Christ-mess

Post 138

As Christians, we celebrate Christmas as representing the birth of Jesus Christ the Savior of the world. All of America has long celebrated Christmas with this knowledge, even if they don’t choose to practice.
It is a wonderful time of year where the Spirit of Christmas creates love and joy and genuine pleasantness all around.
I thoroughly enjoy the celebration of Christmas, and the fantastic memories of wonderful family happiness, decorations, dinners and goodies, music, presents, and church services memorializing the Christmas story.
Twice in the year churches are packed with people who only go to church on Christmas and Easter. Though they want nothing to do with Church, Christ, or religion, they attend a ceremony to memorialize the birth of the Savior, and then again one memorializing The Resurrection in Power, after his sacrificial death as our Savior.
Do you really think America has not until recently, been a Christian nation?

As a Child in my family, we never believed in Santa, and that did not diminish the holiday. We put up a Christmas tree like everyone else, but it meant nothing more a great smelling decoration. It is quite a thing to bring a huge tree into the house once a year and then set about decorating the thing to the max! We did not worship it, nor the god of trees, or anything else like that. It was just a Christmas decoration and we never thought about why.

Then as a teen we learned that Christmas was really a pagan holiday that was adopted for Christians by Constantine in 336 AD when he forced Christianity on everyone by law.
We learned that Jesus could not have possibly been born in winter, and that decorated trees are from an obscure pagan custom, having nothing to do with Jesus.
And suddenly with new understanding we questioned; What does make every home in America put up a tree for Christmas?
And the seeds of doubt were rooted, not in our faith, but in our celebrations, but more in the validity of Jesus Birthday. Somehow in ignorance we thoughtlessly assumed the bible said Jesus was born on December 25th, and so the discovery that he wasn’t, tended to cast doubt no the validity of scripture.
After learning this was not actually scriptural, what other Christian traditions might be all wrong? This either creates doubt, or a serious study to try and figure it out. And now there is new skepticism to everything we were once sure of.

Then entered Santa Clause, who was really only a side issue as a child but I saw grow into the central theme in most of America, pushing out the manger, the baby, and the singing angels…who scripturally never sang.
And since we are discovering these technical discrepancies in our traditions, the three wise men we see every year come to the manger to worship the infant, didn’t actually show up until about 1-1/2 years later according to the scripture, and there is no support that there were specifically three.
Goodness! Is anything of our tradition true?
And for all that, the long accepted birth date of March 13, 04 BC of the Gregorian calendar is proven wrong by errors found in the records of Josephus the historian as well as the date of Herod’s death. There are a lot of small but related histories that all come together indicating an autumn 2 BC birth of Jesus is far more likely. *1
So now it seems our traditions and their foundations are really a whole bunch of lies, deceptions, concoctions, fabrications and corruptions. And you have to begin to wonder if any of it is true!

Then with Santa came the many variations of the origin of Santa (whose name is strangely close to Satan for no apparent reason). Other names are; Father Christmas, Saint Nicolas, etc.
The actual origin appears to be lost in time because as some stories go, he is even older than Christ.

There are a myriad of historical stories explaining the origin of the pagan holiday we Christians hijacked, such as the pagan festival worshiping Tammuz (or Ra depending on the rendition) the Sun God of Babylon during the winter solstice of December 21st.
We can see the easy jump made from the Sun God, to the Son of God.
And then we do a few emotional loops as we legitimize it as acceptable because Jesus was the “Light of Men” (John 1:4) which is pretty close to the same thing, right?

The Yule Log has its roots clearly in Babylon representing the death of the winter sun god, and burning the trimmed tree on the new solstice of spring representing the re-birth of the sun god. (yule being Chaldean for log)

I remember feeling quite concerned that all us good Christians were blindly celebrating poorly corrupted pagan rituals while calling it Christmas, and for a number of years I made life miserable for those who wanted to decorate a tree in the house by making this information known.

