Let’s Put Christ Back into Christmas: No, Let’s Don’t

Paul Derengowski, ThM

In five days, it will be Christmas, a least for some. To others, all the commercialism has pretty much wiped out what Christmas has been projected to be, the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth.

Lately, much clamor and insistence has been raised for some that Christ be put back into Christmas and thereby resurrect what Christmas used to be; again, a celebration of Jesus’ birth.

Pope Francis kissing an idol

What is sorely missing in all the spending, clamoring, and drowning out by secularists who simply hate Jesus to begin with, is the fact that by putting Christ back into Christmas would be pushing a heresy instituted by Roman Catholicism, namely Christ Mass itself.

You see, Christmas is really nothing more than an elaborate form of the Roman Catholic Mass, which is performed every Sunday around the world for biblically ignorant Roman Catholics who have been conditioned by tradition rather than the Bible.

Unfortunately, many non-Roman Catholic Evangelicals have been effectively conditioned by the same tradition and have enthusiastically shared in the heresy promotion to varying degrees of theatrics that Hollywood or Broadway would be impressed.

In fact, one Baptist church in Plano, Texas goes so far over the top in promoting the Roman Catholic Mass that it has been characterized as “a two-and-a-half hour Broadway-style show in three acts”—and that, complete, with a stage-full of dancing Santa Clauses!

Yet, Broadway aside, is the fact that even when all the decoration, dinners, and church programs are less elaborate, the bottom line is that well-intentioned Christians have been conditioned to participate in something, that if they knew what they were doing, would be (or a least should be) appalled.

Because the Roman Catholic Mass, of which Christ Mass is the biggest attention-getter, is nothing more

Fiction at its worst

than anti-biblical, anti-Christian ritual that places Jesus Christ on the Roman Catholic altar, by a Roman Catholic priest, to offer Him up again in a bloodless sacrifice to atone for sin.

Please note what John A. O’Brien, who was a research professor at Notre Dame, had to say about the Roman Catholic Mass, and then ask yourself, is this really what Christians and Christianity is all about?

When the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne, and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the Victim for the sins of man. It is a power greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of Seraphim and Cherubim.

So, a Roman Catholic priest has the power and authority to bring Jesus Christ down from heaven, off His throne, to sacrifice him on an altar, not the cross, to pay the sin debt all over again?

My Bible tells me, “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God” (Rom. 6:10) and “For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself” (Heb. 7:26-27).

Christmas makes Jesus the “eternal Victim”

O’Brien goes on to explain, “Indeed it is greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven, and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal Victim for the sins of man—not once but a thousand times! The priest speaks and lo! Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest’s command.”

First of all, Mary never had any power to do anything, much less act as a co-mediator or “co-redemptrix” as Roman Catholicism teaches. She was a sinner, just like all other human beings affected by the fall of Adam. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) and “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

Second, Jesus is not an “eternal Victim,” but an eternal Victor over death and sin. It is what the crucifixion and resurrection were all about. So, to be placing him on a Roman Catholic altar, every Sunday and Christ Mass too and sacrificing him eternally, would not only mock his death on the cross, it would forever leave Christians dead in their trespasses and sins, with the devil himself left as the eternal Victor over both Jesus and Christians.

Third, if Jesus ever bowed his head in obedience to anyone other than God the Father, then Jesus would be committing an act of idolatry and blasphemy. The reality is, all persons, believers and otherwise, will bow their knees in obedience to Jesus Christ one day, as the King of kings and Lord of lords (Phil. 2:10), which will include all Roman Catholic priests who are of the false impression that Jesus is bowing to them every time they think they are sacrificing him anew during the Mass.

Jesus humbling himself before the Catholic priest?

Finally, O’Brien wrote, “Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and the vicegerent of Christ on earth! He continues the essential ministry of Christ: he teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ, he pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ, he offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary. No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of alter Christus. For the priest is and should be another Christ.”

If the Roman Catholic priest is this ambassador carrying out the same “essential ministry of Christ,” then where can it be shown in the Bible that Jesus Christ offered himself, or anyone else, up more than one time to atone for human sin that separated it from God?

Where in the Bible does it say anything about a sinful human priest pardoning penitent sinners?

How is the bloodless Roman Catholic Mass even remotely close to what took place at Calvary, which “finished” God’s plan of redemption by offering Jesus as the blood sacrifice?

Some might retort by arguing that none of the aforementioned is even brought up during all the gift-giving, special church programs and music, and celebrations of Jesus’ birth.

That’s the problem, though, since the Roman Catholic Mass is what Christ Mass is all about! It is about negating Jesus’ death on the cross. In fact, it is about leaving Jesus on the cross, eternally, where sin and death are never conquered!

The Roman Catholic Jesus who is repeatedly sacrificed

Moreover, for anyone to be saying, “Let’s put Christ back into Christmas” is equal to saying, “Let’s brutally crucify Jesus again. The first time was not enough,” thereby making his death about as meaningful as those bulls and goats that were sacrificed in the Old Testament, which did not atone for anyone’s sins (Heb. 10:4).

No, let us not put Christ back into something that he was never a part of to begin with. Instead, let us get back to the Bible and discover whom the real Jesus is—all over again!

If we will simply do that, not only will people rediscover the true “Spirit of Jesus,” they will be free indeed (Jn. 8:31-32, 36).

Plus, they will save themselves a fortune every year in time and money expended on what amounts to a diabolic perversion, or the real “spirit of the season,” of what took place on the cross at Calvary.