Cookie the Christmas Dog and the Repackaging of Christmas
From God’s Word, the Bible…
Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
From Luke 2:8-14
Years ago, Sylvia and I had a dog named Cookie. She was a delight. I still miss her. Cookie was our Christmas dog and she loved Christmas.
One year Sylvia and I returned home to find that Cookie had opened some of the Christmas presents! Suffice it to say, it was necessary for us to do some repackaging.
But there is some Christmas re-packaging these days that is not necessary. Let me explain.
Most church leaders want to see their churches grow in membership and in attendance. I say “most” because I have met a few folks down through the years who preferred for the church to stay small. In one of my previous pastorates, a deacon got upset because our church was growing so much! Imagine that! I think he had a Diotrephes problem (see 3 John 9).
The other extreme consists of those who are willing to do anything to see their churches grow. This is the explanation for much of modern-day Christendom, which is in the grip of what may be called a sinister sequence.
This sequence begins with church leaders asking this question: “What can we do to get our church to grow?”
The answer to that question often amounts to this: We must get people to like us! The reasoning here is that if people like us, they will want to be around us, and if they want to be around us, they will come to church.
That, of course, leads to yet another question: What can we do to get people to like us?
And the answer to that is often along these lines: We must give them what they want and stop giving them things they don’t want.
It doesn’t take a lot of research to determine that people these days don’t want to hear about sin, judgment to come or a man dying on a cross. So we must get rid of these things! Out with them! We must not allow ourselves to be troubled by the fact that for centuries these very things were considered to be the essential, non-negotiable core of Christianity! We must repackage Christianity into something that is marketable today!
When the repackaging is done, we have a Christianity that is more like a successful-living philosophy. We tell people to believe in Jesus so they can be happy in this life. The one fact that the re-packagers seem to be unwilling to face is this: there are plenty of non-Christians who are very happy with their lives! So when we tell them to accept Jesus to be happy, they simply smile and say, “No, thank you. We’re already quite happy without Jesus. You may need Him, but we don’t. So keep Him to yourself.”
The truth of the matter is that many people today are presenting the Christian message in such a way that they are giving others a perfectly good reason for rejecting it.
But do we not run into the same problem when we tell people that they need Jesus because they are sinners? Can they not merely say that they don’t feel like they are sinners and, therefore, do not need Jesus? Yes, they can say it, but the evidence is against them, and the voice of conscience tells them that the evidence is against them!
The church today finds herself in the peculiar position of telling people they need Jesus as their Savior after she, the church, has removed from her teaching any reason for people to need a Savior.
When we next approach the Christmas season, we would do well to reflect deeply on the words the angel spoke to Joseph: “. . .you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).
Only sinners need saving. Since we are all sinners (Rom. 3:23), we all need saving. The good news of Christmas is that the Savior has come into the world. His name is Jesus. And He will save all those who see the reality and enormity of their sins and come to Him for saving.
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