The discomfort of Christmas

There is a rising tide of Christmasphobia that stems directly from a deeper fear – that of the truth. Phobia denotes an irrational fear of something that can’t harm you, which is why the term “Islamophobia” is a misnomer in that Islamic terrorists are a real threat, not imagined. What the worldly, atheistic and polytheistic suffer from is what they refuse to understand, and the most common type of fear that exists is that of the unknown, even if the subject is only unknown due to willful ignorance. And the Word is the quintessence of apprehension to anyone who prefers adherence to their own thoughts and conclusions despite evidence proving them faulty.

As the day celebrating the birth of Christ approaches, a fear-based hate of anything Christmas becomes more fervent although the Western world now wallows in commercial gain borne directly from the holiday’s roots. It is something akin to self-hate where one enjoys the fruit of their endeavors but can’t stand what they did to reap it. The question is, why do those who like to celebrate the holiday so despise the reason for its establishment? As stated above, it is the fear of the basis for it, Christ and for what He stands – the embodiment of God’s Word: “And the Word was made flesh,” (John 1:14). It’s obvious to see why that would make unbelievers so uncomfortable… who wants to acknowledge something they vehemently deny exists? Even if that something is the underlying cause of what they celebrate, name changes notwithstanding? Bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it. However, in this world of self-proclaimed nonjudgmental righteousness, good sense can be overlooked, and is, in favor of nonsense. Every day, there is a new spate of denial of every kind of in-your-face fact, whether it’s political (these days everything is political), scientific or faith-driven. Too many people are convinced that the three are at odds and cannot be amalgamated, which is flatly untrue. But then, truth is the one factor these folks can’t stomach.

---

Trouble is, too many Christians share a dread of truth that rivals the non-believers. They avoid reading the Bible for fear that what they want to believe will not be substantiated within its pages. Take note that Solomon’s metaphoric “strange woman” in the following scripture is the voice of any who contradicts, perverts or ignores the truth:

Proverbs 5:1 My son, attend unto my wisdom,
and bow thine ear to my understanding: 2 that thou mayest regard discretion,
and that thy lips may keep knowledge. 3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb,
and her mouth is smoother than oil: 4 but her end is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a twoedged sword. (KJV)

Read Chapter 5 through to verse 14 to understand the need of wisdom to counter feel-good falsehood; and wisdom is found in the Word. The Word, Christ, challenges what we want to believe, that which is not the truth. We are afraid of leaving our comfortable deceit. For everyone, truth is not easy to accept but living a sham guarantees disappointment when the wishing something to be true simply doesn’t make it so. And wishing Christmas to go away by renaming it and denying Christ, whose very birth gave us the Gregorian calendar by which we measure the days, will not do away with Him. May we all open our hearts to receive the living God’s love that gave earth the gift of Emmanuel, God among us, and have a blessed and Merry Christmas!