Decorations. Greeting cards. Gifts. Travel. Crowds. With all these obligations, who can be either merry or happy? Yet we try. We mumble “Merry Christmas” to the store clerk, and the tired reply is “Happy Holidays” (accompanied by a look that says, “Don’t you know better?”).

But I do know better. I know that it’s at this time of year I remember and celebrate the birth of a Savior, Christ Jesus. Listen to this:

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. Luke 2:9-11 (NIV) 

Good News that will cause great joy! Into a dead, sin-sick world, God has sent a Savior, His only Son, to reclaim for Himself a people, to make them alive and make them His own. I’m stunned by this every day; a sinner like me, saved by grace!

So I will continue to say, “Merry Christmas” to any and all this season, because it is my wish for them that they might share in the joy of the birth of Jesus, and that by God’s grace they might know, or come to know, the peace of Christ. My greeting may be an offense to some, but it is meant to point them to the great truth of this season.

To those of you who get it, “Merry Christmas!”. To those of you who don’t, “Happy Holy-Day,” when Christ the Savior was born.