Have You Seen Jesus?

My wife, our three-year-old Mikie, and I were driving down Candle Light Lane, an impromptu name for a section of town that puts up lots of lights and decorations, and the question was posed, have you seen Jesus?

The answer?

Amongst all the lights, Santas, reindeer, elves, and Sponge Bob Square Pants . . . not much.

As you know, my wife and I have decided to go without presents this year to better get in tune with the true meaning of Christmas. Yes, I said it, Christmas. Not XMas, Holidays, or any other generic or misleading, misrepresenting name. The name of the holiday is CHRISTmas.¹

The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning "Christ's mass". It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038. 'Mass' meaning the Eucharist celebration or Christian sacrament commemorating, by consecrating bread and wine, the Last Supper, the final meal that Jesus Christ shared with his disciples before his arrest, and eventual crucifixion, when he gave them bread saying, "This is my body", and wine saying, "This is my blood."

This is the meaning of Christmas.

My wife being from Colombia, has an interesting angle on how Americans celebrate Christmas. She has little interest or passion in the holiday or the way we celebrate, for Christ is not the focal point of the celebration. In Colombia, the celebration is done differently. In Colombia they don't celebrate Christmas, they celebrate La Novena or the nine days before Christ was born from December 15 to 24. Each family has as a centerpiece to the celebration the Nativity. Here is where the focus of family and friends is centered in song and prayer to Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord. Presents are involved, but they take a back seat to the celebration of not only Christ but family and friends.

It is this celebration that we lack. Not celebration of time off, presents, or even family, but celebration of our reason for being. Without His sacrifice all is naught. Without His sacrifice we are returned to dust and put in the hands of he who harbors all sin never to return to Divine light, our Divine right as children of God from which we come.

Certainly there are those who are not Christian or even religious who celebrate Christmas and that is fine, but watering down a celebration that is to commemorate and honor He who we adore, the essential reason for the holiday, is problematic for those who call themselves Christian. Do Muslims water down Ramadan for non-believers? Do Jews water down Yom Kippur? Hindus, Jains and Sikhs do the same to Diwali (Fesitval of Light)?

This is not a ploy to separate Christmas from the secular or to call the holiday back to the purity of its origins, but to ask those who are His true followers to consider their celebration, their focus, and the extent if any to compromise that inhibits the true Spirit of Christ in this most festive of Christian seasons.

God bless. And Merry CHRISTmas.

¹ Even though the 'X' represents the letter 'chi' in the Greek alphabet and is the first letter in Christ, it also has more negating implications to Americans and other Westerners. Malcolm Little used 'X' to represent his last name or to symbolized the true African family name that he never could know. It has also been used by the ignorant who couldn't spell in signing their name as 'X' on the dotted line. Another negating of the individual or self, as it implies to many who see the 'X' in Christmas negating or slashing out the very essence of Christmas: Christ.