At Year's End

That time of year is upon us again – the end of one set of twelve months and the beginning of another. In this particular instance, we call the former “2009” and the latter “2010”. Just what is it about this thing called New Year’s?
For some people, it’s an excuse to have a wild party, complete with more food, beverages, and people than one can stand. And if you doubt the third item on that short list, simply watch the Times Square New Year’s event. If that to you does not look like more people packed into one small area than one person could or should be able to stand, than you are much more of a social butterfly than I.
But in all of my 25 years, I have never gone to a New Year’s party, and I do not plan to break with tradition for the sake of change – or anything else – as 2009 rolls over into 2010. Granted, I may eat more than my share of food tonight, but other than that it will be a more or less solitary observation of the changing of the times and seasons. That is, unless you count as a regular shindig my watching of an occasional neighborhood firework – which, I would have you know, is getting around here to be as risky as flying these days, what with the better-than-even shot (whether due to the ignorance of the shooter or the shabbiness of the design, it is left to the reader to decide) of a firework going astray and aiming for your house.
For almost everyone in our culture, a new year is quite a symbolic event. It affords us the opportunity to look back on the twelve months that have just passed into history and seek to discern the meaning of those things that have transpired therein and to reflect on how our lives have during that time trended to the better or to the worse. At the same time, we take a moment to look forward to the coming year. Some of us undertake the impossible task of trying to divine what the next year will bring for us, for our nation, and for the world. Beyond that, there are the regular “New Year’s resolutions” – decisions (firm in our own minds for at least a week) that we SHALL improve ourselves in this or that area of our personal lives, whether it be in the area of weight, or attitude, or education, or romance, or what-not.
Every so often a new year brings with it a new decade, and such is the case tonight. We’ll say goodbye to the 2000s and say hello to the 2010s. What will the 2000s eventually be known for? Clearly, world-changing events like 9/11 made their mark on the decade and will rightly be seen as one of its hallmarks. So too, is the startlingly rapid advance in technology. Human nature didn’t change, and it never has, but we must acknowledge that this was a rather more dangerous and complex decade than many complacently and optimistically believed it would be as the “new millennium” dawned (but at least the computers didn’t all shut down on January 1, 2000, as a few people I know – and perhaps myself to some degree – thought would or at least feared might happen). But there were bright spots, too, both individually and corporately. You know what they were for you. And you know the not-so-bright moments that also helped make the 2000s what they were for you. It varies from person to person.
The 2010s will be like that, only in a different way. None of us can tell what will be a minute from now, much less what will be the great events of the next decade. History will be made in politics, business, sports, war, and peace. People will look back on the 2010s, as they will soon begin to do on the 2000s, and point out (and perhaps even laugh at) the unique fashions, hairstyles, fads, expressions, events and inventions that make each decade special.
There is much we can’t control or predict about time. The only thing we can control, even though imperfectly, is what we do with the time God allows us. The foremost thing we must do with our time, if we have not already, is to respond to God’s gift of salvation by trusting what Jesus has done on our behalf in dying for our sins so that we might be made right with God. Once that is done, we must each endeavor to live lives that are as pleasing to our Heavenly Father as possible. All the other resolutions may fall by the wayside, but if in 2010 we strive to please and honor the One who gives us life and all good things on this earth, then our new year will not fail to be a fruitful one. Happy New Year!

Christmas is All About Easter

The title of this article may seem a little confusing. After all, why combine or confuse two distinct holidays? Granted, Christmas and Easter are similar in that they are both religious holidays and that it could be said of both that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season”. But isn’t it really too much to say that Christmas is all about Easter? I would submit to you that it isn’t too much to say that. In fact, just as it is obvious that Easter would not be possible without Christmas, it is just as true that Christmas would have no meaning without Easter. Let me explain.
Now, in writing this, I am not denying that Christmas has a wonderful quality all its own, without regard to other holidays. What could be more miraculous and breathtaking than the Christmas story? We rightly celebrate, with awe-filled hearts, the fact that God became man and dwelt among us, that He left His throne in heaven to become a human, vulnerable to all the flaws, weaknesses, and sorrows (yet without sin) that we all experience. And not only did God become man, but He first became a helpless baby, born to the most humble of families, in the most humble of circumstances, in a stable of all places and not a palace (the greatest of which in this entire world would have been an unimaginable act of self-humiliation for the Almighty Creator of the universe!).
