Friday, December 26, 2008

The Real Problem With Merry Christmas


Yesterday, was Christmas. If you read my blog, you may have noticed that I didn’t use the word Christmas—not one time. You may have been offended because I chose to say Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas. You might be upset with me for taking Christ out of Christmas, but what you can’t do is say that my blog post wasn’t Christ centered. It is probably the most Christ centered post I have had in a while.


I say all that to make a point. For the past few years, I have seen many Christians who are upset about people saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. A few years ago no one cared, but now people are upset about it. The irony is that people are ready to get up in arms about a lost man saying Happy Holidays or telling his employees to say Happy Holidays, but many of these people won’t say a word about this man’s need for salvation. The issue of Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays isn’t really about taking Christ out of Christmas. It is really about change. People don’t like change, so when someone suggests we might be doing away with Christmas they get upset.


If we Christians were more concerned about where the store clerk will be going when she dies than what we are about what she says to us as we pick up our shopping bags and walk out the door then there wouldn’t be an issue about Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Instead of spending our time telling the lost world what they can and cannot say without offending us, what we need to be doing is telling the lost world how they can be saved.