Actions speak louder than words at Christmas
“Christmas is coming and the turkey is getting fat. Please put a penny in the kettle.”
Since we do not have half-pennies, I guess that is where I will stop with this comparison. Like this song that we all know, other familiar customs surrounding Christmas are legion. These legends, customs and ceremonies descend upon us from many countries and from numerous past generations.
For instance, in one form or another, the jolly character we once knew in America’s Dutch colony, New Amsterdam (today’s New York City), as Sinterklaas, is now well known as Santa Claus. He is well known the world over in a variety of guises: Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, Kriss Kringle and Père Noël, to name a few.
One interesting bit of information comes to us from the Protestant churches of Germany who, it is said, transformed Christkindle, “Christ child,” into Kriss Kringle.” I mention this because it illustrates how customs are sometimes formed by something as unobtrusive as a change in the meaning a world which then leads to a variation in behavior- a variation that becomes habit and then slowly turns into a custom that embeds itself permanently in society. Once entrenched, a custom can become so cherished that people will die to protect it. How amazing, that “Christchild” could become “Santa Clause.”
We often hear such comments as “Keep Christ in Christmas.” Given all the customs and ceremonies which have developed around the season, it is a wonder that there is any room for Christ in Christmas. In fact, there are forces at work that would take Christ out of the season all together, making Christmas simply a happy holiday.
O no you don’t! This is our set of customs and we Christians are pushing back against the very thought of removing Christ from the name of our holiday. There will never be a December without Christmas and there will never be a Christmas without Christ. Don’t worry, Suzy, these bad people will not take Christ out of Christmas. Perish the thought! However, will we do that ourselves by letting secular customs crowd Him out?
Speaking of Christ in Christmas, a nagging fact remains. For the first 300 years, the Christian Church did not celebrate Christ’s birth. How strange to think of a time when there was no Christmas into which we might put Christ and no ceremonial home for St. Nicholas either. Let us not be concerned, though, because since the fourth century, we have been busy fixing that oversight. After all, without custom, what would happen to Christmas trees, mistletoe and Yule logs? Toy stores would go out of business and all sorts of shops would close for want of gift purchases. The economy would collapse.
Thank God for Christmas! We had better leave Christmas just like it is. Still, one wonders what God, who saved man from sin through a carpenter’s son born in a Bethlehem stable, thinks about a celebration so filled with unrelated customs that it threatens to obliterate the intended cause of celebration.
Per Romans 14:5, Christians can choose if they wish to celebrate various holy days. Even though the Sabbath was probably the specific holy day Paul had in mind in this passage, one would think that this principle applies to Christmas as well. If so, Christians have biblical authority to celebrate the birth of Christ; however, at the risk of being tarred and feathered, let me suggest that even though Christmas related customs are solidly entrenched in our society, we may be straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel when we strenuously object to replacing Merry Christmas with Happy Holidays.
It may be that what we practice is actually more important than what we name our practice. If customs surrounding Christmas compete with the importance of Christ to the point of obliterating him, must we not discard those customs if we are truly to keep Christ in Christmas? It is not the name of the holiday I suggest we protect, but its meaning.
DeWitt Clinton of Dunbar is the minister for the Church of Christ Church on Connellsville Street in Uniontown.