{"id":5450,"date":"2020-11-23T15:53:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T15:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/?p=5450"},"modified":"2021-08-17T14:28:26","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T19:28:26","slug":"christ-central","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/23\/christ-central\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping Christ Central in Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.2″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]

\u00a0 \u00a0In one very factual way, encouraging one another to keep Christ central in Christmas is rather naive. Christ\u00a0is\u00a0<\/strong>central to Christmas! Christmas is totally dependent upon Christ. The very word, Christmas, has no meaning without Christ.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Keeping Christ Central in Christmas<\/em>\u00a0can, and often has become, a clich\u00e9. Christians become dismayed with culture\u2019s attempts to retain the \u201choliday spirit\u201d while making every effort to expunge any mention of Christ.\u00a0 There is a fascinating reality to the world\u2019s substitution of\u00a0Happy Holiday<\/em>\u00a0for\u00a0Merry Christmas.<\/em>\u00a0 It is a simple admission of ignorance, since the word holiday is from the old English h\u0101ligd\u00e6g, that is\u00a0holy day<\/em>\u00a0which, in its context, was a reference to Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0As a young Pastor I had people who wanted to do away with the Christmas tree.\u00a0 They saw it as a pagan remnant dragged into the Christian world.\u00a0 While acknowledging that there were some pagan origins behind the development of the Christmas tree, it was not the intention of those who are responsible for the tradition to impose any form of paganism upon Christmas.\u00a0 My response was to think through the tree with all its various decorations and develop a symbolism for each one.\u00a0 This became the subject of a Sunday night sermon encouraging parents to use the tree and the decorations as teaching tools when they gathered their children around the tree.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The question persists.\u00a0 How do we, as Christ followers, implement practicing keeping\u00a0Christ central in Christmas?\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>When I was a boy, in the 1940\u2019s, Christmas was about a tree, colored lights and toys.\u00a0 Church was about sitting still and enduring the \u201cman up front\u201d droning on for what seemed hours (it really was only about 20 minutes I learned later).\u00a0 There also were variety of\u00a0 plays in which children were supplied wings to become angels or robes to become either wisemen or shepherds.\u00a0 Obviously, the liberal church of my childhood days did little to keep\u00a0Christ central in Christmas.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0When I became a Christ follower at age seventeen and entered the world of evangelicalism, the message of Christmas was clearly articulated.\u00a0 Nonetheless, the holiday was largely about cultural traditions.\u00a0 Much that took place in the church was more about culture than Christ and looked not much different than my youthful liberal church.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0But the question persists! How do we keep\u00a0Christ central<\/em>? Certainly, you have heard discussions on this issue heretofore.\u00a0 They run something like this, Only play church music in your home or in your car from Thanksgiving till Christmas.\u00a0 Be sure to be in church every Sunday of the Advent season.\u00a0 Be sure children\u2019s programs revolve around the birth of Christ.\u00a0 Read the Christmas story and not silly things like The Night Before Christmas to your children.\u00a0 You get the picture.\u00a0 All these may have merit and are useful ways of reminding us that Christmas is about the birth of the Savior.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Once more, the pesky question.\u00a0 \u201cHow do we\u00a0keep Christ central\u00a0<\/em>at Christmas?\u201d\u00a0 Well here is the answer I propose.\u00a0 Keep Christ central 364 days a year and you will keep Him central on the 365th<\/sup>\u00a0day.\u00a0 Is Christmas special?\u00a0 To answer that, let me ask,\u00a0Is communion special<\/em>?\u00a0 The answer\u00a0to both is\u00a0yes.<\/i>\u00a0 In my denomination (the PCA), we emphasize self-examination and personal preparation during the week prior to communion so that we come to the table with an intensified desire to worship by our participation.\u00a0 So, Christmas is an opportunity to intensify our awareness that God became man in order that man might be reconciled to God and hence, worship the King.\u00a0 Jesus instituted the sacrament to induce our remembrance.\u00a0 Throughout the Bible there are many examples of commemorative holidays intended to remind God\u2019s people to keep God front and center.\u00a0 Christmas, with lights and gifts and glorious music in a variety of genres all enhance our remembering that all this tensile only exists because of Christ.\u00a0 In the final analysis,\u00a0keeping Christ front and central<\/i>\u00a0in Christmas boils down to a personal decision to recognize Him as King every day of our lives.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

*Dr. Eyrich is a retired PCA pastor. However, he continues to pursue ministry opportunities from preaching, to counseling, to supervising counseling trainees, to writing and teaching for Birmingham Theological Seminary where he also serves as Director of the Doctor of Ministry\u2014Biblical Counseling Program.<\/span><\/i><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0In one very factual way, encouraging one another to keep Christ central in Christmas is rather naive. Christ\u00a0is\u00a0central to Christmas! Christmas is totally dependent upon Christ. The very word, Christmas, has no meaning without Christ. \u00a0 \u00a0Keeping Christ Central in Christmas\u00a0can, and often has become, a clich\u00e9. Christians become dismayed with culture\u2019s attempts to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[147,146,148],"class_list":["post-5450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-central-in-christmas","tag-christ","tag-christian"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5450"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6300,"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5450\/revisions\/6300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acallformen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}