank you, and...." and then it comes, "Happy Holidays"
Wow. Now to many people, this generic greeting is so normalized as to be no big deal. And maybe that makes me just a person who has been oblivious to this change for the last 34 of my 35 years. And maybe you could be one of those folks who's going to say I don't have a lot of room to talk, considering that many of my Christmases might well have been spent completely without acknowledgement of the very person whom Christmas is intended to honor. But, if I do say so myself, and I do, my train of thoughts come from a different direction these days. The Lord has opened my eyes to a great many things in the no-so-distant past, many of those things being about yours truly, myself. But he's also given me an ability to be more observant. So without terrying any longer, I shall now dispense my observations.
As I understand it, the many branches of the military are currently (and I mean very currently) seeing to it that military chaplains do not pray "in Jesus' name". You know, the enemy would love to have you think this is coincidence. This is not the time of year to be gambling with the souls of our loved ones overseas. Scripture teaches us that by invoking the Lord's name in prayer, we both honor Him and also recognise that we come to the Father but by way of the Son. Scripture also tells us that we will be persecuted for loving Christ. The fact that this news comes at Christmastime doesn't say to me it's a coincidence. This is the time of year that Christians are most likely to honor our Lord. The enemy's most efficient way of preventing that has ALWAYS been to erase him from our minds.
As humans, we have always managed to find ways to deny Christ. Even beloved Peter, though he was sure he would be dedicated to the very end, was told by Jesus himself, "Verily I say unto thee, that this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." (Matthew 26:34) Lo and behold, Peter did deny knowing him three times. And this was a man who had spent much of the last 3 years ministering side-by-side with Jesus.
In Isaiah Chapter 1, we see a SHINING example of how God has gone out of his way to remind us of him, despite the fact that we wander so far off the path... (1) Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: "I have nourished and brought up children. And they have rebelled against Me; (2) The ox knows its owner And the donkey its master's crib; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider."
Watch your televisions, folks. Watch for it. Notice how you never hear that annoying but happy PayLess jingle "Merry Christmas, from..." okay okay. I just remembered that not only don't I ever hear from them, I'm pretty sure they don't exist anymore. (For those of you who are thinking about the shoe store, I'm talking about an old department store--and I'm showing the world how old I'm getting). PayLess isn't the only thing to disappear, though. Sears, Wal-Mart, Fred Meyer, and more have all changed their tune. In fact, I even saw an ad where someone actually changed "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" to "We Wish You a Happy Honda Day". How absurd. That song would have never been written if Christ hadn't been born. Christmas carols wouldn't have ever been thought up in the first place.
I saw an edition of "The View" where these four women had a rather heated debate about greeting cards. The argument started when one of the women read an article where President Bush had sent out over a million greeting cards and they all wished their recipients a happy "holiday season." This coming from a conservative and self-proclaimed Christian has drawn some serious criticism, and understandably, has set the example for many folks to follow suit. So back to these four women. They started arguing visciously over whether it was okay to send out cards that say "Merry Christmas." Two of the women (I'll call them Sane Sister #1 and Sane Sister #2) were agreed that they send out cards that reflect their own faith, and if someone on their list gets offended, well, they're scratched off the list for next year. Simple as that. But the other two women were so concerned with the harm that even ONE year's "Christmas" card could do, it was all they could do to restrain themselves and return the show to some semblance of order. I can say with confidence you will NEVER get a Christmas card from me without the word C-H-R-I-S-T in it.
I have a news flash for you. We've gone way beyond the days of writing "XMAS". Not only have we taken the Christ out, we've virtually erased the entire word from our super-duper-politically-correct-extra-non-offensive vocabulary.
So here's my point: What if this were the last year you were allowed to celebrate Christmas? After all that talk, it doesn't seem so far off base now, does it? What if there were no more Christmas? What if you went out and bought your 2006 calendar and it didn't say "Christmas" on December 25th? I mean, if it's not okay for the guy at the Burger King window to say it, why would it be okay to put it on the calendar?
WHAT IF THERE WERE NO MORE CHRISTMAS, I ASK YOU.
What will you do? I ask it this way because that time is coming. It might already be here.
Make sure you celebrate Christmas -- the celebration of our Lord and Saviour's birth -- literally meaning "Christ Mass". And teach it to your children. It is your job. "And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4) "For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him." (Genesis 18:19) Without His birth, He could have never died for our sins. My sins, your sins, and the sins of those yet to come. He became sin itself so that sin could be destroyed upon the cross. Without Jesus Christ, we are unworthy to face the judgement of the Father. But with Him, we can have the peace, love, and everlasting life that comes only from being purified by blood that was shed by someone whose name is NOT "X".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bryce L. Tomlinson's opinion is not to be considered affiliated with any organization or entity other than himself. Bryce L. Tomlinson's opinion is the sole property of its owner, Bryce L. Tomlinson, and is not to be sold for profit, though it can be borrowed with permission (if you ask with cherries on top).
