Some people claim there is a war on Christmas, and it seems like a recent popular trend for many people to take up the mantle to fight the Christmas Culture War (one way or the other). I’m going to say that there has been a Christmas Culture war for at least 2000 years (it began in Bethlehem, when a king didn’t get his way). I’m not here to argue about the date and time. It’s not from a Pagan Holiday, and there’s evidence to suggest that the early church adopted the Hebrew tradition that a prophet’s birthday was 9 months after he was murdered, and we know, accurately, that Jesus died the Friday of Passover week between the years 26-33 AD (9 months from March or April, you do the math). Yet the December date is irrelevant. The Culture war wasn’t started by Youtube or Tik-Tok videos by people who twist and distort facts in a passionate way to confuse Christians. It began when we started to remove the meaning of the celebration. We made Christmas about family, or a fat man in a sleigh (who, consequently, is an amalgam of several God-fearing Christian men), or the warm fuzzy feelings people get this time of year. We celebrate peace on earth and good will to men without mentioning the only One who makes that possible. We let people tell us (If we’re Christians) that we’re celebrating a pagan holiday, and proceed to give us facts and Bible verses taken terribly out of context about something they don’t even believe in, and we take it at face value without arguing or defending our beliefs one way or the other.
Yet, loved ones, as we are very much inclined to listen to these impassioned arguments that seek to take us down, nod, and hang our heads sadly, don’t forget that you are called to make a defense for the Gospel! Yes, the “Christmas Holiday” is not in the scriptures, but the Birth of Christ is mentioned several times throughout the Old Testament, given whole chapters in the Gospel, and praised the rest of the New Testament. We should celebrate the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ, not merely on Christmas, but all year round! If we take some extra time to remember (whether or not it was on a pagan holiday is irrelevant), who cares? We allow the same detractors (as is their right) to celebrate what they want, when they want, as long as they want and more without saying word one about it. We should not care what the world thinks, what the culture thinks, what society thinks or what anyone else thinks: we should be proudly proclaiming the wonderful works of God whenever and however we can as long as we’re here to proclaim it! The world does not care about us: they want us to submit so they can devour us peacefully. Christ died to set us free, so, even as the world seeks to shut us down, let us use that freedom to proclaim His goodness! And yes, let us even do so on Christmas.
2 Peter 3
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
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