Yesterday, President Joe Biden called for segregating the unvaccinated at Christmas this year for fear of Covid even though the unvaccinated are not any more of a threat of spreading Covid than the vaccinated. Dr. Anthony Fauci said that because of Omicron variant of Covid spreading through the United States, unvaccinated family members should be asked not to attend Christmas this year, even though Omicron has shown not to be a serious threat of hospitalization or death. The head of the World Health Organization Dr. Tedros Adhanom recently said there is too much at stake to celebrate Christmas, and it should be cancelled this year.
There is something more important than Christmas? This is the logical reaction in the face of these types of threats when you believe that your life is all there is, when we have become a society that has fully embraced materialism. If you believe your time on this planet between your birth and your death is all you have, then your main purpose that gives your life meaning is merely extending your life. Therefore, it becomes easy to understand why so many people are so willing to sacrifice so much of their lives merely to extend their lives.
This is ultimately the problem with materialism. Materialism believes that what is perceived by our 5 senses and what is manifested within the 3 dimensions is all there is, that there is nothing more than our physical existence, nothing that transcends the world that we perceive. Materialism ultimately leads to nihilism. When all you have is this short temporary existence, when our lives are merely brief chemical episodes on a relatively small planet on the distant edges of the universe, it’s hard not to arrive at the belief that all of this is meaningless.
But on the way to nihilism, there is this brief stop at where we are today, where people still believe in finding meaning to their finite existence. So, they search for that meaning in the most absurd places, like politics. That is one of the reasons why there is so much political virtue signaling these days. People trying to find their meaning, and their purpose by espousing the “correct” political positions. That is where they find their virtue. Their life is not grounded in something beyond themselves that transcends their existence on this planet. Sadly, their very existence is what gives their life meaning. That is why it’s so important for them to sacrifice everything beyond themselves to extend this temporary existence on this planet.
If there is no transcendent meaning then it becomes easy to sacrifice Christmas because Christmas becomes nothing more than a secular holiday where you get time off of work, you eat good food, exchange presents and have a party. If that is all there is to Christmas, then it makes sense to skip Christmas this year in an attempt to extend the only existence we have. But if Christmas means more than that, if there is a reason beyond the material celebration of the season, if Christmas is the day that our Lord and Savior was brought into the world, to be sacrificed and die for our sins, to give us eternal life, and transcendent meaning, then celebrating and worshipping on Christmas Day is worth the risk of contracting Covid-19 because thanks to Jesus who was born on Christmas day, we will live in an eternity which makes the few extra years we are trying to gain from denying Christmas this year a blink of the eternal eye.
And this is why it is doubly important for us to make sure that we do not sacrifice Christmas this year on the altar of our materialism, that we do not marginalize God for our temporary existence. Only a fool exchanges the eternal for the temporal. And that is what Joe Biden, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Tedros and the rest of Covid establishment want us to do. Jesus was willing to sacrifice his life on this planet for our eternal salvation, why are we not willing to risk contracting a virus that has over a 99% survival rate to celebrate his birth, his life, and what he sacrificed for our salvation. Christmas is not merely a family get together, a day off work, or a day to get presents. “Maybe Christmas…,” as Dr. Seuss says, "perhaps...means a little bit more!" Or it means a lot a bit more.
Judd Garrett is a graduate from Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.