December's Sword

Once again, December unsheathed its sword. It cut its way east, west, north, and Bible-belt south. It cut manger scenes in public places, Christmas trees in classrooms. It sliced and diced, cutting its way into our vocabulary, the prism, and even the theater.

It came. It cut. It conquered the cowering. School boards, teachers, and city fathers felt the wounds (as usual) this past December, world without end, amen. It cut into department stores which made employees change their language. Clerks and cashiers no longer said, "Merry Christmas," but "Happy Holidays" by managerial fiat. The sword, like Winston Smith's Newspeak in "1984," made us pause and think about which word to use, should we say, "Christmas," or "Holidays?" The sword became some sort of language police.

It cut its way into colors. A school found it couldn't use red and green paper plates and cups, a situation which caused one to ask, "Does this include traffic lights too?" The sword entered the theater when a school decided it was not in the best interest of the students to see Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," because of Tiny Tim's ending line, "God bless us everyone."

In a related swath, the sword made sure that a teacher didn't let his students read The Declaration of Independence as well as diaries of the Founding Fathers because by reading such, students would come face to face with the word, "God." The sword wants the word neither heard nor seen.

We could multiply examples, but tedium forbids. Yet, in all of these December slashes could it be that December's sword is unwittingly fulfilling a biblical prophecy of sorts? What a delicious irony if it were. In Matthew 10:34, Jesus said that He didn't come to bring peace (at His first advent), but a sword. He pointed out that He would be the Great Divider, dividing even the most fundamental of relationships-familial in particular.

Isn't December's sword an evidence of just how divisive He is, so divisive that there are those who want to keep people from saying, "Christmas." He's so divisive that His birth causes people to get upset over colors and decorated evergreens.

Yet, in all this, don't we need to keep things in perspective? The Christmas story is the second most repeated story in the Western World (Easter is first). No matter what swords governments (Herod's was the first) have unsheathed against it, the story is so powerful that no weapon is powerful enough to stop it. In spite of all the swords, we're still telling it 2,000 years later. That's power. It reminds us of Psalm 2, which talks about God's laughing at man's attempts at rebellion. Silly.

December's sword is, in reality, just a symptom and treating symptoms is like taking an aspirin or putting on a band aide when you need surgery. Aspirins may make us feel better, but the cause of the fever continues.

To put it another way: if we could somehow pass a law (albeit a stupid one) that every clerk had to say, "Merry Christmas," every teacher had to call it a "Christmas Vacation" while they served "Christmas" refreshments in red and green cups, without believing in Christ alone for forgiveness of sin and eternal life, they're still going to hell for all eternity.

It's easy to get sidetracked into practicing symptomatic medicine, isn't it? Sign the petitions, forward the E-mails, keep track of the legislation, write your congressman. Spend time and money on those and we're still treating the symptoms. The drive to eradicate Christmas is a symptom of a far deeper problem-a spiritual darkness that treating the symptoms can't penetrate.

So how should the church spend its December (and all the other month's) energies? The same way the early church did, January through December-preaching Christ and Him crucified and turning the new believers into followers of Christ.

December's sword? Only a symptom. The church goes, not for the symptom, but after the cause. Evangelize and make disciples-- that's what will take care of December's (and all other kinds of) swords.

Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor

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