Sunday, December 22, 2013

Christmas Spirit

Taken from ICAN by Joe Dias


Christmas Tracks & Putting Christ back into X'mas?
Go Fish : Christmas Video TracksChristmas with a capital C - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww4ygpsA5ng
Mary did you know - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikUovryDh80
Its about the cross - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr0Khzknt6w
Drummer boy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7hI5rCt3N0
Put Christ back into Christmas?

Christmas

This the season for the annual “Keep Christ in Christmas” postings around the social networking sites. It is also the season for X'mas stampedes. Families going further into debt to pay for toys made in a country known for its’ persecution of Christians (and of other religions), namely China. Its time for splurging on food, drink, wine, women and song.
Made in China
Does nobody else see the irony here? Christians will endlessly spout feel-good platitudes like “Keep Christ in Christmas” while driving by the homeless on the way to a mall, to buy some new technology that is made in China which will be obsolete within 6 months.
Shopping Girl
Where is “Keep Christ in CHRISTmas” in those actions? The newspapers are full of advertisements screaming X'mas Discounts & Sales. No mention of the real reason for the season. Even worse, most of those benefiting from the commercialization are non-Christians, while the customers are Christians... And they will be going to church at midnight and will be posting their “Keep Christ in CHRISTmas” memos around on the internet.
Keep Christ in Christmas
At some point, expressing love became commercialized to the point that the expressing of love is more dependent on the amount of money spent on the gift than the amount of time or effort.
Expressing love through the purchase of expensive jewelry is but one example. I remember when the advertisement came out telling men that they should express their love through paying almost two months salary on a diamond ring.
Yep, nothing says “I love you” better than a blood diamond dug out of the ground by third world country slave children.
Love diamond Ring
But getting back to CHRISTmas, just think about the story of the birth of Christ. Remember the 3 wise men that came to pay their respects to Christ and they each bought a gift - Gold, frankincense and myrrh.
However, was the true gift that they gave these trinkets or the effort they went through to pay homage to the Christ? Was it the good smelling and valuable gifts they gave or the time they spent traveling over the desert to be by the side of Christ?
Three Kings
It is easy enough to post stuff like this on Facebook:
Share Christ in Christmas
And I would be willing to bet that it would be a ritual to go - Merry X'mas or post similar things on Facebook, feeling good that the formality was complete. We have publicly professed their desire to keep Christmas Christian. But I could argue that actions speak much louder than Facebook posts.
Merry Xmas
If, we as Christians truly want to honor Christ and keep “Christ in CHRISTmas”, I would think our Christmas could look more like this:
Orphans
Than this:
Christmas Party
Our Christmas church services might look more like this:
Christmas Mass
And less like this:
Christmas Mass
Maybe our gifts could be purchased from Christian charities and not Made-in-China:
Christian Charities
Rather than from a mall:
Christmas shopping at Mall
If we as Christians truly want to keep “Christ in CHRISTmas”, we first have to find him. And I think we are more likely to find him here:
Help
Than here
Nativity
Or here
Church
So here we are - Team CSF and ICAN...
Christmas Prayer 
specially praying for you and your loved ones

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