C h r o n i c l e s ...

What Christmas Isn’t

The lights-up started weeks before Christmas at a downtown shopping belt. It’s that phenomenal time of the year again, the unabashed commercialization of Christmas in the name of the birth of Jesus Christ.

It is arguably the biggest economic stimulus (apart from the 'great' singapore sale?) for the country and retailers set aside big budgets to outdo each other dressing up their stores. Typically, sales figures appreciate dramatically before the year bids adieu. It is no coincidence that shoppers are in a veritable whirl of unbridled consumerism and most people end up with a disorder of sorts – the ‘presents-I-don’t need’ and ‘what to do with white elephants?’ syndrome. Nancy Reagan had a solution when she was first lady at the white house; she recycled them. After all, material gifts given her couldn’t have been cheap stuffs given her position as the President’s wife. To me, it makes sense to reduce economic wastage. Think how what was spent could have gone to help the poor and needy instead.

Caught up the merriment, the fact that the origin of Christmas is pagan is irrelevant to most Christians let alone the absence of biblical support for the celebration of the birth of Christ as an annual event. “Christmas’ and ‘Nativity’ are words not found in the Bible. And the choice of Dec-25 as the commemorative date is at odds with reality - shepherds keeping watch over their sheep by night in the cold of winter?

To reiterate, the birth of Christ was and is just a recorded event in the Bible without the commission to Christians to turn it into a festivity. When Jesus was borne, the birth of Christ was done with, mission accomplished! Yet many churches fall into the lure of the commercial trappings of Christmas as an annual party celebration when they should be setting their horizon on the next coming of the Messiah.

As instructed in the Bible, Christians are to meet every first day of the week to break bread and drink wine in remembrance of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “Do this in remembrance of me until I come again.” How many churches are faithful in adherence to what is so unequivocally stated in the Bible? Perhaps it is too much of a bother to do it every weekly whereas the Christmas affair is just once a year.

posted by Victor Lai @ 5:31 PM