There are even more amazing Christmas miracles – the birth of the Son of God from the womb of a virgin (thus avoiding Adam’s sin-filled lineage), the star that stood over Bethlehem, the angels who appeared bearing the wonderful news to, of all the people in the world, a few lowly shepherds in Israel. That the Almighty would choose to dwell among men as one of them is perhaps the most wonderful story of all!
I say “perhaps”, because there is an even more wonderful story than that. There must be, if Christmas is to have any meaning. Of course, if the Christmas story ended right at this point, it would be enough. We humans, undeserving of God’s very attention, would be forced to humbly bow at God’s mighty act of self-revelation to the world. But what purpose would that ultimately serve? Would it have changed anything?
No, it wouldn’t have. You see, we still would have been lost in our sins, even though Jesus grew to be a mighty Worker of miracles and a great Teacher of the truth. The reason is that we are unable to please God in our sinful condition, and as such deserve His just punishment, which is death (Romans 6:23). If Jesus, God in the flesh, only came to make an awesome but brief appearance on earth, we would all still have been doomed.
But Jesus didn’t come just to be a mighty Worker of Miracles and a great Teacher of the truth. The jarring reality of the situation is that that baby in the manger came to die – and not just because death is a common human destiny. Jesus Himself said of His life, “No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18).
Jesus’ very purpose on this earth was to die, not for Himself, but for you and me. If we are to be saved from our sin that separates us from a right relationship with God, we must have a Savior. We cannot save ourselves, but neither can God gloss over our sin and let us into His kingdom anyway. Our sin has to be paid for, and God was not content to simply see us pay for it – and so He sent His Son to pay for it. He did so by dying a cruel, violent death by execution on a Roman cross – not for anything wrong that He had done, but for everything wrong that you and I have ever done. Jesus became our Substitute, and all the wrath the God should have poured out on us He instead poured out on His only Son. Thus our sin was transferred to Jesus’ account so that His perfect righteousness could be transferred to the account of those who trust in Him.
And so you might say, “Ah, I see – then Christmas is all about Good Friday, not Easter.” However, even that is not entirely true. You see, in light of Jesus’ many remarkable claims – that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life; that He is able to give eternal life to as many as believe on Him; and that He would rise again the third day after His death, just to name three – His death cannot be the end of the story, for that would make Him a liar, and His death (though pitifully unjust) just another death like all the other ones. It would prove that Jesus was just another person – and also, most horribly, that we are still doomed in our sins.
But that was NOT the end of the story, for three days later, Jesus rose from the dead! And this is the Event of all events, the one we celebrate every year on Easter (and hopefully every other day as well!). The Resurrection of Jesus proved that God accepted the sacrifice of His Son on behalf of sinful man and validated Jesus’ life and ministry, all the remarkable claims He made, and the statement He made just before He died – “It is finished! – which signified that His redemptive work was complete, and not to be added to or subtracted from.
This is why Christmas is all about Easter. On Christmas we celebrate the great Coming of the Savior of the world. But it is a Coming that derives its very meaning from what happened three decades or so after that lowly birth – the death and resurrection of Jesus. Easter is what makes Christmas worth celebrating and saves it from being a story full of miraculous wonder that nonetheless rings hollow and falls short of ultimate meaning in the end. Praise God that He came to earth as a baby and grew up to pay for yours and my sin!
Even so, that is not where the story ends – or at least, it is not where it has to end. Jesus bids all of us who hear His words – and you are reading of them even now – to come to Him in faith, to realize that our sin has hopelessly cut us off from our Creator, and to place all of our hope and trust in the finished work that He accomplished for our salvation. This is the only way to a right relationship with God and to eternal life with Him.
Jesus is bidding you to come to Him even now, but at the same time He forces no one to come to Him. You must make a decision to trust what the Lord has done for you, and I pray you would do so now, and not waste a minute. After all, as it is written in the book of James, our life is but a vapor, and we do not know what will be tomorrow. We all have a meeting with death someday, and after this comes a meeting with Almighty God, who will be our Judge. He will judge us on the basis of what we have done with His Son – did we trust in Him alone for our salvation, or did we count His death and resurrection as worthless when it comes to our eternal destiny? We must make that choice now, because then it will be too late. And don’t forget – the One that came as a baby 2,000 years ago will one day come again to this earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Will you be ready?

Santa Claus is a Big Fat Hoax; or, Virginia Was Lied To

There was a time I used to believe in Santa Claus, and I am sure that you can say the same. The book I had about Santa was one of my favorites growing up. In fact, the short piece “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” is even now one of my favorite pieces of Christmas literature. But I am here today to tell Virginia that she was lied to. No, there is a not a Santa Claus – for Santa Claus is one big fat hoax.
