It’s Hard to Strip Christmas from Christmas


For some reason, lots of people want to strip Christmas of its historical and spiritual heritage. But I just want to say for the record that it’s a little hard getting Christmas out of Christmas.

  • If they want to call it Christmas, great. Lets point out that the first six letters of that word spell our Savior’s name.
  • If they want to call it a holiday, that’s their right; we’ll simply remind them that the word holiday is derived from the words “holy day,” and it refers to the holiness of the birth of Christ.
  • If they want to call it Yuletide, that’s fine. That’s the old phrase for the twelve days of Christmas, which people in olden times called the Feast of the Nativity.
  • If they want to talk about the seasonal holiday, we’ll tell them how Jesus came in due season and in the fullness of time.
  • If they want to talk about Santa Claus, we’re happy to explain that there really was a Christian leader named Saint Nicholas who lived in the city of Myra, Turkey, in the fourth century, and who was famous for his generous gifts to the poor.
  • If they want to talk about gift-giving, I’ll tell them about the Magi who brought the first Christmas gifts to the Magi.
  • If they want talk about the songs and sounds of the season, I’ll tell them about the first choirs that filled the Bethlehem skies on the night Christ was born.
  • If they want to talk about Kwanzaa, we’ll remind them of the great African-American spiritual made famous by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University: “Go Tell it on the Mountain that Jesus Christ is Born.”
  • If they want talk about Hanukkah, we’ll talk about Christ as the Light of the World, the personification and fulfillment of the Jewish Menorah that stood in the ancient temple.
  • And if they want to use the phrase Xmas, we’ll just point out that the “X” is the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter and the symbol of Christ.

I’m just saying that it’s a little hard to get Christ out of Christmas, don’t you think?

–From Rob Morgan’s sermon, The Ten Commandments, at www.donelson.org, under “Pocket Papers,” December 13, 2010.