Let's set Xmas Straight.

I can dstinctly remember when I was a little boy seeing my mother write "Xmas" on something and asking her what it meant. She said, "It's just a quick way to write Christmas." I thought it was like a secret code that my mother knew. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.

Several years later, I happened to read a Christmas short story containing the following lines in it:

She glanced at the banner hanging from the ceiling—Merry Xmas!—and sadly added to me, “The world has taken Christ right out of Christmas.”

I immediately thought to myself, "I will never use that abbreviation again. I wanted toh onor Christ in the season and show the world that I loved and worshiped Him.

A couple of years later, I learned the truth behind the abbrviation and discovered that in actuality, the X is not an X, but instead, is the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet "Chi." It is the first letter used in the Greek word "Christos", or Annointed, as in the chosen King. As in Jesus Christ. The faithful Christians of the first cerntury were persecuted far beyond what we can comprehend. (Think of the saints vs. the lions for one thing.)

It was physically dangerous and life-threatening to be a Christian. The early Saints began tattooing Chi, which looks like the English "X" (see the above greek "Chi,") on the lower palm of their right hands to signal to other Christians that they were believers. This way they could identify each other and thereby feel safe around each other.

Once the Romans discovered this tattoo, it became an instantant method of rounding the Christians up to dispose of them. Litterally hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of early Christians died for the honor of having the initial of Christ on their right hand.

In honor of those masacred, the early church used the initial "Chi" when writing Christ, not as a means of shortening it, but as an honor to those who died for and because of the faith, thus honoring the Savior and the faithful martyrs at the same time.

I have chosen to not write "Xmas" when I write about Christmas, but I have chosen to thank the Lord for the faithful forefathers who gave their lives for their faith whenever I read it.