I am in the process of writing my Christmas letter to send out to friends and family. In the past I have struggled with appropriate wordage. I'm not much for the Santa thing so I tend to find biblical based cards and stationary. Yet, not all of my friends and family members are church go-ers. I don't want to scare some of them from reading my very important letter by preaching to them about the real meaning of Christmas. Yet, I want them to know that it is really important to me. Since I have been teaching in secular environments the past 5 years I feel it has been necessary for me to choose the greeting, Seasons Greetings or Happy Holidays so as not to offend anyone. This year I began my letter with a good old-fashioned Merry Christmas. I guess I am not the only person who has strong feeling about this. My pastor recently wrote a very interesting note in his monthly newsletter, rather than plagiarise him I am just going to quote him word for word.
"Recently the company of Wal-Mart, Inc. caused a firestorm of controversy when it told is employees to use the greeting, " Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". As Christians, we may find this change to be yet another attempt to keep Christianity out of the public eye. For myself, I'm not sure where I stand on the use of "Happy Holidays" as a replacement for "Merry Christmas. " The reason I'm unsure is because I can still use "Happy Holidays" to tell others about the birth of Jesus Christ. The word "holiday" is actually the combination and short-hand for "holy-day". Essentially when you say "Happy Holidays" you are wishing someone a "Happy Holy-Day". And it's this understanding that gives me the opportunity to explain to people that what makes this time "holy" is that our God became man in the person of Jesus and that He did this to save you and me from our sins. WE don't make this time of year "holy." GOD makes this time of year "holy" because He came into our world, His creation, in the person of Jesus. Think on that during these "Holy-Days." Remember that God has sought you out, He came to you, He came to be like you so that He could carry your sorrow and sins on the cross. "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays", no matter how you say it you can't escape the fact the Christmas is the holy time of year when God came to you.." Pastor Darren Olson
Nuff said.
1 comment:
I think you are right on track, Cindy
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