It’s that time of year again! When articles lamenting the pagan origins of Christmas—held in queue since August the 17th—flood the feed of discernment bloggers nationwide. When the condemnations of stodgy pastors fly like brimstone from dusty pulpits onto the supposed Sodom of JC Penney’s one-day-only holiday sale. (“Do you see the materialist hordes, church? Walk not in their counsel!”). When Christmas trees and mistletoe find themselves unmasked as nothing more than the green groves and high places of our modern idolatries.

What is a simple Christian to do with such remonstrations?

My initial recommendation would be a stiff serving of eggnog, taken in the nearest easy chair, carefully imbibed through the whiskers of the most resplendent Santa beard you can find. That being accomplished, begin planning your Christmas menu, taking care to include a nice prime rib.

No, I’m not going to defend Christmas from her commonest impugnings at the keyboards of watch bloggers everywhere. I won’t say a word about Saturnalia or Yuletide, nor the winter solstice. Others have already done so admirably. I’d rather like to confront one of the urges of our flesh, an urge that lives upstream of our skepticism of Christmas feasting—namely, the ascetic impulse to feel most godly when we are most gloomy. No, God is not most glorified in us when we are most miserable in him.

The gnostic and the ascetic lie damnably. Theirs is a false gospel—all death and no resurrection, all bitter herbs and no roasted lamb. The true gospel is not so. Like every good story, it walks through the valley of the shadow of death, but it does so, to borrow Tolkien’s turn of phrase, eucatastrophically. From death, immortal life. From blood, indestructible redemption. From lamb, festal glory.

Read More