The Gospel at Christmas Time
Posted by Bryce on November 30th, 2006A week or so ago a friend sent me an email about Best Buy’s decision to refrain from using the words “Merry Christmas” this year, preferring instead the apparently less-offensive “Happy Holidays” greeting. As Christians, my friend wondered, how should we respond? Send letters expressing our dissatisfaction to Best Buy, and send our shopping dollars elsewhere? Or do we simply need to learn to put up with such things in a post-Christian America? It’s a good question, but I think the answer is deeper than either of these alternatives.
As America moves away from its allegedly Christian roots, Christians must learn to separate the truth we profess from the cultural trappings that have been associated with this truth. In the case of the “Merry Christmas” vs. “Happy Holidays” debate, we need to take a step back and consider what we are actually celebrating as we approach December 25th.
The clear and simple response here is that at Christmas we celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity. The Westminster Confession summarizes the Incarnation thus:
The Son of God, the second Person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance, and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof; yet without sin: being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.
In these succinct, yet densely packed words, the message of Christmas is summarized: in Jesus, God become truly man, without ceasing to be God, in order to be the mediator between God and man. While this is true all year, around Christmas time we tend to focus our thoughts on the story of a particular baby born in Bethlehem about 2000 years ago. The Incarnation, however, is really only one chapter in a larger story; a story which climaxes several years later as this same baby, now a grown man, is executed for crimes he did not commit, and is raised from the dead three days later. In other words, our celebration of Christmas points us toward Easter, and is not really complete without this perspective. In any event, a Christian celebration of what we call “Christmas” entails the retelling of this great story in songs, sermons, and other liturgical acts, and encourages us to worship God in response.
Additionally, it has become traditional to gather with family and friends to rekindle emotional ties through eating, exchanging time-honored greetings and, in particular, the exchanging of gifts. And this, of course, is where Best Buy comes in.
Now, there is no obviously biblical reason to oppose the Best Buy part of Christmas, but it does seem abundantly clear that the Best Buy part of Christmas is not an integral part of the Christian celebration, and this should be born in mind as we consider the Christian response. Best Buy’s actions do not prevent, or in any way hinder, our worship of God this Incarnation season, so it would seem to me to be a bit shortsighted to withhold from them our dollars for this reason alone.
There is another angle to this issue, however. The decision of Best Buy and others to wish people “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” is seen by many Christians as the very sort of activity that is contributing to Christianity’s decreasing influence in society. Thus many Christians seem to take it as their duty to combat this trend by smugly responding to each “Happy Holidays” from a retail employee with an unequivocal “Merry Christmas!”
The logic of this behavior disappears almost as soon as it is articulated. The job of Christians is to bear witness to the gospel—at Christmas, and throughout the rest of the year. It is difficult to see how the cause of the gospel and the truth of the Incarnation is advanced by getting secular people to utter the sounds “mer-ee kris-muhs”. Would the country really be any different if retailers punctuated the exchange of goods with these words? Obviously not. And we do little to ingratiate ourselves to an unbelieving public by publicly complaining about their refusal to hold on to cultural expressions that we happen to like.
As I mentioned above, we celebrate Christmas in the shadow of Easter, an event that tells the story of strength through weakness and influence through self-sacrifice. With this in mind, I think it would be prudent to put thoughts of writing letters and organizing boycotts out of our minds, and focus our energy on how we have confused our culture’s Christmas traditions with the wonderful mystery of the Incarnation, when the Lord of the cosmos was born in poverty and obscurity in order to redeem his creation.