Christians have been engaged in a battle to put “Christ back in Christmas” for as long as I can remember. There have been uproars over the use of “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas,” outrage over lawsuits that have been filed to keep Christmas trees or nativity scenes out of public view. The hostility toward anything Jesus-related is hard to miss. While I do find this opposition disheartening at times, and I do mourn over this PC-run-amok nonsense, I sometimes wonder if Christians are fighting the wrong battle.
While celebrating the birth of my savior is certainly a good thing, the term “Christmas” isn’t inherently biblical. It’s a man-made celebration of a heavenly event, and as such, if the celebration has become meaningless, maybe it’s time to move on. Seriously, how many different times have you heard someone – usually a voice-over artist in a commercial – tell you the “true” meaning of Christmas this year? How many of them have actually gotten it right?
Personally, I feel that this battle has been lost on a cultural level. The work “Christmas” has no real meaning to the majority of Americans today. So what’s the value of constantly fighting to keep it from being censored?
Is it possible that it’s time for a new angle?
My pastor always gives a little introductory thought at the beginning of our church services, before we sing and he transitions into his actual topic of the day. And it was with these thoughts about the Christmas battle already in my mind that I listened in amusement (due to my pastor’s West Virginian style) to him expressing many of the same sentiments in one of his introductions. But he had a solution.
There is an other term used by some Christians to describe the arrival of Christ. In some contries, it is actually still in wide use. It is the word “advent.” It means “The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important.”
What is more important than the arrival of our Savior on Earth? My pastor’s suggestion was that we stop using the phrase “merry Christmas” and instead say “blessed Advent!” It’s a wonderful idea, because it both avoids the controversy surrounding the word “Christmas,” and it also gets people’s attention. And, as my pastor put it, once you have their attention and ask what you mean by the phrase, you can hand them the book The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. It’s a perfect one-two punch. :)
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say that using the word “Christmas” – or doing what we can to bring Christ back into it – is wrong or completely useless. But when we step back and look at what has been made by God and what has been made by man, it might create a subtle but effective shift in our perspective. We just might find better ways of glorifying God and proclaiming His son’s redeeming work on Earth. And that, my friends, is the true meaning of Christmas… err… the Advent. :)
Have a blessed Advent celebration, everyone!
