Bah, Humbug! A guest post from Jerry Johnson

Note: what follows is a guest post from CtK member, Jerry Johnson. Jerry's opinions are his own, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of CtK or the ELCA.

Bah, Humbug!

     As I grow longer in the tooth, my attitude about holidays has changed--Margaret would say for the worse.  Some of it is definitely age related.  Huge holiday meals are overwhelming and leave me miserable.  Drinking has its own problems.  Staying late at functions has lost its charm and gifting in a materialistic society is crass at best.  January should give us a new start, but it’s frequently with unneeded pounds and a feeling of exhaustion. 

      In our current atmosphere of fear “Christians” forget their role and want to isolate Muslims as we did to the Japanese in WWII.  They complain about Starbuck’s holiday cups, saying they either promote Jesus or dis him, when the intent was neither.  Earlier cups had snowmen, candy canes, etc. which are not Christian symbols.  My understanding is the plain red and green cups are so you can decorate them any way you want, or not.

     Christians whine about the “War on Christmas” not fully knowing the history or seeing the melding of the spiritual and the commercial and of course we’ve carried political correctness from reasonable to ridiculous.  The origins probably began with celebrating the lengthening of the day after the winter solstice, and Romans celebrated December 25 as the birthday of the sun god Mithra.  It wasn’t until the 4^th century A. D. it was associated with Jesus’ birth and didn’t become significant until the time of Charlemagne around 800 A. D.  Catholics made it a tradition and Protestants banned it (Puritans thought Jesus was born in September and they hated the associated holiday debauchery in late medieval England).  The Christmas tree came from Germany and was considered to be a symbol of pagan idolatry.  The Lutherans were castigated for “groveling before a shrub.”  Jeremiah 101-4 condemns cutting down a tree from the forest and decorating it with silver and gold.  George Washington even attacked the Hessians during the Battle of Trenton in 1777 on Christmas because it was a popular German holiday.  Clement Moore’s poem “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” in 1823 was an enormous success.  In 1836 Alabama declared Christmas a public holiday, but it wasn’t until 1870 that President Ulysses S. Grant declared it a federal holiday.

     Of course, the media likes turmoil, so they seize on anything to stir up the pot.  I find Advent a time to reflect.  I like our “Soup and Service” suppers and the fellowship.  In our Tuesday men’s Bible study we studied Stephen Patterson’s book, Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus.  Patterson says that without Jesus’ life, his death and resurrection are meaningless.  Ernest Campbell said the Gospel receives its force in the world from the fact that it was lived.  People confuse expressing religious values with living them.  The most recent example of this is Martin Luther King, Jr. who preached passive resistance as did Ghandi.  We put King on a pedestal and violence is still the way.  The same could be said for Jesus, revere him, but don’t follow him--that could be dangerous to our health (mortal, not immortal).

     As Advent draws to a close and Jesus’ birthday is upon us we need to think on what it’s all about.  We should recognize that all things change, even what we know about Christmas.  We should remember in Jesus’ life and love he reached out and asked us to follow him--feeding and clothing the poor, visiting the sick,  taking in the stranger and visiting prisoners.  For each other it will be plenty sufficient to share our love.

                                                          Jerrold E. Johnson, 12-21-15