WHY OBSERVE CHRISTMAS?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26033, 22 December 1945, Page 3

WHY OBSERVE CHRISTMAS?

Written for the Otago Daily Times By the Rev. Gardner Miller

In wishing the editor and staff of the Otago Daily Times and all my readers a merry Christmas, I do so with mingled feelings. So much has happened since last Christmas that there can be nothing in our hearts but gratitude. We have seen the end of World War 11, and that means in plain language that we have barely escaped from being pushed back into the jungle. Civilisation has come through a terrible ordeal. Thousands of homes will miss loved ones who gave their lives for a great cause. Christmas in such homes will have an undercurrent of sadness. Over and above all our personal losses and hopes and feelings, one cannot help but be bemused and probably utterly confused at what this Christmas faces in the modern world. Everywhere there is disillusionment and lawlessness. Christian forces seem helpless in tne face of the growing menace of utter selfishness. To many people it would seem as if Christmas is a mockery. Some will dismiss it as merely a relic of a superstitious past, while others will shrug their shoulders with the remark that its only use is to please the children. That there is a complete disbelief on the part of many in the message of Christmas is evident everywhere you look. Now, no one, least of all an honest preacher of the gospel, would wish that any religious belief should be retained if it has ouilived its usefulness.

If Christmas is outmoded, if it is merely a beautiful fairy tale, if it is just an annual festival for children, then it isn’t worth keeping. I say that quite frankly. I refuse to lend myself to any piece of religious superstition, no matter how venerable it is and no matter what holy associations have gathered round it as it marched down the corridors of time. But, if, on the other hand, Christmas is something more than a fairy tale, something more than a children’s festival, then I am for retaining it, and, if need be, making it more understandable to modern minds that seek reality at all costs. I do believe that Christmas should continue to be observed because Christmas enshrines certain great truths and values without which civilisation would break down utterly. You see, I believe God is amazingly alive and that in this wonderful event which we call Christmas He reminds us of what He did, once and for all, for mankind.

The Lovely Tradition

No incident in all literaturq is so beautifully and wondrously described as the birth of Christ. The anxious parents, the shepherds and their flocks, the angels and the wise men—has there ever been gathered together such a company as a background to the birth of a child? All these things may, by their very beauty and their sense of having come about by a supreme will, quite well lull our critical faculties to sleep, but there is one thing among them that stabs our spirits broad awake. And that is the angels’ song. Do you remember it? “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” Peace and goodwill! How some will laugh scornfully and say that the present situation in the world is proof positive that neither exists. That is where I differ. I say that peace and goodwill still live in spite of the frightful ravages of war that sought to exterminate them. If there had been no Christmas, no birth of Christ, there would have been no peace and goodwill on the earth. He bought them. He is their guarantee. Let Christmas cease to be observed and there will die out of the hearts of men the desire for peace and goodwill. If for no other reason than to keep alive this lovely tradition of the angels’ song, Christmas should be increasingly observed. But, of course, it goes much deeper. The Supreme Fact

Christmas is the dated proof of the entry of God into human history and .affairs. It is impossible, of course, to enter the mind of God— ctr, really, of anyone at all—but it would be a fair assumption to say that God must have been moved by a very deep and passionate love for humanity for Him to engage in the adventure of becoming man. For, surely, Christmas is no less than that. The birth of Jesus is no ordinary birth: it is the birth into human life of God Himself, Who took upon Himself our frail humanity, lived as a man, faced the risks of defeat a id death—and still loved us. We have turned Christmas into a season of jollity, forgetting that the basis of our joy is a great act of redemption whicn began on the day Jesus was born. We really celebrate the Incarnation on Christmas Day, but to witness how many people spend Christinas Day you would think it was just another holiday. To cease to observe Christmas—which many do—is to begin a process of shutting out God from human life, and the end of such a process is sheer, blank despair. There is no greater fact in human history than the fact of the coming of Jesus. And you cannot separate Jesus from God. I have just been reading a moving account of the conversion of a great governor of the Gold Coast in Africa. A brave and candid friend said to him one day: “You love your country because you have served it all your life; you have taken every opportunity of seeing the King; but you have never sought or even wished seriously to know God.” The governor asked how one could know God, and his friend replied: “ Some of us believe that Jesus of Nazareth knew more of God than any other man, so we put aside some time every morning to study his thought of God, and to let His Father speak to us, which He will do if Jesus told us the truth about Him.” The governor replied: “I’ll try it. It’s worth it if it’s true.” - Six months later, he was a great Christian, and he gave his entire life to the service of the Africans whom he loved. Jesus is God in human flesh. “Between Thee and God men can no longer distinguish.” The Ultimate Proof I wonder how many of those who are so busy preparing blueprints for the New,World Order are aware that Christmas is the one and only proof that a New World Order can be established. Jesus came to bring in the kingdom of God. That kingdom will be realised both in history and out of it; but there’s nothing plainer to read in all the world’s records than the matter-of-fact statement of Jesus that we are to seek to bring about “God’s will on earth, as in heaven.” Destroy Christmas, if it were possible, and you destroy the incentive to poets, prophets, and saints to establish an order wherein the rule of God is absolute. It is not a dream, it is a demand. Away with all these nagging thoughts that Christmas is outdated. Christmas is the most up-to-date fact in all the world. At its heart—in the cradle—is the fact of a timeless God taking upon Himself our limitations.