Last week I was in a downtown coffee shop. As I was leaving, I overheard a street person saying to someone in the store, with a very serious voice, “When I was starting Google…..”
We smile. I am pretty sure that if the true founders of Google were in the store and overheard the man, they would not get mad or upset. They would think it was funny.
I was in a different coffee shop today, chatting with someone who has been quite successful in business. Not Google successful, but by small business Ottawa standards, very successful. He is not a Christian, and being the good guy that he is, he asked me a question or three about Christmas and me and the church I serve in. In the conversation, I surprised him by saying that I make a distinction between Canadian Christmas and biblical Christmas, but also said that I celebrate both.
I think this is an important distinction for Canadian Christians to make. Just as the real founders of Google would not get mad if they overheard a street person claiming to have founded Google, I think we Canadian Christians should not get upset by Canadian Christmas. We should smile.
The fact is that increasingly in Canada, Christmas is the holiday from nowhere. It just is. It is about kindness and generosity and gifts and family and Santa and friends and snow and big meals and Bing Crosby. It is an ahistorical holiday, a holiday from nowhere.
Now Christians know (or should know) that God is the founder of Christmas. After centuries of prophecies sent by Him, God the Son took on human nature, and by a miraculous act of God was born of Mary after a normal human pregnancy. He was named “Jesus” (The Lord is salvation). He came as Immanuel (God with us). He came to die a sacrificial death so that by faith in Him, we might be made right with the Triune God, and become the adopted children of God and citizens of heaven.
So on December 25, we Christians celebrate the nativity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Not a holiday from nowhere in a world where it is always just “one dang thing after another,” but a holiday from the eternal and transcendent God to fallen humanity that we might have light and life in Him. The real world is not the world of “one dang thing after another and then you die.” The real world is both fallen, and under the sovereignty of the Triune God; and it is moving to The End where the baby born in Bethlehem; who grew up to be the man who died upon the cross as “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world;” and who rose from the dead atoning for sin and triumphing over death; will return to gather His children; judge the living and the dead; and then bring in the new heaven and earth!
But remember the time and place you live in! Remember that Scrooge-likeness and Grinch-likeness are not fruits of the Holy Spirit! Smile along with your Canadian neighbours as they celebrate Canadian Christmas. Celebrate with them. Pray that you will be given an opportunity, as I was with the businessman, to share with them the truth and beauty of biblical Christmas. Remember that you do no one a favour if you confuse biblical and Canadian Christmas. Make sure that amidst the bustle of Canadian Christmas you take the time to go to a faithful church and remember biblical Christmas – come to church to remember, and enter into humble worship of the babe born in Bethlehem who came to save you.
Merry Christmas!
