wfn.org | Editorial: Put Christ back into Christmas

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>3016 Edition

>December 14~20 2009

>Editorial: Put Christ back into Christmas

>Translated by Lydia Ma

As result of the perversion of Taiwanese media, we are often fed  with junk news or news that

isn’t beneficial to our moral or physical health. Driven by  profit-maximization and

commercialization, the fourth estate has become a political entity  in itself and a tool of

corporations or political parties. As result, the news presented  we see everyday is often

“created news” and not “real news”, much less  information or truths about happenings that we

>should know.

It is truly difficult for truth to prevail in Taiwanese media  reportage and you could say there is

hardly an ounce of truth remaining in politics, education,  culture, economy, etc. Even in the

realm of religion, we have lost some genuineness, but few people  seem alarmed. In fact, most

Taiwanese have already trained themselves to be indifferent,  especially when it comes to

discerning whether something is true or false. It seems we have  trained ourselves to listen and

see only information that will make us feel good.

When we look at today’s Taiwanese churches, we notice a  similar pattern occurring,

especially around Christmas. Matthew highlighted long ago that the  focus of Christmas is

“Immanuel”, that is, God with us. As written in the  Gospel according to Matthew, “All this took

place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The  virgin will be with child and will

give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which  means, "God with us."” (Matthew

>1:22-23).

However, as Christmas draws near, do we actually realize that God  is truly with us? If we are

willing to notice this, we must then ask ourselves what it means  when we say God is with us.

When we celebrate Christmas, do our celebrations revolve around  parties and pot lucks? Or

do we actually spend time experiencing God’s presence and  reflecting on what He is doing in

our world? This is important because when God partners with us in  our work and life, our story

>becomes his-story.

The significance of Christmas is God reaching out and interacting  with humans in their world

and daily lives. However, we must confess that Christmas in the  21st century has been

replaced by laughter, good food, exquisite gifts, extravagantly  decorated shopping malls, and

devoid of actually experiencing and sensing Immanuel – God with  us – the essence of

>Christmas.

There’s a lot to the word Immanuel when we really think about  it. It means love and peace,

mercy and righteousness, hope amidst suffering, new life amidst  devastation, etc. If we forget

the real meaning of Christmas and only focus on the shopping and  the partying, then, we have

truly taken Christ out of Christmas and replaced it with ourselves  as the protagonist of this

holiday, much like many Taiwanese media outlets that have  forgotten that their role is to report

>the news, not make the news.

This Christmas, let us put “Christ” back into the word  “Christmas” and follow the footsteps of

Jesus, our Immanuel, who taught us how to live a life of love,  righteousness, and peace.

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