THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

 

I remember it as if it were yesterday.  In reality, it was sixteen years ago.  The year 1998 had been a very difficult year as my wife’s health condition deteriorated.  As the Advent season moved toward its climax I became aware of a sense of sadness, a degree of regret, and a feeling that I had lost something.  As I began to contemplate this vague sense of unease I realized that what was missing was my usual “Christmas spirit.”  I mused and I reflected.  What was this “Christmas spirit” which I lacked?  What was really missing?  I remembered the keen sense of anticipation which I felt when I was a boy counting down the days until Christmas.  I remembered a sense of warmth and wonder as I smelled the Christmas cookies my mom baked.  I remembered the familiarity of the Christmas music playing on our old console stereo and the excitement of walking around department stores decked with boughs of holly.  I remembered the Christmas specials on television and the Christmas movies; “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Carol.”  Suddenly I saw something more clearly than I had ever seen it before!  It was in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol!”  It was in the appearances of the spirits of Christmases past, present, and future!  There were the spirits of Christmas!  Dickens had personified the spirit of Christmas!  An entirely pagan “Christmas spirit” had arisen out of the Victorian era in England which accompanied the celebration of the birth of Christ right into the modern day!  Christmas had become a time of “good will toward men.” It was not the good will of God toward men, but the good will of men toward one another!  The Christmas spirit which I lacked was not a product of Christian faith but the product of a romantic, humanistic period of English history during which biblical Christianity was in steep decline!  The two Christmases grew up together, side by side, a Christless, pagan celebration and a celebration of faith and worship!  Over the years the two have become almost inextricably intertwined, nearly indistinguishable, even though evangelical Christians have cried out, “Keep Christ in Christmas” and “Jesus is the reason for the season!”  We have decried the commercialization of Christmas and have emphasized giving rather than receiving while at the same time talked about some vague “Christmas spirit.”  This “Christmas spirit” has become more real to most of us than the Holy Spirit!  Christmas is not a time for men to be kinder to one another than we usually are.  It is a celebration of the time that God revealed himself to men as a God of grace!