The truth of Christmas can be lost somewhere amid the elves and the gingerbread houses, the artificial trees and the gross commercialism that marks the season. Who doesn’t feel frazzled after bumping into scores of people in the store or after driving up one aisle and down the other to find a parking place at the mall? It is like the whispered, gentle message of peace on earth has been replaced by a 100,000 megawatt laser and light show blasting the message, “Buy me! Buy me!”
But amid all of that I have noticed that in the background Christmas music is playing. It’s not just the Rudolph and Frosty nonsense. Above the dull roar of shopping crowds there, unmistakably, are the carols that proclaim the birth of a Savior on the store PA system. Sometimes they are only instrumentals but often enough there are the vocals with their clear proclamation of Christ’s coming. Evangelism is taking place in a marketplace that only is trying to create a mood! When that happens, stop yourself and look around at your fellow shoppers and the store employees. They are hearing what you are hearing. And though they may not be directly attending to the message, the words are quietly moving past their defenses into their minds and then into their hearts. That is why even the person who has never entered a church can repeat the first couple of lines of “Silent Night.”
When Christ came it was done like that. The world was rushing and bumping, buying and selling, marching and conquering. Though it did not attend to Him, He was there at work anyway. And He is at work now, using even the most unlikely means to let the world know there is more than tinsel, more than sales papers. A Savior has come. Let the stores proclaim it!