Every year there are two Christmases going on – Christmas and Xmas.
Xmas used to be an abbreviation of Christmas, but nowadays it’s a holiday all its own. It glorifies the mythical Santa Claus, not Jesus Christ, and it pastes over the birth of Jesus with fantasies about elves making toys at the North Pole and reindeer that talk.
The difficulty at this time of year, especially for Christians, is deciding which of the two – Xmas or Christmas – to celebrate. Do we simply go along with the Xmas crowd and celebrate the season with no religious overtones, no carols, no church and no mention of Christ’s birth? Or do we make a conscious attempt to “put Christ back into Christmas,” spread some peace and goodwill, go to church on Christmas Eve, and give to the needy rather than to those who have way more than they need already? Or maybe do bits of both.
Christmas to Christians, of course, is totally about the birth of Christ and its staggering implications for humanity – but Xmas is so inviting too! The Santa Claus myth is so magical, the Disney fantasies so appealing, and bloating oneself to bursting point – well, who can resist that? But why would anyone want to resist, the Xmas-lovers ask? Just eat, drink and be merry.
A Christian, however, knows all too well where that road leads, and the facts speak for themselves. The world careens from one financial crisis to another because of exactly what Xmas promotes: buying what we can’t afford and mounting up debt so deep we’ll never dig our way out. But that’s Xmas; it perfectly illustrates the self-centred, short-sighted insanity that Jesus was born to rescue us from, Colossians 1:13-14. But how do you escape the clutches of Xmas when “everybody’s doing it,” or you find yourself in a family that’s totally sold on the entire Xmas package and expects you to join in?
We could say “No.” No, we’re not interested in the self-centred excess of a Disney-romanticized myth. No, we’re not condoning the birth of Christ being transformed into a marketing machine for the economy, and No, we’re not spending what we can’t afford based on the ridiculous expectations of the culture. Risky? Yes, because Xmas exerts a heavy pressure to comply. But Jesus didn’t bow to pressure, so why should we? Especially when it was rescuing us from “gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature” that Jesus was born for, Ephesians 2:1-5.
Filed under: Christmas contrasts
