A brand new year is upon us and it’s time once again for New
Year’s resolutions. Here is a resolution
thought for the Christian Church at large for 2012—how about we resolve to love
one another, even those who don’t believe.
Paul very eloquently writes of love in his first letter to
the church at Corinth, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is
not proud. It is not rude, it is not
self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices
with the truth. It always protects,
always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails” (4:4-8). Love
was a hallmark of the early Christian church.
It was said of the early Christians, “How they love one another.” Over 30 years ago a song was written that
picked up on that very trademark—“They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our
Love”. The refrain went like this: “And
they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love They will know we are Christians by
our love“. Verses of the song
said things like this—“we’ll work with each other, we will work side by side .
. . And we'll guard each
one's dignity and save each one's pride .
. . We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand”. And all the while the world will know “that
we are Christians by our love”.
But I’m not so
sure the world knows Christians by their love anymore. It would seem Christians are known by their
rudeness, their hatred, their bigotry, their pushiness, and their outright
grumpiness and grinchiness. We seem to
have forgotten our manners, showing courtesy to others, and practicing being
polite. And what makes me think this
way? A few things. We are in the middle of Christmas and as
usual Christians are lamenting and belly-aching about Happy Holidays vs. Merry
Christmas, Winter Break vs. Christmas Break and other attempts at secularizing
Christmas. Some Christians go out of
their way to force Merry Christmas on people for the sole purpose of making
their point and their showing disregard for anyone who would tamper with
Christmas. For a season that is supposed
to be filled with Comfort and Joy, Christians don’t seem to be showing much.
Actually,
secularizing Christmas isn’t anything new.
Irving Berlin’s Christmas classic, Holiday Inn came out in 1942. The 40’s and 50’s was a time of church growth;
a time when even people who didn’t go to church were Biblically literate. It was a time of morals and values and nobody
ever dreamed of taking Christ out of Christmas.
And yet this holiday Christmas classic movie and its songs are so devoid
of Christian faith and the gospel. Its A
Wonderful Life came out in 1946. While
its’ story line involves an angel, that’s about as religious as the movie
gets. The storyline still revolves
around what we are able to accomplish.
No gospel there, no Christ in Christmas there. And yet I don’t see anybody raising a ruckus
about these movies and the songs that are in them. Christians love watching these movies because
they are wholesome classics. White
Christmas came out in 1954, and it too had nothing to do with Christmas being
about Christ, but I don’t hear of any Christians complaining about it. The world has always secularized
Christmas. It’s only of late that
Christians (some Christians) feel overly compelled to do something about it.
I can’t help
but wonder if this drive to keep Christ in Christmas isn’t a distraction from
what Christ has called us to give top priority—the Great Commission. And I can’t help but wonder if that isn’t
exactly what Satan wants us to be distracted with. He has always been the most subtle of all
creatures. In the garden he twisted God’s word into a half-truth just enough to
make it sound okay. And Adam and Eve
became distracted and in their attempt to gain godliness, they lost it. And the real tragedy? They possessed Godliness in the first
place! The religious leaders of Israel
were distracted, too. They were all
about outward appearances and the precise keeping of rites, rituals, ceremonies,
and holy days. In fact, there was much
consternation on the part of the religious leaders to see Jesus not worry about
that stuff as much as they did. They
felt that by defending the letter of the law they were defending the
faith. But the very faith they thought
they were defending they had thrown away.
They had become distracted with the letter of the law and forgotten
about the spirit of the law, that when the Christ came, they didn’t recognize
him! Jesus focused on what he came here
to do—save the world from the peril of its’ sin.
Keeping Christ
in Christmas is certainly important for us Christians. It is the whole reason for our celebrating it
in the first place. But first and
foremost God has called us to make disciples by baptizing them and teaching
them. We are to always be about the
gospel, for it and it alone is the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16). Let’s not become distracted from that by
battles over other things that would also detract from our proclaiming the
Gospel. If all the world sees of
Christians is a bunch of grumpy, hate-filled people, they certainly aren’t
going to be receptive to hearing about God’s love for them being so great that
he sent his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die for the sin of the
world, thereby winning for us the victory over sin, death, and the devil. If we must defend Christmas, at least let us
do so with love—not just for Jesus but for all mankind. As Jesus died for us, so he lovingly died for
them.
AE
