These days, it’s impossible to drive around the city and not see yard signs and bumper stickers with some sort of social message on it. Usually they’re some sort of emotion-driven platitude developed by sloganeers that are great for selling merchandise to the angry masses, but when you peel back the emotional sizzle, there’s not a whole lot of intellectual steak.
Amidst all this noise, there’s another slogan we see this time of year: “Keep Christ in Christmas.” We see it on billboards that the Knights of Columbus sponsor, and we see it on car magnets and bumper stickers. It’s a good reminder, and as Catholic Christians we certainly like the message. The question is, what makes it different from the emotion-driven social messaging we see in front yards and on backs of cars?
On the surface, “Keep Christ in Christmas” is a message that isn’t any deeper than the rest. Don’t say “happy holidays”, say “Merry Christmas”. Is that what “Keep Christ in Christmas” means? Well, it’s a start. But let’s pull off the ribbon and unwrap it a little more. What does it really mean to “Keep Christ in Christmas?”
Does it mean to remember that “Jesus is the reason for the season”? Another slogan fit for a bumper sticker, but again… “Keep Christ in Christmas”… what does it mean?
To answer that, let us look at the first Christmas. In the political and social darkness before the first Christmas, the Jewish people waited. Since the days of Isaiah they waited for Emmanuel who would come and set them free. With the coming of the Christ would be the coming of a new day for the people of Israel, and so each generation waited with hope that theirs would be the generation that would see the Messiah come. They had faith in God, and recited their profession of faith—a prayer called the Shema—two times a day. But what the Messiah represented for them was hope… the ascent of their belief.
What is our hope? What is the ascent of our belief?
Well, the sloganeers in the City of Man will have you believe that “hot holiday deals” will “make this a December to remember”, and that what you hope for lies wrapped in colorful paper under a tree, not wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. After all, how can you anticipate the arrival of something that’s already come? Isn’t it better to hope that you get the hottest new tech? And in giving a car wrapped in a big red bow, won’t you be receiving endless joy from the recipient? The sloganeers are paid handsomely to convince you that is so.
In the City of God, however, hope is a constant movement toward what is believed by faith, a belief in things not yet come. We profess our faith in what we believe every time we recite the Creed. For Christians, Christ is the embodiment of our hope… our hope that through the grace and mercy of God that eternal life, eternal life of true endless joy with God the Father is possible, and it was made possible starting with the birth of Jesus. As we say in the Creed, our hope is in “the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”
So… “Keep Christ in Christmas”… what does it mean?
It means to remember the Israelites who waited for the Messiah, and to keep our hope alive, no matter how dark the world is that we are living in. Like them, we may live under a ruler who’s adherence to the tenants of his faith are more for political gain than true belief. Like them, our ruler may be willing to sacrifice scores of innocents to remain in power. Like them, our practice of what we believe may be more a cause for persecution than praise. But like them, our hope in the promise of the Christ must shine brightly no matter how pitch black the darkness of the world around us.
So do not despair. Do not worry. Do not get caught up in the trappings of worldly things. Have hope in the possibility of eternal joy. Because that is what it means to “Keep Christ in Christmas”.
