Driven to a Merry Christmas Distraction

People in Plano, TX, got all turned inside out over the color of paper plates and icing on cookies. White-Yes! Green and Red-NO! In other places, people argued over trees and tinsels. Then there were the ubiquitous contentions over carols, with lyrics and without. Side by side came arguments over the academic calendar nomenclature: are we going to have no one come to school because it's time for the "Winter Break," or is no one going to be in attendance because of the "Christmas Vacation?"

Lawyers on both sides of the great cookie/plate/calendar/music controversies were standing by, ready at the drop of a lawsuit to head to court. Non-Christians had their barristers, while the Christians had their own cadre of legal eagles.

Controversy spilled over into the stores of the retail merchants. Were the friendly sales staffs to greet the cash and credit card bearers with, "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas?" Irate believers swore boycotts at the "Happy Holiday" merchants, (but if the deals were good, some believers made the foray into the territory of the heathen, put their hands over their ears, and made their bargain purchases).

This year, large corporations were brought to heel, switching from the "holiday greeting," to the "Merry Christmas" one. The power of the purse made the heathen change when profits started to drop.
The Christmas season, now starting weeks before Halloween and ending at midnight on December 24th, has become a series of exhausting months of buying, eating, boycotting, and courtroom gluts. In it all, we're driven to distraction.

Could it be that in all this, we've lost sight of something? What's bothersome is that nobody is asking, "Do we really want to force people to say, 'Merry Christmas' if they don't mean it, and if they only do it to thicken their wallets?" We might say that we want them to recognize the reason for the season and making them say, "Merry Christmas" causes them do just that.

Somewhere back in history, the Roman Catholic priests gave the Jews a choice – be baptized or we'll kill you. Many Jews submitted to this "Christian" baptism, but, so what? It didn't mean anything. Although they were considered "Christians," they weren't converts to the faith. They just did it to stay alive. Perhaps there's a slight parallel here – "Tell us, 'Merry Christmas,' whether you mean it or not, or we'll drive you out of business."
Who isn't sickened by the relentless onslaught of the secular society? We all are, but does making people say what they don't mean accomplish anything for eternity?

It's great to hear, "Merry Christmas," it's now music to our ears, but we have to realize that the world will say anything if we'll just show them the money. They'll wish us a "Merry Banana Day," if that's what we want and if it'll line their pockets. It means nothing to them, whatever they call it. We may call it a "Victory," but is it really, or is it only a cosmetic victory – nothing has really changed as far as the heart is concerned.

But maybe we ought to think a little more about all this because we'll go through the same thing next year. We'll see ourselves driven to distraction in all this cookie/calendar/carol legislation, suit, and counter suit. Isn't that the real issue – these things are just that, distractions that cart the believer and the church away from the main thing.
While we're out making people say the words we want to hear and threatening them if they don't, evangelism and discipleship, the main things, go begging. By all that's holy, we'll make them say, "Merry Christmas," but do we tell them of faith alone in Christ alone? Do we seek to make them followers of Christ? They can say "Merry Christmas" all they want and all we want and still wind up separated from God for all eternity. That's not a victory for our side by any means. Peter wrote that God is not willing that any should perish.

The "Merry Christmas" issue is seasonal, a bit of energy for those weeks, a righteous indignation for a little while, and then it's over for another year. Evangelism and the encouraging of discipleship are, by far, the harder, and are anything but seasonal.

To look at it another way – the war on Christmas is a symptom of something much bigger, something much more sinister. The attack on Christmas is only one symptom of a deeper hostility to the Christ of the Bible. To attack the symptom is more a waste of time than anything else. The doctor who attacks symptoms cures no one in the long run.

The symptom becomes a distraction. Even if we could get every school and business in the country to wish one and all a Merry Christmas, we have neither evangelized nor discipled. Jesus didn't command us to "Go into all the world and make people say what we want them to say, whether they mean it or not.
Maybe it's always been this way; the world distracts us and the true (Matthew 28) work of the Lord becomes the stepchild of the church. Shouldn't we rethink the placement of our energies for Christ? We might dream a dream that those who fought to hear "Merry Christmas," with such righteous fervor might now channel that energy into telling people of faith alone in Christ alone. (Once the merchant comes to faith alone in Christ alone, no one's going to stop him from saying, "Merry Christmas," and then he'll mean it. Evangelism and discipleship are what will change the culture.)

The Christmas distraction is over for now; it'll be back. Other preoccupations will rise to take its place. The devil never sleeps.

Dr. Mike Halsey,
Pastor, County Line Church

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