Sermon Illustrations

What might we do in our families to celebrate Christmas as a holy day? Of course, we remember that its date was first set purposely to coincide with the Roman festival of the returning of the sun, so that it was indeed initially a pagan holiday. In order to celebrate it, however, the first Christians used that riotous festival to mask their holy one; we need the same anti-establishment consciousness to re-create a Christmas season.

Marva J. Dawn, Is It a Lost Cause? Having the Heart of God for the Church’s Children (Grand Rapid: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1997), 151.