You go to the supermarket, buy your fruitcake, greeting cards, wrapping paper, and an artificial tree complete with fiber-optic lights. You wait through the mile-long line and make your purchase with your special edition green-and-red credit card. Your friendly department store clerk, clad in Santa hat and ringing with pigtail-hung bells, chimes with a smile, "Thank you, and...." and then it comes, "Happy Holidays"
Wow. Now to many people, this generic greeting is so normalized as to be no big deal. And maybe that makes me just a person who has been oblivious to this change for the last 34 of my 35 years. And maybe you could be one of those folks who's going to say I don't have a lot of room to talk, considering that many of my Christmases might well have been spent completely without acknowledgement of the very person whom Christmas is intended to honor. But, if I do say so myself, and I do, my train of thoughts come from a different direction these days. The Lord has opened my eyes to a great many things in the no-so-distant past, many of those things being about yours truly, myself. But he's also given me an ability to be more observant. So without terrying any longer, I shall now dispense my observations.
As I understand it, the many branches of the military are currently (and I mean very currently) seeing to it that military chaplains do not pray "in Jesus' name". You know, the enemy would love to have you think this is coincidence. This is not the time of year to be gambling with the souls of our loved ones overseas. Scripture teaches us that by invoking the Lord's name in prayer, we both honor Him and also recognise that we come to the Father but by way of the Son. Scripture also tells us that we will be persecuted for loving Christ. The fact that this news comes at Christmastime doesn't say to me it's a coincidence. This is the time of year that Christians are most likely to honor our Lord. The enemy's most efficient way of preventing that has ALWAYS been to erase him from our minds.
As humans, we have always managed to find ways to deny Christ. Even beloved Peter, though he was sure he would be dedicated to the very end, was told by Jesus himself, "Verily I say unto thee, that this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." (Matthew 26:34) Lo and behold, Peter did deny knowing him three times. And this was a man who had spent much of the last 3 years ministering side-by-side with Jesus.
In Isaiah Chapter 1, we see a SHINING example of how God has gone out of his way to remind us of him, despite the fact that we wander so far off the path... (1) Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: "I have nourished and brought up children. And they have rebelled against Me; (2) The ox knows its owner And the donkey its master's crib; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider."
Watch your televisions, folks. Watch for it. Notice how you never hear that annoying but happy PayLess jingle "Merry Christmas, from..." okay okay. I just remembered that not only don't I ever hear from them, I'm pretty sure they don't exist anymore. (For those of you who are thinking about the shoe store, I'm talking about an old department store--and I'm showing the world how old I'm getting). PayLess isn't the only thing to disappear, though. Sears, Wal-Mart, Fred Meyer, and more have all changed their tune. In fact, I even saw an ad where someone actually changed "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" to "We Wish You a Happy Honda Day". How absurd. That song would have never been written if Christ hadn't been born. Christmas carols wouldn't have ever been thought up in the first place.
I saw an edition of "The View" where these four women had a rather heated debate about greeting cards. The argument started when one of the women read an article where President Bush had sent out over a million greeting cards and they all wished their recipients a happy "holiday season." This coming from a conservative and self-proclaimed Christian has drawn some serious criticism, and understandably, has set the example for many folks to follow suit. So back to these four women. They started arguing visciously over whether it was okay to send out cards that say "Merry Christmas." Two of the women (I'll call them Sane Sister #1 and Sane Sister #2) were agreed that they send out cards that reflect their own faith, and if someone on their list gets offended, well, they're scratched off the list for next year. Simple as that. But the other two women were so concerned with the harm that even ONE year's "Christmas" card could do, it was all they could do to restrain themselves and return the show to some semblance of order. I can say with confidence you will NEVER get a Christmas card from me without the word C-H-R-I-S-T in it.
I have a news flash for you. We've gone way beyond the days of writing "XMAS". Not only have we taken the Christ out, we've virtually erased the entire word from our super-duper-politically-correct-extra-non-offensive vocabulary.
So here's my point: What if this were the last year you were allowed to celebrate Christmas? After all that talk, it doesn't seem so far off base now, does it? What if there were no more Christmas? What if you went out and bought your 2006 calendar and it didn't say "Christmas" on December 25th? I mean, if it's not okay for the guy at the Burger King window to say it, why would it be okay to put it on the calendar?
WHAT IF THERE WERE NO MORE CHRISTMAS, I ASK YOU.
What will you do? I ask it this way because that time is coming. It might already be here.
Make sure you celebrate Christmas -- the celebration of our Lord and Saviour's birth -- literally meaning "Christ Mass". And teach it to your children. It is your job. "And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4) "For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him." (Genesis 18:19) Without His birth, He could have never died for our sins. My sins, your sins, and the sins of those yet to come. He became sin itself so that sin could be destroyed upon the cross. Without Jesus Christ, we are unworthy to face the judgement of the Father. But with Him, we can have the peace, love, and everlasting life that comes only from being purified by blood that was shed by someone whose name is NOT "X".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bryce L. Tomlinson's opinion is not to be considered affiliated with any organization or entity other than himself. Bryce L. Tomlinson's opinion is the sole property of its owner, Bryce L. Tomlinson, and is not to be sold for profit, though it can be borrowed with permission (if you ask with cherries on top).