Joyful and Triumphant

People often laugh when anyone mentions a “war against Christmas” by secularists. They make fun of the misguided numbskulls who see conspiracies in every Starbucks Christmas cup design, pointing to agendas found only in their own imaginations.

No, not everyone who merely says “happy holidays” is trying to erase the Biblical origins of the season. But then again, don’t ignore the very real resistance to the message of Jesus when it actually rears its head.

I was being treated to lunch by a dear friend last year right before Christmas. He’d just paid the check, and our waiter was saying thanks. “You two gentlemen have a merry…um…Happy Holidays”. His eyes darted to check our faces for disapproval.

“Merry Christmas to you too, my friend,” I said as I took his hand and shook it firmly. My smile told him he was ok, though my heart was grieved for the position he’d obviously been put in. It was clear someone had made him feel that saying those two cheery words together was something that might get him in trouble.

Now rewind to Christmas 2015…

A school system in Kentucky decides to do a live-action version of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” for an elementary school production. Enter the usual suspects: one outraged parent over his child participating in the one scene where Linus recites chapter two from the Gospel of Luke.

With lawsuits threatened, the school backs down. The young man playing Linus is instructed to stop and stand silently at that section of the production. It seems the Christmas Grinches had won yet again!

Yes, Virginia. There is a war on Christmas. Always has been, always will be.

Disagree if you like, but history tells another story.

The very first Christmas brought the slaughter of hundreds of baby boys, done as a last-ditch effort of a dying King Herod to destroy a rival King of the Jews. Darkness will always try to extinguish the light in its purest and most innocent form. If you happen to see parallels in that last statement to the current practice of ending the lives of babies in the womb, I wouldn’t argue with you.

In John’s unique, cosmic account of the same nativity story, the apostle remarks, “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it” (John 1:5) That’s the cocky confidence some of my knee-jerking Christian friends need to understand next time a coffee cup design offends them. Grinches will always seek to steal Christmas and extinguish the light, but they’re guaranteed certain failure. It’s simply not possible.

Oppressive regimes may outlaw that light. Lawyers may threaten legal action, and warn of financial ruin unless you hide it. Keep it out of the public square. Lock it away in your church buildings…in other words, “hide it under a bushel”.

“Worship the light in secret,” they’ll say. “Just keep it to yourselves”.

Keep those nativity scenes off public property. Sing only the secular Christmas songs in the schools, ignoring centuries-full of the greatest music ever written. The mall can play Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” until your ears bleed, but avoid Josh Grobin’s “O Holy Night” at all costs. Keep all the carols and oratorios about the baby in the manger to yourselves.

Turn a blind eye to the impact Christianity has had on our whole culture, on our laws, on our sense of ethics and fairness and the value of human life. You know, like “love your neighbor”, “feed the poor”, “be a good Samaritan”, and “do unto others as you’d have them do to you”. They’ll pretend they came up with all those glorious elements of Western Civilization on their own, forgetting that they all poured forth from that manger 2000 years ago.

But when they’ve done their worst and Christmas seems to have been snuffed out, when the wick is wetted so thoroughly it could never catch fire again, then suddenly…amazingly…you will see it begin to flicker again. Miraculously, defiantly, unquenchably.

They’ll never understand how puny their attempts are to shut out the light. It’s like plucking out your own eyes, believing somehow that will extinguished the sun.

Oh, and about that school in Kentucky…

Just as the boy playing Linus came to his lines quoting Scripture but paused, it was then a sound began to waft through the auditorium like the singing of the Whos from Whoville. Someone in the audience stood and began reciting the Luke passage, then another joined in. And then another. Soon the whole room is standing and reciting along.

When the boy ending the moment by saying, “That’s what Christmas is about, Charlie Brown”, a cheer went up from the audience. The Grinch had tried to steal Christmas, only to start a celebration!

Silly darkness. You can never put out the light.

So whether they say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”, they still can’t help but point to the “elephant in the middle of the room” every December. Try to hide His Nativity with a couple of throw pillows all you want…He’ll still own that room!

While you’re at it, go ahead and try to smother that baby in the manger with all the darkness you can muster. Yet there will still be a star shining above Him to point the way: a star that, unlike the one on the top of your Christmas tree, will never come down.

And we know from one Easter Sunday morning, you can even kill the child if you want: He will always rise again, kicking back the blankets of darkness off Him like just so many limp swaddling clothes.

Did you notice when Linus recites that Nativity story from Luke chapter 2, he’s not holding his famous security blanket? It seems that with such a powerful story, fear automatically vanishes in its presence. The light of Christmas breaks the chains of the enslaved, and they fall to the ground powerless beside them.

Preachers understand the power of that light, when every Sunday weak, mortal men stand as lions to proclaim the death of darkness with unaccustomed boldness.

That same light pierced the darkness from out of a tomb stone 2000 years ago.

So bring it on, Darkness! Go ahead and try and blot out the Son. Just be careful you don’t get burned in the process.

The Incarnation has occurred, God is with us, and Christ is triumphant.

Merry Christmas, indeed!