I don’t know about you; I used to really enjoy celebrating the Fourth of July. But then somebody told me the truth about it.
Somebody who really knows (probably like sore losers on both ends of the political spectrum who “know” that our last two presidential elections were stolen; nefarious Russian “collusion” or magic vote-tampering, take your pick—anything but the more boring truth that the two losers ran rotten campaigns) has figured out the truth. About the Fourth of July, I mean.
One who knows the truth writes, “America’s Independence Day is really a celebration of Britain.” Once you analyze this, it all makes sense. “The national colors, the flag, the music, the fireworks, the food—aspects of all these features are clearly borrowed from British culture.”
So go ahead and celebrate the Fourth of July if you want to. For my part, I like the Brits. I’m a person of British ancestry—one might even say a British-American (why should I be denied a hyphen? God save the Queen!) But don’t say I didn’t warn you about the Fourth’s actual British roots.
Okay. Not really. Most of the above (not my ancestry) is poppycock. (I’d have thought “poppycock” was a word with British roots; turns out, according to my dictionary, it’s from the Dutch dialect pappekak, meaning “soft dung.” Enjoy your popcorn.)
The quotations in paragraph three above are actually from an excellent Christianity Today article written by Timothy Larsen. And he doesn’t believe them, either. He was just making a point in his piece, “No One Took Christ Out of Christmas” (CT, Dec. 2021).
Professor Larsen (Wheaton College) is, quite literally, the “man who wrote the book on Christmas.” A Christian of deep faith and a scholar of serious standing, he spent three years combing through scholars’ research about the origins of our Christmas celebrations, and he read volumes and volumes of historical documents regarding the same, so that he could edit The Oxford Handbook of Christmas. I’d love to have that for Christmas. I thought I’d order it, and then I discovered it costs $130 and (published in Nov. 2020) is almost 700 pages long. Want to know about Christmas trees, Santa, plum puddings, stockings, and much, much more? Bingo.
Do you buy the long-standing “urban legend” that evergreen decorations are pagan? Well, maybe some pagans used evergreens, but, as Larsen writes, pagans didn’t create evergreens, God did. And God commanded the Israelites to celebrate the Festival of Ingathering “by going into the countryside to gather evergreens (Lev. 23:40; Neh. 8:15).”
And guess what? “The real origin of the Christmas tree was medieval European sacred plays performed at Christmastime” that “told the biblical story of redemption and included a decorated evergreen tree, which represented the Tree of Life” and “became a symbol of the season.”
When Larsen, who has done the research to have a truly valuable opinion, writes, “You can be sure Christmas is Christian,” I am more than willing to listen.
As Larsen mentions in his article, we all know that mega-commercialism and excess of all sorts can taint this beautiful season. But because some folks misuse and abuse it, that doesn’t argue for our abandoning it, feeling guilty about genuine joy, and refusing, Scrooge-like, to allow God to bless, use, and redeem our celebrations of the coming of our Redeemer.
I, for one, intend to enjoy all the lights and music and even, at the right time, sleighs and reindeer, and thank God for such blessings. Genuine beauty and joy are always His! And my celebrations, and I hope yours, will be all the more joyful because, at heart, what I’m celebrating is His coming, which gives light and color and meaning, in different ways, to manger scenes and the notes of “chestnuts roasting o’er an open fire.” I suppose an atheist might avoid “Silent Night” and opt for “Jingle Bells” instead; a Christian gets both and much more and thanks God for it all!
I’ve never been convinced that dour “piety” and genuine holiness have much family resemblance. It’s time, as Larsen writes, for Christians to be “released” from misguided (and historically unfounded) holiday “anxieties.” It’s time, he says, to “take a tip from an angel” who gave this Christmas message: “Do not be afraid” (Luke 2:10).
God knows there’s a time for joy and celebration, a time to be so sure of our Father that we lay down the burden of being full of ourselves, give our “dignity” a good kick in the pants, toss worry and fear aside, and dance with the children.
Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.