Yet I couldn’t help but remember and notice the joyful spirit of Christmas that remained.
And so I eventually let it go and continued to enjoy Christmas, realizing regardless of the beginnings, and the warping of facts, we celebrated it for a real and legitimate memorial of our savior, though I confess I enjoyed it a little less with this new wisdom of knowledge. “It might still be a boat, but there is a whole lot less wind in the sails.”
I was torn in conflict wondering how we Christians got so deeply mixed up in paganism, and wondering what God thought about it all.

* * *
Is there really anyone still out there who does not know all this?
I learned all this years ago.
So, how Christmas is Christmas?

I heard recently that in the 17th century, Puritan Christians were the first ones that worked hard to eliminate the holiday because of its pagan roots and lack of biblical justification.
They succeeded in getting the British Parliament to ban by law the celebration of Christmas, and all things related.
At the death of Cromwell of England (a Puritan himself) Christmas was restored.
And the next group to work at banning Christmas were the pagans. *2

But they know the great financial boon that Christmas is and so have carefully anti-Christed Christmas while leaving the holiday represented as “Merry X-mas”.
There has been a modern fight to remove all things Christ from public displays of Christmas. (sorry) X-mas.
The holiday is fine, but not the religion the holiday represents. Some Christians were even able to see the X as a cross, and so were able to adapt.
This was fine for a while, but now there is a push to attack even the name which has too much Christ even with an X, and so it has become “Happy Holidays”, with a Holiday tree, and Holiday gifts... even though we don't put up a tree or give gifts on Thanksgiving or New Years, or any Holiday but Christmas.

Speaking of gifts, we assume we give gifts on Christmas because we give gifts on Birthdays. Christmas is Jesus birthday, so it just makes sense.
But our traditional actions derive from the source example, so we actually would be giving gifts on birthdays because they gave gifts to Jesus on his birthday, not the other way round.
And thus the appearance of the wise men giving gifts.
Well that’s great, but we already know the wise men didn’t show up on his birthday. (Matthew 2)
So again, why do we give gifts on Christmas?

A Jewish friend suggested to me that we give “Holiday Gifts” to include the Jewish Chanukah gifts given near the same date as our Christmas, but for a very different reason.
Chanukah is of course the memorial of the re-dedication of the second temple.
But upon pressing, that story gets confusing too.
In apparent conflict with the original rules of Chanukah; not to purchase anything, representing the miracle of the oil not running out,
money is given for the purchase and play of a game called Dreidel, which is actually a gambling game!
Eventually because of Chanukah’s proximity to Christmas, the Jews adapted the giving of money, to the giving of gifts, and so now they have Chanukah gifts! *3
Hardly sourced on anything worthy for a Jew.
So like Christmas, Chanukah has apparently been all mixed up too.
So again, why the gifts on Christmas? or birthdays for that mater?

Now what was once rejected by Christians as a pagan holiday, but pushed on us by pagans,
Is now rejected by pagans and defended by Christians, though we realize the whole thing is really a pagan/Christ-mess.

Can any real sense be made of this mess?!
It seems as if evil has corrupted everything good beyond recovery!

Just ask any average Christian to simply eliminate the very pagan tree *4 from their Christmas traditions and watch the fur fly!
It seems Traditions are more sacred than what they represent... For the Jews and for the Christians.
Could it be because we all know it really doesn’t represent what we like to pretend it does?
The complication is so confusing and irrelevant to the fun of the holiday, that we just ignore it all for the sake of a happy event each year.

But I am the one committing Heresy by suggesting there are problems with Christmas!

* * *

OK, so now we Christians are all confused.
We want to celebrate the legitimate birth of our Savior, which is significant in our faith.
But we know the holiday is actually pagan, only slightly adapted for our use.
And now the pagans are seriously attacking our Christianized, pagan celebration.
Where do we really stand, and what do we teach our children about Christmas?

This is one example of many showing the first stage confusion of the Christian faith that is now entering the second stage. What is truth? How can we know? Where do we stand on issues like this?
To ignore all the confusion and continue pretending everything is just fine, is to allow the evil to overtake us unprepared. But to reject the sacred celebration has significant consequences to our faith, though we might not see them clearly.