The only thing that puzzles me is why more children do not smell a rat from the very beginning. Maybe they do, and just play along for the sake of their elders. I know that I was rather taken aback when I was told by my father that there is no Santa. I am sure I had my reservations about some parts of the Santa Claus story – but as for dismissing the entire tale, that was something I never independently did. The fact remains that there are so many holes in the story of Santa Claus – why, so many bold-faced improprieties, incongruities, and impossibilities – that you could drive a whole sleigh pulled by eight or nine reindeer through one of ‘em, and do it easily.
The first whopper I see is rather startling. Who was that first parent who told his child about Santa Claus, and what was he or she thinking? The parents already know that they will be the ones buying the little tot’s favorite toys and things to enjoy for Christmas Day. The logical thing to do would be to tell Junior that Mommy and Daddy are buying gifts for Junior for Christmas because they love him so much. But no – that would make too much sense. Instead, we’re going to tell Junior that some fat old man in a red suit is going to drive down here in a sleigh all the way from the North Pole, climb down our chimney, and deposit all of those presents under our Christmas tree. Why that idea alone is not enough to freak most children out is one of the mysteries of our time.
Nor is that all, for we have much more to observe in this comedy of errors we call the Santa Claus story. Take, for instance, the notion that Santa lives at the North Pole. Why, no person could safely or comfortably live at the top of the world. Have you ever looked for the North Pole on a map or a globe? It’s nothing but ice, because it’s smack-dab in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Nobody lives there (much less Santa Claus), and many who have attempted to get there have perished or barely made it back. It hardly ever gets above freezing at the North Pole, and there are times in the year where there is either sunshine all the time or no sunlight at all. I think they made up Santa living at the North Pole because they don’t want anyone to go looking for him and find that he isn’t there.
Note also the claim that Santa is able, in one night, to deliver Christmas presents to all of the girls and boys in the world. Some even say Santa makes these presents himself with the help of his helpers, who are all elves (and how such tiny personages could be better help in manufacturing than big, strong men is beyond me). He puts all of the presents into a bag in his sleigh and then takes off into the air (with the aid of his flying reindeer – who incidentally can’t fly and don’t live at the North Pole, but in Scandinavia). If Santa is both rich enough and efficient enough to undertake this massive mission in one night and succeed, then he needs to be working as a consultant for the U.S. government ASAP. For my part, I don’t believe a word of it.
And if Santa is making all of these toys for the children, then why is he spotted at the mall every December? Does he need the help of big corporations to make his holiday project happen? Is he on a purchasing assignment? If so, then Santa is just another symbol of Christmas commercialism, and not, as they claim, a symbol of the purity and child-like innocence of Christmas.
That reminds me – every December, children go to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. I myself sat on Santa’s lap once (I asked for, among other things, a real Indian tomahawk; I was a dangerous and violent youngster). But when you see the merry old man perched on his throne in the middle of the concourse, with long lines of impatient families before him, what, pray tell, are nine out of ten children doing when they finally get to sit on his lap? Why, they are wailing so loudly that you would have thought Freddy Krueger just came into their bedroom at midnight. The fact is that children are afraid of Santa Claus when it comes right down to it. And he’s supposed to be the jolliest, kindest, most generous old man of them all. Fiddlesticks.
We are also told that Santa is keeping track of all the boys and girls in the world to see whether they are good or bad in the course of the long year – and if they are not good boys and girls, they won’t get any of the presents he plans to bring them. If this isn’t the biggest piece of hogwash ever perpetrated on the populace since the last act of Congress, tell me a bigger one and I’ll consider it. We all know that if Santa truly kept such a score, he’d be sitting home Christmas Eve night watching “The Biggest Loser”. This is because none of the little boys and girls are really that good the rest of the year. We all know Johnny bit and scratched and hit his little sister more times than we would like to admit, and that Sarah Sue fussed and cried and pouted to get her way and stole here little brother’s Legos and army-men and hid them in the bathtub drain at least twice. If those things aren’t enough to get crossed off Santa’s wonderful list, then Santa is just blowing smoke about the “good little boys and girls” routine. They claim that his gift to the bad children comes in the form of coal in their stockings, but I never once knew anybody that really got coal. And I know quite a few deserving candidates.
