Keeping Christ in Xmas

I’m a pastor and a writer. I write the name of God, the word Christians, and the name Christ over and over again. Over the years I’ve used an abbreviation for each. For Christians I draw a simple “Jesus-fish” (or an ichthus or ichthys to be official). For the name of God I write a theta (looks like this: θ) and for Christ a chi (Looks like an X).

One particular day, many moons ago, I was doing some planning for Christmas with a group of students. I did what I always do—wrote Xmas on the board. I went on my merry way the rest of that evening, preaching Jesus to students, hanging out for a bit, and then going home. Little did I know that I had committed quite the blasphemous act that would label me in the eyes of a couple as a youth pastor who didn’t respect Jesus. I had committed the unpardonable sin of trying to take Christ out of Christmas.

Now granted, there is a bit of a “war on Christmas”. Those who do not believe in Jesus desire to keep the holiday without the holy and so they will change the words just a bit. Personally, I’m fine with not trying to force the name of Christ on unbelievers. That day is yet to come and in the mean time it is probably best to not create a culture where we teach people to play nice and fake it just to seemingly make Jesus happy. But that’s another article.

For many believers writing “Xmas” is not meant to be an offense to Christ. It’s simply an abbreviation because the Greek word for Christ is Χριστός. Notice the X? That’s all it is. Just an abbreviation.

Now some might say, “Well, isn’t it a bit blasphemous to not care enough about God to go through the extra work of writing out the whole thing?” I suppose one could have that particular conviction, but it would not be one shared with the early church. The story of the Jesus-fish is one of abbreviations. Ichthus is the Greek word for fish. Ichthus became an acronym for Jesus and his work.

I= Ἰησοῦς (Jesus)
ch= Χριστός (Christ)
th= Θεοῦ (of God)
u= Υἱός (Son)
s= Σωτήρ (Savior)

Jesus Christ, the son of God, our Savior.

Again, the early church didn’t have an issue with abbreviating the names of God/Christ and so I don’t either. So, Merry Xmas! (Pronounced “Christmas”).

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Photo source: here