A Weekly Meditation of Pastor Chang (December 20, 2009)

< Let Us Celebrate Christmas Joyfully >

(“The Futurology” will be postponed to next Sunday.)

From today on, this week, we may say: It is the Week of Christmas! However, I hope I am wrong, because I feel that this year’s Christmas is less joyful than before and the atmosphere of celebration is different from the past. It seems that the celebration of Christmas has been intentionally diluted a lot. If it is true, why? I don’t know! Is it because of paganism and other religions which are promoted strongly even when we say, “Merry Christmas!” will let some people feel offended. Then, many greeting words are publically changed to be “Seasons greetings!” now. But, as a Christian, my suggestion is: we need to really enjoy and promote the celebration of Christmas no matter what. Why? Several reasons:

First of all, No matter whether Christ was really born on December 25th or not, He　was really once born as a man on this earth like us, that is enough for us to celebrate. (*According to the Scripture and the church history, Christ’s real birthday was not certain.) If Christ did not come to this world, it would be beyond anyone’s imagination what the world could be without Christ? If Christ Jesus did not come, there would be no real salvation. And if we did not have salvation, we would be still in sin. We even can say severely: if Christ did not come to this world, probably there would have no existence of the USA. Or probably it could be a country, but would not be like a country with liberty, justice and peace as today we have.

Secondly, If Christ Jesus did not come to this world, the entire world could be destroyed earlier because of the work and attack of evil and the judgment of God.

Thirdly, If Christ did not come to this world, there would have no hope for all humankind. Although there are many kinds of religions and philosophy, but when we add them all together, their worth is lighter than the air – useless.

Finally, If Christ did not come to the world, there would have no Christian churches. And we probably would never meet together as today we call each other: brothers and sisters in Christ.

Of course, we can offer more and more reasons to describe the possibility without Christ. And we would be difficult to image how worse the world could be. It is true. Therefore, to celebrate Christmas is equally important as the Easter – to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ.

When did Christians start celebrate Christmas? The earliest record was found in the church of Rome in 336AD. It was 23 years later after the famous “Edict of Milan” which was an order and statement issued by 2 emperors – Constantine and Licinius to give the freedom of Christian worship and the recognition of the Christian church as a legal body in the Roman Empire. Why did Christians wait for so long, more than three centuries, to celebrate Christmas? The main reason was because of persecution. Besides, the Bible doesn’t provide any accurate date of Christ’s birthday. When Christ was born, he was just like a normal poor person, and the birthday was not so important. And in anceitn time, the calendar was not so popular as today we have.

Why did the Roman Church start celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25? The reason: that day originally was a pagan’s holiday to honor Saturn, their harvest god; and Mithrus, god of light. But Christians announced to celebrate Jesus Christ’ birthday in order to change the bad custom in that time. It worked well. Nowadays, no one knows the pagan gods anymore but still remember the birth of Jesus Christ. It is a kind of victory of changing the society to have a better way of life.

This is the main reason why we need to celebrate Christmas today. Therefore, be bold to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. We do not have to be shy or feel timid to tell people that Christ was born for all humankind.