G h ristmas
by M . R. DeHaan
December is the traditional month of the year for the birthday of Jesus. I say, TRADITIONAL, for there is no proof from Scripture that Jesus was bom in December,
thinking now especially of that which we call “ the Holi day Season” which comes toward the end of our year. On the 25th day of December the Christian world celebrates,
much less on December 25. The date and much of the celebration is of purely pagan origin. This year as in other years, Christmas will be celebrated; Christ will be largely forgotten. It is possible and all too often true that Christians also, who ought to love the Lord Jesus Christ and gather about Him, and make Him the center of all of their attention and devotion and their worship, lose Him, even in their religious worship. Amidst all of the ceremony and the ritual, amidst all of the organization, all of the activity of our religious life, too often the Lord Jesus Christ is left in the background and we are like the group in the 2nd of Luke who could go upon their journey happy and fellowshipping and enjoying the blessings of the feast without recognizing or missing Him who is the Author of the feast and the source of all of these blessings. This is especially true at certain seasons of the year. We are
(wrongly or rightly), the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ as a Babe in a stable in Bethlehem. For weeks and weeks ahead of time preparations are made for this gala event, churches plan their programs, business makes all of its preparations for a boom in sales, and the making of money, children look forward to the time when they will have the Christmas tree and open their presents, parents make hectic preparation for a day of rejoicing and feast ing. Now we have no objections to some of these things, but the sad thing is that amidst all of this flurry and all of this excitement and all of this celebration, we lose the vision of Him who is the source of all of our blessing. The world is preparing itself for the holiday season which is called Christmas, with its pagan influences and super stition, with its manifold religious activities, with its commercialization of the birthday of God’s greatest gift. And, sad to say, in the debauchery, drunkeness, revelling, THE KING'S BUSINESS
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