Reformátusok Lapja, 1969 (69. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1969-12-01 / 12. szám

Hungarian Reformed Religious Paper

Founded in 1900

OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE CALVIN SYNOD—UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

CHRISTMAS — SECULAR OR SACRED?

Christmas today is a world-wide phenomenon. No holiday is as widespread and as popular as the observance of Christmas. People in (lie Orient and in Communist countries as well as in the Western world keep Christmas as an important event. Especially in Japan an American-type Christmas celebration with street decorations, building and window displays, unabashed commercialism has taken hold.

In Communist countries the spirit of Christmas is celebrated under various guises, political and social, with little or no religious connotations.

The so-called Christian West brings to the Christmas season a mixture of pagan rites and customs and true religious fervor.

Thus, two Christmases have emerged. A Secular Christmas and a Sacred Christmas.

Around this time of the year Christians, clergy and lay alike, lament the deterioration of the Christmas Spirit into a secular festival.

Admittedly, this is cause for alarm. Distorting Christmas into an occasion for humanistic and materialistic purposes is most deplorable. Christ is the center of Christmas. The sacrifice of God in becoming man in Jesus Christ is the joy of mankind. The incarnation is the “good news ’ of God.

Still, a secular observance of Christmas does have its place.

Modern secular man with his emphasis on "tilings“ and the flesh-pots of society remains unsatisfied. He knows a great emptiness within himself and his life. An inner vacuum yearns to be filled with love, and peace and joy.

There is something within man that cannot forget bis divine origins and be ever seeks to re-establisb contact with the Spiritual world.

It is this need that Christmas seeks to fill for man. Even as he seeks to buy love with expensive gifts bought on credit; even as lie transforms his borne into a Hollywood set in order to feel tbc warmth and peace of family and friends; even as he attends the Christmas parties with built-in times of “spontaneous” gaiety in order to feel a vicarious joy, bis whole being longs for a Saviour—

Secular man seeks a secular Christmas. It is a poor substitute for Immanuel. Yet, it serves to remind him of a being and a realm beyond himself. For this man there is still hope.

Many years ago 1 spent Christmas in a small Hungarian village. Being far from home and familv in America, 1 had a difficult time in controlling my emotions. To be away from home and loved ones on Christmas Eve is to feel entirely alone and unwanted.

As darkness descended on this farm community, only the starry skies yielded barely enough light by which to see one’s footsteps in the softly falling snow.

In the stillness of the evening, a Christmas Carol sounded in a lowly peasant house as its dwellers began the village carolling.

They moved out of the house and stopped to sing with the neighbors who in turn joined them, to sing the beautiful Christmas carols to the next neighbor, until every house in the village was visited.

During the caroling, only carols, psalms, and spiritual songs were sung. An atmosphere of prayer and devotion enveloped the whole village. Even the

CHRISTMAS

Oh! Why leave the Christ out of Christmas?

\\ by substitute “X” for His name?

There is naught else on earth or in Heaven

Can ever make Christmas the same.

Hr it thoughtlessness, hate, or indifference,

By the fault l grieve and offend;

II hen l leave the Christ out of Christmas

I'm slighting my very best friend.

\\ hen I leave the Christ out of Christmas,

In vain is my holiday mirth,

For the Christ, God’s gift to His children

Is the Christ who brought Christmas to earth.

Cotl forgive me the thoughtless omission,

/ would not that Christ should depart;

Ao/ only the Christ at the yuletide,

But all of the year in my heart.

—Author Unknown