Merry Christmas! It’s time to celebrate. It’s that time of year that cities and department stores decorate for the season. Schools are closed; teachers and their students leave schools for weeks to ring in the season we call Christmas. As you ride through the countryside and down city streets, you will view lighted displays of the Nativity scene, along with bright bulbs lighting trees, bushes, and fence railings.
Yes, America is all dressed up for the season.
Outward signs for this Christmas holiday are in place. Even on a larger scale, the Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center is decorated with lights and topped with a star. In Washington, D.C., the National Christmas Tree was lit on national TV, and it too has a pinnacle star. Both of these well-placed and celebrated trees bring to memory the star of Bethlehem, the guiding light of the Wise Men. How wonderful, how beautiful, how hypocritical.
Many leaders and organizations in America have been trying to eradicate Christmas and the Christ it celebrates. The politically correct would prefer that the greeting Happy Holidays be used rather than Merry Christmas. Further, XMAS is now the correct way to spell Christmas.
The removal of Jesus Christ and His Father, God from the fabric of America has been developing for years, most notably in the 1960s. The dispelling of Christ from the social realm began in the nation’s school. Two Supreme Court cases in the critical decade of the ’60s deleted prayer and Bible reading in the schools.
In 1962, the case of Engle vs. Vitale dismissed prayer from the schools and was followed in 1963 with the School District of Abington Township v. Schempp Case which prohibited Bible reading in the schools.
These two key elements of the Christian faith have been eradicated from the schools and have been extended to the total of society. The mission of the dismissal of Jesus Christ has been further exploited by the far-left to now indoctrinate our children with social humanism and Marxism. Truly the concept of DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) and CRT (Critical Race Theory) are philosophies that subvert the theological idea there is one God who created and controls the now and future of this world. Those to the left would negate God and install the government as the savior of humankind.
With this brutal attack on Christ and Christianity for the past sixty years, much has been lost on which our country was founded. Religious freedoms have been slowly but surely dismantled as demonstrated by the described court cases and the recent closing of churches due to the pandemic.
This could be a perilous and exasperating time for Christians, but all is well, for the major Christmas Trees of the nation shine forth with the supernatural symbol of the guiding star announcing the birth of the Christ child. Those who would impose Happy Holidays on us do not realize the word holiday comes from Holy Day, and those who would “x” out Christ in Christmas do not realize that the letter “x” is the Greek letter Chi and is the symbol for Christ. Christmas is inbred in the social psyche of our nation. In our celebration of the season, we inherently and instinctively honor Christ for He is our hope. Our hope is not in a form of government, or a trending or popular philosophy that changes social norms, none of which being the utopia that they promise. The utopia is found in Christ the Savior of the world.
Seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, the Prophet Isaiah forecast this birth. Isaiah 7:14 tells us, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” and the Prophet Micah tells of the place of His birth in Micah 5:2, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”
In the Holy Bible, the Book of Luke, Chapters 1 and 2, the birth of Jesus Christ and His early childhood is described. In this writing, the angel of the Lord tells of the shepherd and the truth we need to hear and celebrate.
In Luke 2:10–14, Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
In this advent season, we celebrate the first coming of Jesus Christ. This is the first advent, the first coming of Jesus Christ. The birth of Jesus brought God to earth. He is coming again. Although Christ died, He was resurrected. He lives in the hearts of all people, and at His second coming the total of humanity will worship Him as Lord of Lords and King of Kings, as written in Revelation 17:14 “These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings...”.