The Great Christmas Boil Over

The Holiday Season is in full cry on TV. The Hallmark channel, obviously lacking seasonal movies that have any substance actually related to Christmas, are airing numerous touchy-feely films that clearly have the intention of being "seasonal" without being in any clear way connected with the Christ of Christmas.

Granted that the Season, as it is called, has been in the process of a stove top boil over for a long time. You know what a boil-over is, the pot of spaghetti or some other food frothing up and then boiling over, spilling its contents all over the stove top. What started as a considerable volume of water and food is frothed out and spent.

Same with the Christmas Story to our post-Christian culture. The once-vibrant testimony of a season of remembering that God sent his Only Begotten Son into the world to save the world - and that Jesus came as a baby into a humble family - in a not-ostentatious way into a hard, uncaring but oh-so-needy world - that story seems to have not only been back-benched, but completely taken off the menu of choices.

Rather, a number of spin off themes has emerged: Santa Claus, for instance. First, he was a figure based on a real person who did Christ like deeds at the winter season, showing charity and gift giving behavior. As a reminder of Jesus, who is the ultimate Prototype of such selfless behavior and attitude, the original Santa was not bad. That character quickly morphed into the miracle-working, magical Santa of today who has elves and a magical sleigh and a gift bag that can contain innumerable gifts to children who have been "good" all year. The modern Santa also has god-like powers and the ability to do powerful things for those he favors. "Miracle on 34th street" is an early example of the revisionist theme in the Santa genre. The last scene of the movie makes that point not so subtly.

Take the music for another instance. Up to the late eighties or early nineties, real hymns of Christmas were heard throughout the stores or on the radio and TV in the run up to Christmas Day, but the hard-eyed purveyors of political correctness and "diversity" have frightened most store owners into banning such songs as "Joy to the World" or "God rest ye merry gentlemen." Instead we are regaled with tunes of "Frosty the Snowman" another bit of boil over froth, and "Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer" and the multiple threads of froth that came from that fictional character.

There is the Grinch also: "The Grinch that stole Christmas." I am sure that a re-make of this old film would jettison the word Christmas if it could find a way to say the same thing without honoring Christ in the word itself. In any case, Whoville had a tree with gifts - another bit of froth - but no real mention of Christ or His birth. The Christ-hating world is even willing to use the general emotions of the Season, but hijack them and attach them to anything but the birth of the Son of God.

Perhaps the idea is: if we can spawn enough froth, the real contents of the pot can be discarded along with the froth that has covered the stove top. Everyone knows the froth is spurious, immaterial, imaginary, so perhaps it all is.

I know there is a growing segment of the culture that is plainly uncomfortable with the story of a Christ Child. They are uncomfortable for the same reason they don't like being reminded that the story of Easter is the story of Resurrection - which reminds them of the claims of a Christ who died for the sins of the whole world on a historical cross. A universal savior smacks of a universal damnation, and that is where the Christ story "quits preaching and goes to meddlin'" in many people's minds.

Emotions without a basis are really what the Atheists charge to the Christians. They believe - or try mightily to convince themselves - that the real Christmas Story - like the boil off from the story - is mythical. Most certainly the boil off is pure mythology, but the real Christmas Story - that is entirely factual, and historical.

Which is kind of tough on the unbelievers. They cannot rest easy in their beds, no matter how much they ignore or morph the story. Even killing the Christians and trying to burn or expunge their words won't work, because that which is true is written on their hearts by the God Who is There.

Let us who know HIM, continue on in faithful witness to the truth of His Word. A wonderful event happened two thousand years ago - in fulfilment of his ages-old promise to send a Savior and Redeemer - God sent his Only Begotten Son into the world, to save His people from their sins. He succeeded in that, for He is God. It is up to us to publish that truth to our generation, and to remain faithful to its message of true hope to a lost and dying world.