X-MAS?????

The other day, my son asked me why some people refer to Christmas as X-mas. My wife immediately responded by saying that it had something to do with the fact that some people don't want to celebrate Christ at Christmas time. That is probably true to a some extent, however, I offered an alternate explanation to my son.

I told him that the X in Church history was commonly used to represent Christ. X is the Greek letter "chi." Often among early Christians, the X was just a way of saying Christ in shorthand.

This morning as I was surfing through my news feed, I stumbled upon this article by R.C. Sproul on this exact topic. Click here for the article.

So why bring this topic up?

Holidays seem to always post conundrums for Christians. Our pastor told us that if we really traced back the historical roots of why we celebrate Christmas in December we would find out that they are more pagan than they are Christian.

What's funny is that when we trace back the historical roots of Halloween, we find out that they are more Christian than they are pagan.

Kinda funny...not funny "haha"...funny weird or ironic!


In listening to my pastor speak about these issues, he said something that has stuck with me, and I hope this is something you will consider when you are making decisions on how to celebrate holidays as well.

Our focus as Christians should be to REDEEM every day, whether it's a holiday or not, but especially on holidays.

Each day is a new day that we get to proclaim the GOSPEL. No matter where something comes from, the whole point of Christianity is to make the GOSPEL the center of our living.

I'm reminded of what Joseph said to his brothers when he revealed his identity to them in Egypt. In Genesis 50:20 he said to them, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good..."

Satan intends to take this world and the things in it to do evil against us, but God takes everything in our lives and uses them for our good (Romans 8:28).

Let's put legalism aside and REDEEM the season for the GOSPEL!