Now let us consider a few more elements of this elaborate holiday hoax. We all have heard that children are supposed to be in bed very early on Christmas Eve night so as not to be up when Santa arrives. No explanation is given as to why jolly old Saint Nick wouldn’t want to actually see the people to whom he is being so kind in bringing presents for Christmas (and they also don’t admit that the parents don’t want to be caught off-guard as they are assembling that shiny new bicycle they bought, either).
However, imagine with me (it’s easy if you try). Santa Claus comes, shouting with his trademark laughter, with a big sleigh drawn by eight or nine reindeer (who, incidentally, are not small beasts), and lands upon the roof. How is this not supposed to wake the entire neighborhood, much less the supposedly sleeping children? But it gets better. Santa is now supposed to come down the chimney. Santa is already, according to the story, quite rotund. On top of that, he has been eating quite a bit already, what with all the cookies and milk the children of the world have set out for him before retiring to bed, making him all that much more rotund (what if he gets indigestion?). What if the entirely plausible scenario that Santa gets stuck comes true? Is Roto-Rooter on standby to get him out? And what if the house has no chimney (as has been true with all but one of the houses I have lived in)? Is Santa supposed to just come in the front or back door? How about the window? What about the laws concerning breaking and entering? Do they not apply on Christmas Eve night?
Go along, if you like, with this farce called Santa. Enjoy the warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feelings he brings every 25th of December. I just can’t join you. There are simply too many glaring inconsistencies in the story to even make it fun anymore. In fact, should I have children, I will seriously consider not even bothering to tell them that Santa Claus is real. As they say, telling the truth is easier than lying because at least you can remember it more easily.
And with that, a merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

"But Who Do You Say That I Am?"

“And on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, “Who do men say that I am?” So they answered, “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Mark 8:27-29

Life poses to us many important questions – questions that demand a decision. They come in many forms and are asked of us at different points in our lives. What career will I pursue? Where will I go to school? Will I marry, and if so, whom? Where will I live? How will I choose my friends? What church will I attend, if any? Will I have children, and if so, how many and how am I to raise them? How am I to manage my money? And what is the meaning of life – what is my overall philosophy?
We all have our different approaches to answering these questions, and we may order them differently in importance. Some of us are more philosophical, and others are more practical in nature. Some put family and friends first, and others put careers and achievement before all else. Some of us actually sit down and ponder the answers to these questions, while others answer them by the way they live their lives, and not consciously. But all of these questions, in the long run, do get answered in some way – they must by their very nature. But what would you think if I told you that none of these questions, however basic they may be to our human experience, is the most important that any of us will ever answer?
The most important question we will ever answer is, “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?” In the verse that opens this discussion, Jesus posed just that question to the people who followed Him. He first asked what other people said about Him, which the disciples answered. But Jesus did not stop there, for that was not His main point. He went on to ask them a very personal question – “But who do you say that I am?”
It may puzzle you when I say that we, in the year 2009, will never answer a more important question than that regarding a man who lived 2,000 years ago. The reason I say this is that the question is far from equivalent to asking who we think George Washington or John F. Kennedy or Aristotle were. We can read history books to find that out, and even then, it hardly matters who we think they were. Notable men and women, and even great ones, have shaped history (sometimes to a large extent), but they hardly have a direct influence on our personal lives. Some say that Jesus fits this category. Some say that He was a great religious teacher, a Jewish rabbi who came and taught us the right way to live – a man of peace and good works. If this were so, Jesus would be another notable historical figure, perhaps one worth admiring. But I tell you it is not so. For no one who has read what Jesus Himself actually said can come away thinking that He was a great religious teacher.
In John 7:46, there are recorded the words of officers sent by religious leaders to arrest Jesus – “No man ever spoke like this man!” Take a sampling of the things that Jesus Himself said about Himself, and test whether this is true. In John 4:26, in response to a woman who spoke of the coming of the Messiah, Jesus said “I who speak to you am He.” Jesus repeatedly called God His Father, which to the Jews was blasphemy since in so doing He was making Himself equal with God Himself (John 5:18).
Jesus said of Himself, “Most assuredly, he who hears My word and believes on Him who sent Me has everlasting life” (John 5:24). He also claimed, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Jesus said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus lived thousands of years after the time of Abraham, yet He claimed, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58), invoking the name that God gave Himself when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush.
Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). Most astoundingly, especially to our ears in this day of moral relativism, Jesus claimed of Himself, “I AM the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE – no man comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
More than once, Jesus predicted not only that He would die, but where and how He would die – and in the same prediction He claimed that three days after His death He would rise from the dead. And He did.
