Cue up the Christian slogans, another Christmas is here. “Put the Christ back in X-mas!” “Jesus is the reason for the Season!” “It’s pronounced ‘Merry Christmas’, NOT ‘Happy Holidays!'”
Actually, I made that last one up, but I wouldn’t be surprised to get it back on a Facebook post pretty soon. As a Christian who wants to have a Christian worldview, I think we can often come off as petty, cliche and even kinda repetitive. And by cliche I mean ‘thoughtless and a little uneducated.” How many people know that X-Mas was actually used by Christians during the start of the printing press because the Greek letter for Christ is χ which saves ink and was a common symbol for the name of Jesus?
We need to be a people who are thoughtful about what battles we want to take up. Is it a huge deal when a Target employee wishes you a “Happy Holiday?” How dare they! What if they are a complete atheist? Would you like them to wish you a Merry Christmas when they don’t even believe in Christ? How would this change things for us?
Christmas should be a time of goodwill flowing from the Christian community toward the community at large rather than a time to force people to speak like us. It is not a time to tackle semantics or suggest that everyone bow before the true meaning of Christmas.
I think Christmas is a great time to testify of our faith in Jesus, without ramming it down everyone’s throat! I jokingly posted that “Santa is an anagram for Satan” and it was joke! But I am going to work to remain positive this Christmas, while trying to shine the light of faith, rather than trying to insult the darkness!
