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Most decisively, have a merry Christmas!

By CAL BEVERLY

This season of lights and bells is ultimately to those who choose to believe a reminder that God is in charge.

He will do what is necessary to get his way, even to the point of sending his divine son into the Judean manger as a helpless baby. The baby later grows into a helpless and abandoned young man sacrificed on a Roman cross.

He had to die as payment in full for that quaint notion, “sin.” You know: “Sin,” that technical term that signifies our rebellion against the one who created us.

That’s the guy, incidentally, who rose again the third day and is the one whom untold millions alive today on earth and beyond call “Lord and Savior.”

Macy’s and Target and The Avenue and various television networks and news magazines notwithstanding, this risen one is still alive, as is his birthday celebration, this thing we call Christmas.

It is only in very recent years that the name of Christ has become controversial in normal discourse.

I sometimes wonder if those who press for the exclusion of “God,” “Jesus,” and “Christ” from public life realize their dizzying lack of historical perspective, especially in their apparent desire to respect all other forms of religious expression except, in particular, Christianity.

All other forms of religious expression command “tolerance” among the cultural elite, with the specific exception of the nation’s majority religion. It alone is singled out for scathing disdain. Why is that, do you suppose?

Could it be that of all the babies ever born, that one in Bethlehem brings a gift like no other, stakes a claim on us like no other?

That’s my suspicion, my guess, my hope and my faith.

That said, I think even the most ferocious Darwinist, the most rabid materialist, the most devout atheist, will agree with me on this one point:

At all our last moments, we all will receive a blinding revelation of the actual Truth, the reality of what happens next.

How are you fixed for what comes next? Christmas points the way.

“Joy to the world! The Lord is come! Let earth receive her king; let every heart prepare him room.”

At the close of this year of our Lord 2004, may you and yours enjoy the merriest of Christmases ever.