Read the gospel of John, and the three gospels that come before it in the Bible. There you will find Jesus’ statements just as I have laid them out here, and you will find many others like it. After just this brief sampling of Jesus’ own claims, can the assertion that Jesus was only a great religious teacher be intellectually honest? Jesus did not claim to show the way – He claimed to BE the way. Jesus did not claim to show us how to live – He claimed to BE life itself, and to be able to give eternal life to anyone who believed in Him. Jesus did not claim to help us learn truth – He claimed to BE truth. Jesus claimed, without batting an eye, to be equal with God, Whom He called His Father. If I came to you and made these same claims to you about myself, you would no doubt think I was on a tremendous ego trip (at the very least). You most certainly would not believe me. These kinds of claims are remarkable claims indeed!
The claims of Jesus, you must admit, are remarkable if they are to be taken at face value. Indeed, no man ever spoke like this man. As one man (I believe it was C.S. Lewis) wrote once not so long ago, there are only three conclusions one may come to concerning Jesus of Nazareth – He is a liar, He is a lunatic, or He is Lord.
Jesus is a liar if He made those claims and yet knew that they were patently false. If indeed He was only a normal human being like you and me, and knew it, and yet claimed to be so much more, would that not make Him a flat-out liar? Tell me, would a pathological liar make a suitable great religious teacher in your opinion? Would a liar be someone you would be willing to trust in matters of spirituality – or anything else?
Jesus is a lunatic if He made those claims and seriously believed them though they were false. Only a mentally unstable person would have such a “God-complex” or a “Messianic delusion” concerning his own identity. We would call such a person narcissistic if he or she claimed such things even once or twice. But what about a person who repeatedly makes such claims? Who do you know that does or has ever made such claims so repeatedly? What would you think of them? Would you not regard them as a little crazy? Would a lunatic be worthy of your faith and trust when it comes to the biggest questions of life and eternal destiny? For my part, I think not.
Either way – if Jesus is a deliberate liar or a pathetic lunatic – He is not worthy of our time. Nothing He said could be trusted as true or viewed as sane. And so Jesus would not really be great in any way – He would only be notable for the wrong reasons.
But what if Jesus of Nazareth was correct in His claims? What if He really is the Son of God? What if He really was sent by His Father to pay for your sin and my sin? What if He really is the Way, the Truth, and the Life – the only path to God? What if He really did rise again from His tomb? This is what Jesus said. If He was right, what then?
The only conclusion then would be that Jesus is Lord, and that we had better believe what He said. If we do not, then what He said would be true of us – “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). John the Baptist testified of Jesus, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).
Jesus’ question to His disciples – “Who do YOU say that I am?” – echoes down to us many centuries later. It is a question we must answer, and as I have attempted to show, there are not many different ways to answer it. We must dismiss Jesus as historically notable but insignificant as far as it concerns the pursuit of truth; or we must fall on our knees and acknowledge Him as Lord and as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, our sin. The choice is up to each one of us. Just as with the disciples, Jesus is not satisfied with our answer as to what everyone else thinks of Him. He wants to know what WE think of Him individually. He will not force us to answer a certain way. But He does demand an answer. As for me, I confess that Jesus of Nazareth is my Lord, and the One Who, as my Savior, bore my sins in His own body on the cross, that I may have eternal life and be declared righteous in God’s sight. Who do you say that Jesus is?

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Everybody knows this song, because everybody has heard it at least twelve hundred times. This is because everyone who imagines they have a viable music career has felt the need to record this song at least once (along with every other imaginable Christmas song), as if their rendition will not be more than half as annoying as that of the last person that recorded it. This is a song on which there is no neutrality – you either love it or you hate it (and I have never yet heard anyone say that it is their favorite Christmas song).
The song of which I speak, and about which I am going to write, is “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, which is undoubtedly the most annoying song of its kind ever written. It also makes no sense. In fact, if John Lennon and Paul McCartney had taken the time to read its lyrics (and it is very doubtful that this could have happened), even they would not have been able to make any sense out of it, and in frustration would have tossed it in the wastebasket and continued writing about being a walrus or an egg-man, or riding in a yellow submarine with everyone else (for apparently we all live there), or saying hello when the rest of the civilized world says good-bye.
