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Saturday, December 22, 2012

Merry Christmas? Perhaps not the right word

Some people want others to say "Merry Christmas," as opposed to "Happy Holidays." I can understand that, but I'm not sure that that's the phrase that they really want to use. See here for more on the so-called "War on Christmas."

A search for the use of the word, "merry," in the King James Bible turns up 28 occurrences. A good number of these associate being merry with being at least mildly intoxicated, and in some of those cases, the merry person, or persons, did something foolish while merry.

Dictionaries indicate that merry means happy, having fun, enjoying things. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being happy, having fun, and enjoying things at Christmas. But I think there's a better, and more appropriate phrase: "Blessed Christmas!" We were blessed by the coming of Christ, who lived as a perfect sacrifice, and died as one, and was resurrected, proving that the sacrifice was accepted. We are blessed!

The angels told the shepherds that Christ's coming brought peace to those who accepted the sacrifice. They also said that His coming brought glory to God. We are blessed.

Blessed Christmas!

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