I maintain their liberty to do that (apart from tree worship or the introduction of a mythical figure who is the giver of all good gifts, who is the example of the spirit that we should all have, and who somehow observes us all to judge our morality–anyone that cannot see that santa is an antichrist needs help).

My dad’s church canceled evening worship for christmas. My christmas-celebrating dad didn’t like it, so I wrote the following to him.

It’s a deficient view of the Lord’s Day, influenced by deficient practice of being a family. Family Day is not meant to be the Lord’s Day. Family Day is meant to be every day, all day. See Deuteronomy 6 for corroboration.

The Lord’s Day is especially to be church-family-day. Eunuchs and foreigners lose their forlorn status, one day a week, in the gathering of the church (Isaiah 56). To turn the Lord’s Day into Family Day is both to replace the Lord with the Family, and to make the status of the eunuch and the foreigner even worse on this day!

The Lord’s Day is the day of ceasing even contemplation of our own works to contemplate primarily God’s (Ps 92, exegeting Gen 1:1-2:4), and counting all of our delight’s in God’s creations insignificant by comparison to our delight in God Himself (Isa 58, not just the last two verses but note the dynamic of how the earlier part of the chapter exposes Israel’s attempting to use worship to get from God those things that they enjoy more than they enjoy Him).

If you have to cancel worship, ever, for people to have family time, then the family dynamics in the church are broken.

If you want to cancel worship, ever, for people to have family time, then the church’s understanding and experience of the Lord’s Day is broken.

Making christmas into a religious observation for the whole church is a form of man-made religion. As such, it is idolatry. It creates an institution in which the opinions and preferences of the many becomes a rule for all. As such, it is an usurping of Christ’s status as the only Lord of the conscience, and it is antichrist.

I disagree even with people making annual celebration of the incarnation in their homes; I think it should be more frequent and less formal than that. But, I maintain their liberty to do that (apart from tree worship or the introduction of a mythical figure who is the giver of all good gifts, who is the example of the spirit that we should all have, and who somehow observes us all to judge our morality–anyone that cannot see that santa is an antichrist needs help).

What we do not have liberty to do is to make Christmas into an institution for the church. Only Jesus may make institutions for the church.

So, those who cancel worship on Christmas aren’t “missing” what christmas is all about. They are treating worship as something that is up to man, rather than Christ, and as such they are demonstrating consistency with the nature of Christmas observance itself.

The author is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America known to the editorial staff of The Aquila Report. He has asked that his name not be used so as not to embarrass any specific individual or church.