Funny Thing About X-mas

X is the Greek letter for the beginning of the Greek word for “Christ.” So when you write X-mas you are abbreviating “Christ-mas.” That may not be intentional, but it is implicit.

Just like when you use the word “holidays” you are using shorthand for “holy days.”

Just like when you use a date on anything you are acknowledging the historical significance of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, whether the acknowledgment is deliberate, or even approved of.

It’s not that people who try to avoid using the word “Christ” cannot succeed in doing so. They can succeed, and they have the right to that – both under the laws of America, and under the freedom granted every last human by the Creator.

The point is that those who fuss so about Christ being missing from the holiday season are fussing about the wrong issue.

They are fussing about words, but Christ is present in the words of the season.

Christ is present in X-mas. God is present in “Holy days.”

Sadly, Christ is too often missing from the Christians.

As someone said recently over at Baptist Center for Ethics, we might have more success in finding Christ in the Christmas season if we weren’t so busy hoping to find peace and joy at the mall. Or, I might add, trying to find it in the wealth and power that this world’s political and economic systems can be manipulated to bring to (a small minority of) us.

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