This is the third Lord’s Day of Advent, the year of our Lord, 2005.
We are not here today, marking the approach of Christmas, because the early Christians compromised with paganism. It is not the case that our fathers tried to sanitize some pagan celebration of the winter solstice. As it turns out, the Romans did not celebrate the solstice, and their Saturnalia was on a different day entirely. There was one brief abortive attempt by a pagan emperor to start celebrating the solstice (with a feast to the Unconquerable Sun), which was almost certainly a response to the Christian celebration of this day. This day is ours, so unbelievers may be cordially invited to keep their hands off it.
At the same time, unbelievers are invited to join us, first as interested observers, then as catechumens, and then as baptized Christians. How do we invite them? By wishing that they would have a merry Christmas. No “Seasons’ Greetings” for us. Away with “Happy Holidays” and “Holiday trees,” And to Dickens’ attempt to turn this whole thing into a humanistic, feel good ghost story, a story which is all about a nebulous spirit of generosity and getting mysteriously unscrooged, we do say, “Bah, humbug!”
Without Christ, we have no Savior. If Jesus did not die, He could not have risen from the dead. If He did not rise from the dead, we are still in our sins, Marley’s ghost notwithstanding. If Jesus had not taken on a human body in the stunning event of the Incarnation, He could not have died. If He did not die and rise, we are still in our sins. Without this baby, we are all of us lost, and lost forever.
The war on Christmas is being conducted by those who want no reminders of the potency of this great event. We are here to remind the world that there is indeed, joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king, and with a little less backchat.