Bob Smith: Remembering the reason for the Christmas season

To The Daily Sun,

As a youngster growing up in rural New Hampshire there was more on my mind at Christmas time than the excitement of discovering the contents of a stocking and opening presents from under the tree. Those were exciting events with perhaps the anticipation of participating in those events being almost as exciting as the events themselves. Many times over the years I have heard of the 1897 letter to the editor of the New York Sun from a Virginia O'Hanlon in which she wrote, "Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?" Among other things the editor replied, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," and "Thank God he lives and he lives forever."

Sometime in my childhood Christmas came to mean something else to me and I came to the realization that the something else was the reason for the season. I learned that Christmas was the celebration of the birth of a person named Jesus, so named, according to the Bible, because He would save people from their sins. As I learned more about this Jesus I found Him to be more real than Santa Claus and more than a great man and miracle worker. There seemed to be no need to write to a newspaper editor to ask the question, "Is there a Jesus?" As we observe Christmas in this year of 2020, though, in a state ranked about the lowest in the percentage of its citizens who are connected to a church, perhaps that question needs to be asked and answered. Many of the earliest settlers in New Hampshire from across the Atlantic Ocean were Christians who not only believed there was a Jesus, but believed that he was the Jesus as taught in the Bible. He was Immanuel, or God with us, and He came to save people from their sins. That was the faith of our fathers, and I believe that is the faith that New Hampshire and the whole country needs right now. In this country we celebrate freedom, and pledge allegiance to a republic under God, but if we ignore God and pursue a freedom that knows no boundaries and recognizes no authority we become spiritually and morally bankrupt.

"Is there a Jesus?" There is plenty of evidence to justify an affirmative answer. That is, if it is the Jesus of the Bible, not the one of our making. He is God with us who came to earth to be our Savior. None of the three branches of the U.S. government, nor any gang of four, eight, or 12, or any powerful media company, is going to save the country that we love from self-destruction. Peter, a disciple of Jesus, said that he and his companions didn't follow cunningly devised fables when they made Jesus known to us. Luke wrote in the Bible that Jesus, after His death, presented Himself alive by many infallible proofs. Need hope? My hope is in the Lord.

Bob Smith

New Hampton