There's No Such Thing As A Blue Christmas

There’s No Such Thing as a "Blue Christmas"

Now how many of you here tonight think that you pretty much know all the classic Christmas hymns and secular songs that were ever sang? I think it would be safe to say that probably all of us here, along with everyone else across America, know every classic and secular Christmas carol that we sing at Christmas time every year. So how many of you remember Elvis Presley’s song Blue Christmas? Yeah, I would think that almost everyone knows this classic. But I have to confess, while I love Elvis Presley’s voice and enjoy most of his songs, as a minister, the song Blue Christmas really bothers me and I’ll tell you why. Because it robs Christmas of its glory. And not just that, it gives people permission to take Christ out of Christmas and make Christmas all about us. And this is just so wrong.

Christmas has historically been known as a time for celebration. Now it doesn’t mean that many of us are not grieving, sad, broke, or alone during the holiday, but that is no reason for God’s people not to rejoice that their Savior is born. You see, despite the pain and difficulties in our lives, Jesus should be celebrated because when he came, the world was no longer in darkness. That star that shone brightly in the sky the night of his birth, signaled that the Light of the world had finally come. God was presenting His Son to the world – he is the reason for the season – and he should be the only thing we focus on during Christmas time.

But sadly, many of us are not thinking about Jesus birth at Christmas and what it’s supposed to mean. Today it’s common for people to sing the same tune as Elvis did—that Christmas is about us, about how we feel…and if our circumstances are less than ideal, then we’re entitled to have a Blue Christmas. But if you believe that, then you’ve lost the meaning of the season just like Elvis did. And the sad part about it is, Elvis of all people shouldn’t have been singing about having the blues because he had a Christian background being a Baptist. At the beginning of his career he sang songs that were biblically based. I particularly remember him singing about Joshua fighting the battle of Jericho with the walls coming tumbling down, he sang a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace and a lot of other ones too…but sadly, Elvis left his biblical roots and his faith, and as we all know, his life went into a downward spiral…and his music changed along with it. Have you noticed that when he no longer aligned his life with Christ’s, what happened was that he became depressed, fell into drugs, lost his way… and in the end, he lost his life. But that’s what happens when our lives are focused on ourselves and not on Christ.

So I don’t want you to take his Christmas song literally. I don’t want you to reinvent Christmas into something that’s about you. Jesus was sent into the world to show us the truth, the way and the life…Jesus’ birth was God coming to earth and presenting himself as the way to heaven. Since Jesus is God in the flesh we need to keep our focus on him at Christmas and not on us. If we don’t then we are purposely decreasing the magnitude of what God had done on that first Christmas night.

So as you think of these things, I’d like for you to think of something else too. Before Elvis came out with the Blue Christmas theme, there really was no such thing as a blue Christmas. Christmas was celebrated throughout the world—people everywhere rejoiced that the Savior has come, despite the difficulties of their time. People acknowledged Christ and looked forward to His birth with great anticipation no matter. Yet once a Blue Christmas was introduced, people started believing it and soon pessimism was replacing Christmas joy. If external things in life were making us sad then the heavenly miracle held no power. And this is just so wrong because that’s not what God intended when He blessed humanity and came into the world to live among us. So we need to readjust our focus and remember the star in the sky was a heavenly Light to draw our attention to the newborn King, and our eyes need to keep looking upward, and remain on Him.

Now I know that society today tells us the opposite of this. Today we’re told what we think and what we feel is what matters most. But there is a danger in this. If you allow your personal beliefs to undermine God’s truth and goodness, then you’ve placed your authority over God’s and redefine what He already has determined...and that is a dangerous thing for you to be doing.