It is Christmas Day.
I thank my friends for all your good wishes. In my country, Christmas is a joyous celebration, an occasion of giving gifts and merry making for the Christian community. Many homes as well as shopping centres are decorated with Christmas trees while good old familiar carols are heard everywhere.
Some of my more serious and faithful Christian friends, however, would frown at the highly commercialised celebrations. They point out that the real joy of Christmas can only be found in the story of Jesus Christ, recorded in the gospel accounts of the New Testament. To them, all the celebrations, decorations and felicitations are meaningless if people forget what Christmas is really about: that God sent His Only Begotten Son to this world to save mankind from sin and to grant eternal to everyone.
Thus, we would often hear people say, "Let us put Christ back into Christmas."
I have other friends who are even more serious and faithful believers in Jesus Christ. These friends recognise a fundamental error in trying to put Christ back into Christmas. The error is that Christmas was not about Christ in the first place. Instead, the celebrations originated from some week-long pagan Roman holiday characterised by feasting, drinking and wanton sex parties.* Later, in the fourth century CE, this lawless Roman holiday was subsumed by Christianity as a celebration of the Birth of Christ.
*(Please see link below.)
As for me, I no longer celebrate Christmas, although I agree with all my friends, both Christians and non-Christians alike that it is a joyous festive occasion of giving gifts and singing Christmas carols.
Let there be a sober remembrance of the birth of Christ as recorded in the Gospel accounts WITHOUT any association with ancient pagan Roman winter holidays, from which Christmas trees and gingerbread men originated.
If possible, let us find another day to remember the events surrounding the birth of Christ, events which included the long and arduous journey of Joseph and Mary from the town of Nazareth to the city of Bethlehem to obey the decree of a heartless Roman Emperor. Of Joseph's failure to get a proper guest room for his wife who was at the point of giving birth. Of their having no place to put the newborn baby other than a manger.
And of the subsequent massacre by Herod of all boys two years old and below in Bethlehem and its surrounding neighbourhoods.
Thus, the remembrance of the birth of Christ should be both a sober and solemn occasion rather than one of feasting and merry-making. The announcements by the angels of "good tidings of great joy" should be remembered alongside the sufferings that Joseph and Mary endured and the mourning by the numerous mothers whose children were murdered by Herod's soldiers.
While some of my friends are calling for Christ to be put back into Christmas, I would like to make a different call.
I call for Christmas to be taken away from Christ.
Here's the link to Christmas - The Real Story
