Christmas Eve

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It's Christmas Eve again, and we just got back from church. All the way home I thought about how we mark time by Christmas. Although we also mark time with birthdays and anniversaries, no other time of year seems to be as much of a benchmark as Christmas. We delineate time as BC (before Christ) or AD (the year of our Lord), both recognizing that God Himself came into our world at a certain point in history, forever separating time. Even the politically correct B.C.E and C.E. are numerically equivalent to BC and AD. With all the 'war on Christmas' talk floating around and businesses and municipalities trying to not offend the Christians and the non-Christians, torn between wishing us all 'Merry Christmas' or 'Happy Holidays', I decided on the way home from church tonight that it really didn't matter. Christ is the reason for Christmas, whether the culture says so or not. As I reflected on the beauty of the candlelight and the image of my children raising their candles in the air as we sang 'Silent Night', I knew that millions of Christians were doing the same (or very similar) all over the world. And that gave me great comfort. As long as there are faithful believers that are worshiping and celebrating Christ, as long as there are parents who are passing down their faith to the next generation, as long as there are people who keep Christmas in their hearts year round, I will not despair over the attempts of the culture to remove Christ from Christmas. People will hate us, and persecute us; certain activists will publicly wish we were all dead, some will just not understand, but we celebrate His coming anyway! Don't let all the commercialism and antagonism get you down; He has come! And if you are His, you need not fear what man can do to you. Merry Christmas.


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