Every year around December we hear Christians reminding everyone either verbally, but mostly on social media, that Christmas is really about Christ. And that it should remain that way. I did my share of that through the years.
I do think there is a pressure that is hostile to Jesus to remove his influence and can be seen in the pressure to rename Christmas as Xmas. It’s petty and childish, but it’s real.
I won’t go into a rant about people hostile to Christ or the pagan roots of the holiday that the Roman Catholics acquired to create Christmas. That is for other posts.
With this post I want to emphasize that a day or an event can be about a person OR by a person. To be about, the person can be dead, but to be by a person they must be a living participant.
If Christmas were really by Christ he would have started it. And we’d be continuing it with him. We’d have seen its origin in scripture. Jesus did begin traditions, but he did not begin one around his own birth. There is not even evidence they celebrated his birthday during his 33 years on earth.
If something is about someone we have reduced them personally to a subject, a topic, an idea about them. They don’t have to be a participant, they don’t have to be alive. For example, when we celebrate Martin Luther King day he is not a participant. He is just a memory for the nation. It’s a holiday about King not by King. When we celebrate birthdays for kids they are present. They are the center, they get what they want.
When something is done by a person we can join them. For example, when Jesus commanded us to gather, he promised his very own presence. He is a participant. So it can be said we are gathering with him, we gather around him. We use adjectives reserved for living people. Church meetings, according to scripture, should not be considered gatherings about Jesus. Although that is what most of the highly organized gatherings I’ve experienced, seem to have been reduced to.
And if we gather with and around him, and we are calling him Lord. Can or should he not have a say in what is done or said? Of course he should. Then it just becomes a matter of hearing him and yielding to him as a body of Christians.
So anything done about Jesus is different than a thing done by Jesus.
The emphasis of a Christian who knows and loves a living Lord is to cooperate and actively work WITH Him. With the living Jesus Christ, who wants certain things. And who is also silent, (and presumably indifferent) about other things.
We know he wants certain things like his Lordship in the earth, or like his will being ‘done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Not spending 1/12 of our year, and a huge amount of our incomes on birthday celebrations based on sentiment about him. Does he want our year to revolve around his massive birthday celebration? A better question is ‘do we even care what he wants?’ Or is Christmas really for us, and our own kids, and our good memories about our childhood?
And if it really is about us, lets be consistent in its name, let’s call it MeMas or UsMas. No wait, never mind… that would be self-centered.😑
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