It is THAT time of the year again, and love it or hate it, you’ve got to get though it.
You may be a bit shocked that a Christian would leave the ‘Christ’ out of Christmas by writing: “Merry Xmas”. Some Christians actually get pretty upset about it, like they get upset about all sorts of things. I do that deliberately (not to annoy people!) so that I have the opportunity to explain what the “X” stands for.
In ancient times, when people made their own copies of the Bible or wrote about God, they often wrote in the Greek language. When you go back and read those documents, you will see X’s all through the text. Why? Because it is a short hand way of referring to Jesus the Christ.
You see, in Greek, the letter Xi has the same sound in English as our ‘Ch’, so Jesus Christ looks something like ‘Iesou Xristos’…which leads me on to fish!
Sometimes, when you’re driving around town, you see cars with fish stickers on them. Why? Because in Greek, the word for fish is ‘Ichthus’ (IXTHYS), short for ‘Jesus Christ God’s Son our Saviour.’
Now, that is way more awesome than a fat guy in a red suit on a hot day saying: “Ho, ho, ho!” Think “X”, think “fish” and you have the gospel.
Confused?