While driving through Clearwater during that most wonderful trip, I happed upon a sign posted at a large Presbyterian Church. It said simply, "Christmas IS Christ." I was at least a little while distracted from the birds and the flowers and the most un-Chicago-like temperatures.

Christmas IS Christ? Does that mean, the celebration as we know it today? Are they saying that what we celebrate every year is truly a Jesus event?

Christmas IS Christ? Is that supposed to be a historic statement? Was the holiday meant from the beginning to honor the Lord and remember His birth?

As more Florida miles got away from me, I began thinking, if there had been no incarnation, would there have been a winter celebration anyway?

I wasn't too happy with any of my responses to my questions.

Yes, Christ is honored by some, but those folks honor Him all year. No, most of what goes on in the season has to do with greed and paganism. Yes, the winter holiday itself goes back way before Jesus came and honors the birth of the sun. It has a life of its own. Rome baptized the festivities when it declared it would celebrate the Christ-Mass at a time that coincided with the pagan celebration. Take Christ out of it, and it continues merrily on its way. Ho-ho-ho.

There is of course no command to celebrate any event in Jesus' life except His death (Lord's Supper) and burial (baptism) and resurrection (by our daily fellowship with the risen Lord.) I guess there is no explicit prohibition from other celebrations, but when they start looking like the world, we need to flee from them as from anything else babylonian. Or at least not call them "Christian".

It's over for a year. But the damage is done in so many lives. I counsel students whose parents, I'm sure many of them believers, obviously went into great debt to buy them the things that their peers were getting. The pressure is so incredible. And it trains and feeds a greedy spirit.

It's over. But the church is no richer. Every year, for a month, the church is stuck on a handful of songs that teach only one thing about Jesus. The Biblical texts and sermons, ditto. Then there's the cancellation of truly profitable programs as they are replaced by parties and food. These things ought not to be.