Christmas- So Be It.

Everyone knows that the original date for the birth of Christ was not necessarily December 25th on the year 0 of the common era (CE) or before Christ (BC). Everyone keeps changing the dates of things to conform to the secular effort to change the discussion from religious to secular. Even now as I write e-mails to some of the clients of a company that I help, I am cognizant of the issue of saying Merry Christmas instead of Happy holidays or seasons greetings or some other drivel. We have holidays because of the birth of Jesus Christ some time early in the Roman Era of ancient history. Personally, I don't care what the exact date was, as long as I celebrate the birth of Christ.

Most of us will say that Christmas has been co-opted by Santa Claus, Frosty, the twelve days of Christmas, Charles Dickens and a Christmas Carol, Bob Hope and a White Christmas or the eternal angel, Clarence, who got his wings in the movie with Jimmy Stewart in "It's a wonderful life." By the way, did you know that Jimmy really did serve in the miltary in WW2, in spite of what you saw in the movie. He was a bomber pilot and flew over 20 missions as a bomber pilot.

The date, December 25th, has a long history of religious connections from the pre Roman civilizations to the Roman winter celebrations to the druids to the catholics. All of these people tried to use the previous user's date, by inserting their own uses for the date. The Catholic church was famous for co-opting other religious practices and using them for their own purposes. it's kind of like the current crop of evangelists using television to reach the urban masses. We can't blame them for using something that works. We used to think that television was an evil from the devil, foisted on us to lure us into evil fantasy. Well now we use it to save the souls of the damned. How dare we use the devil's tools to preach the gospel.

Surely I jest. We can't disregard the use of T.V. if that works. Even God can make something good out of something bad- think of the cross. If we can preach the gospel using the internet so be it. If we can use December 25th to remember the birth of Jesus Christ, then so be it. If we have to give presents to unsuspecting heathens, then so be it. God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. So Be It. Amen.