It cannot be denied that this time of year holds a special place in most people’s hearts. The tinsel, glitter, Christmas trees, gift wrap, exchange of presents, good food, and everything else that our culture has made the indispensable ingredients of the holiday fill our hearts with positive feelings of peace on earth and good will toward men. What is odd, however, is the overemphasis that is placed on these aspects year after year.

As a Christian who understands and values the origins of the holiday, I have long felt an aversion to this overemphasis. Too much focus is placed on these cultural misinterpretations of this very important and meaningful holiday, while too little emphasis is placed on the One from whom the holiday derives its name. I know plenty of others have already lamented the way our culture celebrates Christmas: “Jesus is the reason for the season” and “Keep Christ in Christmas” have practically become proverbs among Christians. I stand in a long line of people who have spoken out against these errors, so it would seem that my dissent would be just another disgruntled voice. This is not the case, though, because I believe that these past criticisms have bemoaned the problem while overlooking its chief cause: suppression of the truth.

The first chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Romans is well known among evangelical Christians. In it Paul describes the downward spiral of human depravity and the reasons for that downward spiral. He wrote:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” (Rom. 1:18–32, NASB)

What in the world does all this have to do with Christmas? The answer to that question lies in the passage’s very first sentence: “men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” What truth did men suppress? Paul goes on to say, “that which is known about God.” How did man suppress the truth? The apostle says man did this by choosing to worship created things rather than the creator.

By this time you should see what all this has to do with how our culture handles Christmas: It is really just another way that fallen humanity suppresses the truth—in this case, the truth that Jesus Christ’s birth was to rid humanity of sin and reconcile a rebellious, fallen human race to a holy God. As Charles Wesley so well put it in the often-unheard (I wonder why) final stanza of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”:

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris’n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

How much of this crucial aspect of Christmas, however, is actually made clear during the holiday season? As nice and quaint as Santa, reindeer, Christmas trees, ornaments, bright lights and all the other popular holiday paraphernalia are, don’t they actually suppress the truth of the holiday? Don’t they actually exchange the truth for a lie? If you don’t think they do, then why isn’t the real reason emphasized just as fervently as these other things? Why is there such a lack of emphasis on Jesus and why he came to earth? How many Christmas cards emphasize this not-so-pleasant reason for Christ’s advent—or even say the word “Christmas” for that matter? Many cards now avoid using that specific name and instead use deliberately vague expressions such as “holiday” or “season.” It is all too clear that Jesus Christ’s relevance to Christmas is suppressed in favor of things that are more pleasant to us.

The definition of any word has essential attributes, without which it ceases to be an accurate definition, but the popular icons our culture has come to associate inseparably with Christmas are actually nonessential attributes. Is the icon of Santa Claus, for example, essential to the definition of Christmas? Would the omission of the fat jolly man from the holiday eliminate the reason to celebrate it? What about Rudolph and the other reindeer? What about Christmas trees? You may think that these things are necessary to define Christmas, but the fact of the matter is that they are not.

Now I have to say that most of these things are not necessarily bad in and of themselves. Giving gifts is not intrinsically sinful, neither are Christmas trees, ornaments and tinsel. But if we emphasize these things so much that they end up overshadowing the truth, then they become tools of wrongdoing. What we value is made clear by what we emphasize; what we devalue is made clear by what we deemphasize. Do we push Christ into the background while leaving commercialism, materialism and the other nonessential holiday paraphernalia in the foreground? Many of us might have to rethink our celebrations at this time of the year. If our celebration of Christmas is no different from that of the world, we need to ask ourselves: Are we helping the world in its suppression of the truth? Let’s celebrate Christmas the way God would have us do so: not by suppressing its underlying truths but by upholding them for the world to see.