Then again, if the Fab Four had written “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, they might at least have given it a tune that would have made it catchy. But because they didn’t, we are stuck with a monotonous melody that is exactly the same for twelve incomprehensible stanzas. You would think the world would have washed its hands of a song that has no clearly discernible meaning or use. But no. In a valiant effort to redeem the irredeemable, economists have harnessed all the power of their dismal science and made a price index out of the items in this song, and every year they present to us exactly what these items would cost all together should we be insane enough to purchase them. But this only goes to show the utter uselessness of economists and why I would never in a million years want to be one of them. Since we still must listen to this song during this otherwise glorious season, the least we can do is analyze it to make sure that we can’t make any sense of it. And this I shall attempt to help us do.
The beginning is often the best place to start, although in this case I can’t see that it makes much of a difference. It must seem strange to most thoughtful people that, in a culture that celebrates only one day of Christmas, we have a song that speaks of twelve of them. Apparently, in old England, they celebrated twelve days of Christmas beginning the day after Christmas itself.* And since this is a very old song, we must allow for the carry-over of very old traditions.
Now then, the song itself is a story-song, and a very bad one at that.** It speaks of a gift that the singer’s “true love” gave to them on each day of Christmas. The song does not specify whether the singer is a man or a woman, and thus whether the true love is a man or a woman; this we shall attempt to determine. Each day, then, has a different gift, and the number of the gift corresponds with the particular number of that day of Christmas. Not only that, but the singer also has to repeat, at each stanza, what he or she got on each of the previous days of Christmas. Herein lies the origin of the song’s annoying effect, and the cumulative nature of the stanzas leaves all but the best singers completely out of breath by song’s end.
We shall now study each gift in its turn. On the first day of Christmas, the true love sent the object of their affection a partridge in a pear tree. Why the bird couldn’t have been in a cage and had to be in his own tree is beyond me. But what is done is done. However, I like birds, and as long as the partridge stayed in its pear tree and didn’t break out into singing “I Think I Love You”, I suppose we could get along. If he did, he would not be around long (for, you know, getting that song stuck in your head means suicide barring an intervention; and I would get him before he got me).
The second day’s gift from the true love consists of two turtle doves, and the third day only adds to our bird collection with three French hens. Nor does it stop there, for on the fourth day of Christmas the true love is back with four calling birds. So, even if the turtle doves are kind of cute and the partridge is not singing “I Think I Love You”, we now have the problem of hens with whom we have a language barrier and four birds who are indeed making noise (the nature of which is unknown – they may be calling to one another or calling me names or constantly using my telephone, but in any event, they are bound to be a noisy lot if such activity is truly their calling).
The true love now attempts to relieve some of the pressure of the situation by giving something of some value. The fifth gift is five gold rings – and have you seen the price of gold lately? At least it would give me enough purchasing power to acquire enough duct tape to shut up the birds.
With the gifts given on the sixth and seventh days of Christmas, our truly loving giver proves himself or herself to be, in the best case, either a birdwatcher or some kind of avian enthusiast. In the worst case, he or she has an unhealthy and frankly disturbing obsession with birds and perhaps may be Alfred Hitchcock himself come to drive us from our seaside village. For, you see, on the sixth and seventh days of Christmas we are to receive six geese a-laying and seven swans a-swimming. Even though these new animals may not be any noisier than the others, our problems still multiply. Now we have eggs all over the place from three French hens and six geese (which eggs are hopefully not fertilized by any male birds, in which case we may be stuck with many scary-looking hybrid hatchlings), and on top of that we have to keep our seven swans in some source of water (hopefully not our bathtub) so that they may continue to a-swim.
Fortunately, after the seventh day our true love stops with the birds already – but in exchange for that respite he or she plunges headlong into sheer insanity. On the eighth day of Christmas the gift happens to be eight maids a-milking. Now, this proves, at least to me, that the true love is not a woman. What woman would give her man, as a gift, eight females doing anything? The potential for destructive jealousy is simply too great. And so we know that the true love is a man and the singer is a woman (unless you live in California; but we won’t go there). But this gift is fraught with problems. If the eight maids are a-milking, they must be a-milking something. Are they milking cows? Goats? Yaks? Whatever the case, we must make room for yet more animals, and large ones at that.
The ninth day’s gift is nine ladies dancing. Again, this is proof that the true love cannot be a woman; however, it also does not conclusively prove that the reverse is true, for what female recipient would have any use for other ladies dancing? It also introduces yet more trouble. You see, nine ladies must have room to dance if they are to dance, and of this they have precious little, what with all of the other ladies and beasts of burden and birds taking up our space. Furthermore, if they are to dance, they must have music to dance to (unless they are mimes), whether it be “Swan Lake”, a Strauss waltz, a Polish mazurka, the jitterbug, or the Bee Gees. Thus we have more noise to throw on top of cackling hens, quacking geese, mooing cows, calling birds, and a partridge singing “I Think I Love You”. This makes for quite a cacophony indeed. But we are not done by a long shot.
