Friday, as I was driving home, I came across the mother of all Christmas lines. It ran about 7 miles long. I knew there had to be something deeply philosophical about all this, and my mind began to wander. In all reality, there was a bad accident that caused the interstate to shut down in both direction for a collective 20 miles. This made my 45 minute commute almost 3 hours long. It did give me plenty of time to think about life, the universe, and everything.
There were several shoulder runners (those annoying folks who actually think they'll get somewhere by driving up the shoulder). The one that cought my attention was an older guy with a sticker beneath the driver's side window that asked the all important question, "Are you saved?" In a hurry to get to heaven, I guess.
I also saw a few houses all strung out with a couple million watts worth of Christmas lights, and those cute silohouettes of Frosty looking over the "Child" with longing eyes.
Already in a thinking mood, I put the two together: How easily our Christian witness is distorted, and the celebration of the Christmas season. I then applied one of the new words I've been learning: Antithesis. Here's my result.
The world has taken one of our most sacred holidays and distorted it almost beyond recognition, and Christians have complied on wholesale levels. So, good conservitive Christian consider pulling out all together. But I wonder if the Christian witness wouldn't be better served, if Christ wouldn't be better served, if we instead reclaimed Christmas. What if we studied and understood the traditions, the symbols of new life and love, and taught them to our children, and celebrated them with all our hearts. Not because the word does, not because we always have, but because God came down to earth, in the form of a man, to take on the sins of man, to redeem for Himself a people. Let the people of the Lord rejoice!
