WTE: Christmas is for everyone

The secular celebration of Christmas kicked off on Black Friday and ended Wednesday. As prelude to the twelve days of Christmas, just begun, it makes all of December a time of self-conscious generosity and “good will toward men.”

In a culture fraught with self-seeking, Christmas turns our thoughts to friends and family, to coworkers, postal workers and next-door neighbors. Hearts weighed down with pain and emptiness, are blessed with an opportunity to think of ways to bring joy to others.

Total strangers wish one another a merry Christmas and happy holy days. Nobody asks, as a condition of kindness, how you voted in the last election or your policy preferences. Christmas is for everybody.

What kind of force can “bid our sad divisions cease”? How it is that Christ’s mass is named by so many people who have never even been to mass? How is it that even those who consciously avoid the word, Christmas, nevertheless acknowledge these are holy days?

Many might dismiss this as a mere holdover from a more Christian time. That may be true. Customs do have a way of carrying on long after the ideas that inspired them have been forgotten. Still, if the customs of December are holdovers from a more Christian time, they remind us that such a time once existed, and they offer us hope that it could exist again.

They also give us an opportunity to reflect on our actions and rediscover the meaning of Christmas. Gift-giving is at its center. This points to God’s gift for all people--a newborn child.

No serious historian disputes the fact of Jesus’ birth. It is reported in both pagan Roman and in Jewish sources. It is reported in books that were written and widely circulated while many who personally knew Jesus were still alive. While historians both within and without Christianity debate the actual date of his birth, they do not deny that he was born.

Nor do many deny that Jesus is a gift to the world. Of course, each person who has ever been conceived has added some value to the world. But Jesus is special. Agnostics, Muslims, Jews—even atheists—all acknowledge this. Some value him as a moral teacher. Others, as a great prophet.

No single man in the history of the whole world has influenced as many people as Jesus has. Unlike philosophies and religions that were spread by cultural expansion and military might, Jesus’ influence is cross cultural. It did not capture people and cities, but hearts and minds.

Christian ideas gave rise to our most merciful and cherished institutions. Hospitals and orphanages, education and science, the dignity of women and of marriage, human freedom and the defeat of slavery—all these blessings are in the world because of Christ’s birth.

Another custom of Christmas is that the gifts we receive are wrapped. Colorful paper hides the content and value of a gift at its presentation. It is in our possession, but we don’t enjoy its full benefit without unwrapping it, learning what it is, and making it part of our life.

While anyone can plainly see Jesus’ beautiful influence on Western Civilization, the fullness of God’s gift to the world is not discovered until one looks beneath this wrapping to see the gift himself. This reveals the distinctly Christian truth.

Unlike other cultural influencers who came and went, Jesus impacted the world after his disappearance more than during his time in Galilee. That’s because unlike any other, Jesus’ disappearance does not mean that he is dead and buried. His crucifixion was only the beginning of the story. After that his tomb was found empty and no one—ever again—found his corpse.

Instead, hundreds of people said that they saw him walking and talking and eating with them—both singly and in groups. Some of these reported that after forty days his disappearance took the form of an ascent into the clouds. All of this leads to the Christian understanding that God’s gift to the world was not just a great man, but God Himself.

If you thought the wrapping was pretty, look at what’s contained in it! “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16 KJV). If you appreciate the perks of Western Civilization, you will be blown away by the God who is celebrated at its heart.

In Jesus we learn that all the kindness, charity, generosity and selflessness of the Christmas season is because the Creator himself is kind, charitable, generous and selfless. He gave himself to the world as its rescuer. “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). This gift is for everyone, especially you.