On the tenth day of Christmas, the true love is back with his most insane gift yet – ten lords a-leaping. It is not clear to me (or to any other person with a functioning brain) what the use of ten leaping men is, but I do know that leaping men must have room to leap. Thus they will be competing with the dancing ladies, unless our house or yard is big enough to separate the Dance Marathon from the Pole Vault event. Not only that, but we also now have 27 new persons to board and feed. I suppose that is where the five gold rings come in.
But there are more people – 23 more people, to be precise – coming to our party. On the eleventh day of Christmas, the true love sends over eleven pipers piping. Great – more noise. And the next day – fortunately for us, the last day of Christmas – we get more noise in the form of twelve drummers drumming. I don’t know about you, but I have noticed that most drummers in bands are on the mentally unstable side. But even if they are not like “Animal” on the Muppets, they are at least very noisy and full of limitless energy – not something we need more of at this point.
Now can you see what our residence would be like with eggs all over the place, 40 people leaping, dancing, drumming, piping, and milking, and a whole flock of many kinds of birds, including one partridge singing “I Think I Love You”? It would mean utter chaos, and unless the receiver of gifts is one of those rare people who can endure any circumstance, it would be enough to drive most of us out of our minds. In fact, I am firmly convinced that the true love does not love the recipient of his gifts at all – he only wants to torture them.
And to top all of this off, we have to hear people sing about such a mindless scenario to a tune that goes on and on and doesn’t change even once over the course of twelve verses! I hope you will now agree with me that the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is indeed the most annoying and implausible Christmas song ever written.

*Author’s Note: There is some conjecture that this song is French in origin. This alone may offer all the explanation we need.

**Author’s Note: The author has learned by experience to beware of story-songs. They tend to be very sappy and almost invariably come with a forgettable tune, even if they are sung instead of spoken over soft music.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The Christmas Season is undoubtedly, undisputedly, unquestionably, and undeniably my favorite time of the year – and that statement is uncontested, unqualified, unwavering, and unassailable. For the follower of Christ, the simple fact that we get to celebrate the unspeakable Gift of the greatest Giver of them all should fill our hearts with overflowing joy all year round. What could be better than God sending His only Son to earth to pay for our sins so that we could be His children and righteous in His sight? There’s no other gift possible on this earth that can match that. And without that Gift, all earthly celebrations lose their meaning.
Christmas has been my favorite time of year for as long as I can remember. Of course, for a small child the main draw of Christmas is that he or she gets to open a huge pile of presents on Christmas morning – and all other matters yuletide are but a mere sideshow. However, as we get older, we learn to appreciate all of the great things that make up Christmas; and the more we appreciate those things, the more the presents become the sideshow. Let me take you on a tour of the things that make Christmas so special.
I love Christmas music. There is no other kind of music that is so unique and so seasonal. In fact, it is so unique and seasonal that if we catch someone playing it in July we tend to suspect that something is the matter with their mental condition. For many years, my sister and I have been under the influence of the firm belief that the holiday season officially starts the night of Thanksgiving. On that night of nights, many stations begin to play Christmas music around the clock, and we have often tuned in to catch the first strains. It may not surprise you that the author is listening to Christmas music as he types.
Who doesn’t like the great carols – “Silent Night”, “O Holy Night”, “We Three Kings”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, “What Child is This”, among so many, many others? Then there are the songs like “Deck the Halls”, “Jingle Bells”, and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. Of course, there are the modern ballads that we swear, if the radio station plays them ONE more time, we will physically throw the radio out into the cold yard. You know the ones of which I speak – “White Christmas”, “Winter Wonderland”, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”, “Silver Bells”, “Frosty the Snowman”, “Jingle Bell Rock”, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”, “Here Comes Santa Claus”, “Blue Christmas”, “Feliz Navidad” and (how could we forget) “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”? And we all know that it’s the gentle influence of the Season that keeps us from carrying out our threat, because, deep in our hearts, we really like those songs (just in moderation).
One of my fond early childhood memories comes from when I was in first grade and first learned about the story behind the carol “Silent Night”. For days I was humming the song around the house (I had a bad habit of humming many things around the house); it lent a certain added Christmasy air to the season.
