Editorial for December 22, 2005
By Jim White
What is your favorite Christmas phrase? If the reaction to Wal-Mart's plan to wish us a “Happy Holiday” this season is any indication, “Merry Christmas!” must be the expression of choice.
I confess that I am one who prefers to hear “Merry Christmas.” Still, I am troubled by the bully attitude that threatened a boycott of offending merchants unless they used the preferred salutation. It says, in effect, “Say Merry Christmas or else!” Something about that seems at odds with the whole spirit of Christmas. Those who go to war over keeping Christ in Christmas must ask themselves if the Christ they are keeping there is the real one. Putting a false Christ in Christmas is surely worse than simply saying “Happy Holidays!”
But beyond greetings, do you have a favorite Christmas expression? What single phrase, more than any other, authentically expresses for you the ideals of Christmas? Answers are as varied as individual Christians, no doubt, but it seems to me that two phrases embody what the incarnation is all about. One is a two-word sermon delivered by a heavenly visitor: “Fear not.”
Perhaps few in our culture would openly admit to being routinely scared, but many people in our world live continually with a high level of anxiety. Anxiety, in short, is the fear that something you dread is going to happen. It has been called the most common psychiatric complaint-and everyone seems to have it. Children, students, wives, husbands, professors, you name it. In America, middle managers have the most of it, according to one survey. Even preachers are visited on occasion by this gnawing fear.
It would be wonderful if celebrating Christmas lessened our anxiety, but, according to Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, a pair of psychologists who developed a “Life Stress Scale” in 1967, Christmas creates 12 stress points. (By comparison, moving creates 20.) And those are 1967 points. The way we celebrate Christmas today surely creates more stress than it did nearly 40 years ago. For one thing, the season now begins in October!
Ironically, the self-induced anxieties surrounding Christmas are enormous. Consider that we layer onto our already stressful lives such seasonal requirements as decorating, entertaining, performing, attending, shopping, baking, cleaning, spending, wrapping and traveling. No wonder a sizeable percentage of the population experiences post-holiday depression. We are utterly exhausted!
Then after Christmas we've got to pack all that stuff away and pay off the bills. For the time being, let's agree to ignore the fact that we've also put on a few extra pounds. After all, Baptists are big into church growth-if not in numbers, then surely in weight.
But, forget the anxieties we create for ourselves. I'm thinking about those ice-in-the-pit-of-our-stomach fears that come because God calls us to step up and accept an assignment. I'm talking about the kind of scare a teenager named Mary felt when Gabriel told her she was going to give birth to the Son of God. Mary was innocent, but she wasn't naive. She understood what a pregnancy at this critical point in her life would mean to her marriage plans. She also understood that expecting Joseph (or her parents for that matter) to believe her explanation would require a miracle in itself. “Don't be afraid, Mary.”
Or, I'm thinking about a man whose love for his betrothed was nearly limitless. But the betrayal he felt when she told him she was with child, and the disbelief he expressed at the story she told him were clearly beyond the bounds. Joseph was being asked to accept what no man in history before him had been expected to believe. “Don't be afraid, Joseph.”
Or, consider those sheep-herding lads who were the first to have a close encounter with UFOs. They, whose eyes widened in disbelief, whose mouths fell agape in utter amazement and whose hearts must have pounded out in ancient Morse Code, “You're dead!” thought they were gonners! “Don't be afraid, simple shepherds!”
“Fear not” is a message for the ages. Indeed, a search of the scriptures reveals that it is God's perennial proclamation to mankind. To virtually every person in the Bible to whom God said, “I have an assignment for you!” he needed to add, “Don't be afraid.” So consistently do we find God needing to reassure his called ones, that we might reasonably assume if we are not afraid it is because we have not understood our assignment.
But consider a second Christmas phrase. When tender young Mary reviewed the potential consequences of God's assignment, her courage must have failed. But, she believed God when he said, “Fear not!” and she uttered a Christmas message of her own. She replied, “Be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). n other words, “Yes, Lord. Whatever you say!”
Obedience in faith to God's call may produce fear as we consider the enormity of our assignments. God is calling us to missions. God is calling us to evangelize. How can we possibly reach 4 million lost Virginians? Sometimes, as to Abraham, God simply says “Go, and I will let you know when you get there.” Fear of failure may cause paralysis. But God utters once again that Christmas message: “Fear not.” God chooses us to bear the Good News to those who have yet to believe. God understands our fear. What he doesn't understand is lack of obedience.
“Fear not!”
“Yes, Lord. Whatever you say!”