You know, it’s kinda cool saying “Merry Christmas” nowadays. Customer service women, convenience store men, tire shop grease monkeys, profs; their bosses have browbeaten and threatened them into the mindless repetition of “happy holidays.”
Then out of nowhere arrives that very exotic species verging on extinction in our post-Christendom world. Fat and be-childrened plus sickeningly happy—the rube presents himself spreading good cheer with his assault against all the feckless sterile ones: “Merry Christmas!”
It awakens them. You feel it. Strengthened for the task at hand, that very moment they return to Jesus themselves and respond, “Merry Christmas to you, too!”
Aren’t we all filled with joy to see Christian faith and love again wear the mantle of subversion. It’s about time.
Kierkegaard put it well:
Let persecution begin. That very moment, Christianity again exists.