This is the same basic problem Orthodox Jews have today, only on steroids.
Their Torah tells them there must be a blood sacrifice for the remission of sins, but since they are no longer allowed on the temple mount, and there is no temple anyway, there is simply no way they can fulfill the requirements of the Torah.
And so they created the substitute of praying three times a day, which they all know can’t actually fulfill the requirement, but now it has become so rooted in their tradition that they don’t really want to think about why they do what they do.

Now of course we Christians know the correct answer; that their Messiah did come and his name is Jesus, and he shed his blood as the everlasting sacrifice for them if they would just receive it. And He came just before their temple was destroyed, making His blood their only real choice to have their sins remitted. How amazing is that?! Their scriptures are full of the prophecy of his coming, and he came exactly when he was supposed to, in exactly the way he was supposed to, doing exactly what he was supposed to.
So their paradox is resolved, and their answer is available, but they don’t want that answer.

We Christians too have a correct answer to our Christmas dilemma, but today there are so many lies, and so many answers, we simply cannot trust any one of them.
And we too stick to our traditions even though we know they hold no water.

So while the Jews are literally dying without remission of sins according to their own laws of faith, what consequences do we face for our faulty traditions?
We too experience doubt in our faith.

* * *

A Legitimate answer has been found! with sure validation that actually trumps all the stories, rumors, history, and “facts” regarding Christmas.
Trump is good.
But you have to be willing to actually have an open mind to listen to all the evidence so that if it rings true, you can accept it.
It is really not that tough, because it really fills most the holes quite well, but there are holes that once discovered cannot not be filled with Christ, must be rejected as unacceptable, this is the hard part; separating tradition from true faith.

I’m out of space again, so this answer will have to wait until the next post!

* * * * * * *
*1 Although there are many good sources all having parts of the whole issue, Chuck Missler does a good job at providing a sketch from which you can begin your study.
You can find the podcast downloadable for free here; http://www.khouse.org/6640/BP025/ - “when was Jesus born?” 11/28/2010
I would highly recommend joining the daily podcast messages found here:
http://www.khouse.org/6640_podcast/feed.xml

*2 Charles Price message; “The Reason Jesus Was Born” - The Peoples Church in Toronto Canada - www.livingtruth.ca

*3 Chanukah - http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm

*4 The Christmas tree pedigree-
Jeremiah 10:3-5 “For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workmen, with the ax.
They deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.”
Clearly this tree was seen as a god at the time, and this scripture way back 2600 years ago in about 600 BC, made specific clarification that these trees had no power.
There would be no need for the Jewish people to know this bit of encouragement unless there was a confusion about it.
It seems that these decorated trees were prominently places, and came with such stories, that the Jews had fear.
So where were the Jews in about 600 BC that would make them have interaction with these trees?
This passage was given within the first 7 years after they were hauled off to Babylon as captives, as seen in Daniel 1:1.
So imagine the Jews, now slaves to a pagan people, apparently abandon by God, and then the Babylonians bring these trees into each house and set them up as gods, telling them who knows what about their powers. By this verse we can surmise it was something like; “if you follow our religion, the tree will bring you luck, but if you disobey, the tree will sneak up and kill you in your sleep”.
And at night while they peered in the darkness at the bushy shadow in the corner, you can just imagine the fearful thoughts.
And so the passage begins in verse 1; “Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
For the customs of the people are vain:…”
The Babylonians were significant followers of Astrology, this is historical.
God is telling the Jewish slaves not to follow their religion. And not to be concerned about what the Babylonians thought the stars told them.
Then it continues with the bit about the trees, showing how ridiculous their spooky customs were.
This is the first known source of the Christmas tree, which over time has lost its original purposes but remains all the same.
We are not to fear them, and we don’t, but honestly what are we doing bringing them into the house?
Because we don’t see them as anything, they are nothing.
This is not a faith killer, but it is a corruption of the pure Gospel story.
I am suggesting we can ill afford many of these corruptions as the number of them increase until we loose track of the actual truth.

More in the next post.