Don't Show Your Christmas in Public?

This year I think I heard it in the frantic warnings of a few New Jersey school districts.

They have been successful in curbing the use of the word Christmas in the halls of education. The dreaded Yuletide songs have been expunged from the choir’s repertoire. This year they have taken aim at a new threat – the Christmas music itself. One learned representative of our educational institutions observed that it was wrong to allow school bands to play the carols because the music has "religious overtones".

They want to keep the holiday at year’s end without any reference to what the celebration is all about. Don't be so quick with the shake of your head. There is something very offensive about the main idea of Christmas.

I understand how someone would want to keep all thoughts of God from intruding into the world outside the church buildings.

Christmas is all about a God who loves a fallen creation so much that when none of His laws could touch their selfish hearts he left heaven and came and lived here for 33 years. He came giving and blessing and healing, but He also came demanding: requiring a heart surrender and a turning away from self-rule.

The God-man was rejected and crucified precisely because He intruded into the affairs of state, recreation and community life.

James Montgomery penned that famous carol "Come and Worship, come and worship Christ the new-born King." He took the events of the Christmas night and wove into them a deeper message. He spoke of "Shepherds in the fields abiding, watching o’er your flocks by night" and then startled us with the idea: "God with man is now residing, yonder (a word you don’t hear any more) shines the infant light."

If it is offensive to merely have the name of Jesus mentioned in the company of someone who doesn’t accept the most widely held religion of the USA, I can quite see how immeasurably more one would be offended if the Founder of that faith walked about believing He was divine and calling people to repent of self focussed living.

If that word "sinner" makes some people shudder with distaste they won’t have much pleasure in Montgomery’s final verse: "Sinners, moved by true repentance, doomed for guilt to endless pains." The poet doesn’t blush to mention Hell.

The place reserved for the final eternal above for all who determinedly resist the loving wooing of a Holy Creator is one we’d rather confine to bad language than serious consideration. I’d also be offended by such a song – were it not for the fact that in my case the message is spot on.

I was living as though I was boss of my life. I saw the world through the prism of self-aggrandizement. I needed to be freed from the tyranny of selfishness. Each time I took God’s name in vain lied or coveted another’s possessions I was adding another crime against love. The record grew dismal. Even if you are much better than I am, and only sinned once every second day you are still in poor shape after a decade.

My sins – though only paper ropes initially, added to each other until they became chains that kept me from holiness in thought and attitude. Today I rejoice at Montgomery’s next lines: "Justice (because of Calvary) now revokes the sentence; Mercy calls you, breaks your chains!"

If the main idea behind Christmas is true: if God came here to call rebellious hearts to bow their knee to His reign, it follows that one would either think of this season with great rejoicing or with a deep desire to consign it all to the sphere of "Bah, Humbug!"

Your personal experience with God to date will influence your choice.