Speaking of being a child, I, like all of you, once believed in Santa Claus.* I even sat on his lap at the mall once, but being a shy kid, I was not enthusiastic about making it a regular occurrence. Of course, my sharp, inquiring mind detected a few inconsistencies in the story along the way. The biggest of these was that only once in my life has our family ever lived in a house with a chimney (and that for only about half a year). How was Santa going to get in if we had no chimney? Was he going to just come in the door? However, the cookies I left on the table always kept getting eaten, and the presents always came on Christmas Eve night, so I kept my questioning to a minimum. As I am sure you do, I still remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard that there was no Santa Claus. Dad sat me down, looked me straight in the eye, and broke the shocking news. You could have knocked me down with a feather. Why, you could have told me that President Reagan’s naturally brown hair was really a dye job and not have shocked me more. But I took it in stride. Dad’s only request was that I not tell my sister about the awful truth. To this day, I am not sure if she and Father have had that little talk yet.
I also love Christmas specials and movies. In my book, you’re never too old to watch Charlie Brown and Frosty and Rudolph specials. Our family’s holiday favorites are “White Christmas” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”. In fact, I have probably memorized every scene and line George Bailey and his friends ever acted out or uttered. These kinds of movies aren’t great for their plot (and I’m not even the type that re-watch movies as a rule) or even for their actors (although Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorites). They’re simply a part of an American Christmas.
Christmas is a time for traditions, and since I am a man of traditions, I have plenty of Christmas traditions. This is the third year that I will have listened to old-time radio show episodes with Christmas themes every night through the month of December. I like to enjoy hot chocolate on cold nights during the season. I love to join family members on treks to the busy stores for a little Christmas shopping. I love when Mom makes her famous Christmas cookies. And I try every year to read Charles Dickens’ incomparable Christmas classic, “A Christmas Carol” (as well as watch any movie versions that may come on).
We used to put up a fake Christmas tree every year, and I used to love to look at the lights and the ornaments. However, we ended this tradition for various reasons and have not resumed it. Of course, this was a big disappointment that I still deal with. It didn’t help that one year we put a few ornaments on the fig tree that we brought inside for the winter. That just wasn’t the same. However, we still have a small ceramic Christmas tree made by my great-grandmother, and we are going to put it up this year for the first time in a very long time. I am determined, when I have a home of my own, I will put up a Christmas tree every single year, with all of the good Christmas cheer that is within me!
When I was small, I had a handful of Christmas books that I got out every year. There was one about Rudolph (I also had a stuffed Rudolph that played Christmas music), one about the Grinch, and one with the long poem “The Night Before Christmas”. But my very favorite was one about Santa. What held my interest about the book was its rich illustrations. I still fondly remember the colorful, realistic pictures of the elves and the North Pole. In fact, I still wish I had that book.
You may notice that I haven’t said much about presents. Of course, I like these as much as anybody else. I find it amusing (in a very depressing sort of way) to compare the mountains of presents I had when I was about seven or eight to the few packages I get when I’m 25. But the older I get, the more I realize that Christmas is not about materialism or getting “stuff”. It’s more about the family, the friends, the giving, the memories, and the spirit and meaning of the entire season. I have found that the Christmases when I have been engaged in special giving – for example, in caroling at a nursing home, passing out gospel tracts in the neighborhood, or visiting someone in the hospital – have been some of the most meaningful Christmases.
You may get the feeling that I can be a sentimental person, especially when it comes to Christmas time. Well, I am, and I won’t deny it. I love getting into the spirit of the season. I love the lights and the atmosphere in the stores and the neighborhoods. I love the giving (and yes, even the receiving). I love thinking of God’s love toward us and of what is supposed to be our love toward our fellow man – all of which Christmas is supposed to remind us of.
In fact, I love all of these things so much that I actually have had nightmares that the Christmas season passed and I was unaware of it! And every year I worry that I haven’t celebrated the season enough. The truth is, however, that some of our greatest Christmas feelings and memories are only made after the fact, in retrospect. This Christmas isn’t supposed to be like last Christmas or the one in 1998 or 1987. You can’t force great Christmases, and you’re not supposed to. All you can do is enjoy each one and appreciate it as the unique blessing from God that it is.
I can happily say that this Christmas, at least so far, I am quite firmly in the spirit. In fact, I have more than once remarked that I remind myself of Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Present, spreading his Christmas jollity by way of his torch on every person he sees. And so, I sprinkle some of my torch on you right now, dear reader, and wish you the merriest of Christmas seasons!

*Author’s Note: If you still believe in Santa Claus, I urge you – calmly, yet sincerely – to stop reading this blog entry – now. Trust me, it is for your own good.