Cards say “Season’s Greetings!” and “Happy Holidays!” Kids coming home from college are on “winter break.” According to the songs, “Yuletide carols are being sung by a choir.” Did you ever notice that fewer references are made to “Christmas”? Merchants, the public school systems, and many of our friends and neighbors avoid calling it “Christmas.”

But I trust that you and I still do. Oh, sure, we use terms like “the holidays” and “winter break,” but most of the time when we talk about the days from now until Dec. 25 we use the term “Christmas.” Why? Because we know that it is Christ who brings true peace and Christ who brings real hope. And, therefore, he is “worthy of greater honor” (Hebrews 3:3).

In an old song entitled “Oh, I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas,” there’s a line that says: “And over the racket Gabriel Heater is saying, ‘Peace on earth, everybody, and good will toward men’ and, yust at that moment, someone slugs Uncle Ben.” It’s meant to be humorous, but it points out the fact that even though people talk a lot about peace on earth, there is nothing, no, not even the holidays, that brings the kind of lasting peace that Jesus brings.

The holiday can free you from a few hours of work, but it can’t free you from your sins. A beautifully decorated tree, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and a trip home to see the family may give you a peaceful feeling inside, but that feeling can’t begin to compare with the peace that comes from knowing your sins are forgiven. It can’t last throughout the year, or throughout your life, like the peace you have with God through your forgiveness in Christ.
Yes, we still call it “Christmas” because we recognize that all the stuff that the world tries to sell as “peace on earth” is nothing without the peace of forgiveness we find in Christ.

We still call it “Christmas” because it is Christ who brings real hope. The writer to the Hebrews points out that with Moses, the best the people of Israel could hope for was a little prosperity in the Promised Land, a little respite from their hard labor, and a reprieve from death at the hand of the Egyptian taskmasters. But Jesus is worthy of greater honor, because, as the son of God, he offers eternal hope and eternal life.