Holidays: Chrstmas, Easter and Halloween?

Christmas, Easter and Halloween are three of the four biggest holidays celebrated in the United States. The question has come to my mind, what should Christians do with them? These holidays have a lot in common. They're all on the same day as historical pagan holidays, they all still use some historic pagan symbolism and traditions, and they're huge commercial money makers.  They also have some differences, so lets play a game.  Lets play one of these things is not like the others

Let's take a look at the three individually starting with Christmas. Christmas is one of the biggest holidays in the world really. It's celebrated on December 25th which was originally the date of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia it also coincides with the Norse and Germanic Yule festivals and in fact many of the traditions and decorations we use for Christmas are hold over from these pagan celebrations, decorating trees, holly, giving presents, Santa Claus, all these things are hold overs from  paganism

However we have added some things. While the original meaning of these holidays varied we have added what has become a near universal meaning. We celebrate on Dec 25th the birth of Jesus Christ. We have redeemed this day. Many ask why this particular day? Why do we celebrate the birth of Jesus on a day so full of pagan symbolism? The short answer is (and this goes for Easter too) The Roman Catholic church were fantastic at marketing. The Catholic church absorbed pagan holidays and worship site in an attempt to create converts, and it worked, of course in the end I'm sure if the pagans or the Catholics were the ones who were actually converted but that's for a different blog.

Easter is one of the holiest days on the Christian calender yet in the west it has the same problem as Christmas,  it's over flowing with pagan symbolism. The Easter bunny, coloring and hunting eggs, etc.... Again this is a hold over from the eastern European Norse and Germanic traditions and yet again we've attached the holiest of meanings to this day. The resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. Indeed Christmas and Easter are two of the highest attendance times of the year for churches, both Catholic and Protestant.

And now Halloween, celebrated on October 31st. It was the end of the Celtic calender. It was many things. It was a celebration of dead ancestors. It was a day when the veil between worlds was said to be at it's thinnest and demons and ghosts would roam amongst the living. People would dress up as animals and demons hoping to confuse the wondering spirits. I've heard several different origins for "trick or treating" and Jack o lanterns. This was a time of divining the dead and worshiping the gods of the death and the underworld. However today we in the western Christian world have...done nothing with this day.

The traditions of Halloween have no other meaning than these. I would say most Christians in the United States celebrate Halloween in some fashion, but why? Why do Christians celebrate Halloween? It's not ours. Practicing Jews don't celebrate Christmas. We as Christians don't celebrate Yom Kippo or Ramadon. So why do we celebrate Halloween. It has nothing we can link back to Christ. To This day it's purely a pagan holiday...so Why?

Christmas Part 3

So...the why of Christmas. Why is the birth of this Jesus something to celebrate?  Why do we celebrate on December 25th?  These are some pretty common and reasonable why question. Why why do we have this holiday that is pretty much a worldwide phenomenon and why is it in the middle of winter, for at least half of us?

I'll look at the second question first. Why December 25th? Do don't have to look very hard  on the internet to hear somebody claiming that Jesus Christ is a mythological copy cat of the vast array that they will claim were born on or around December 25th or the winter solstice.  Well to dispel this myth first. The man we call Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth  was not actually born on the 25th of December. In fact we actually don't know the exact date when he was born and as far as I've read the best guess would actually put his birth sometime in the spring. ( this seems like a pretty good article and this one guesses it to be sometime in September)

So why do we celebrate Christmas in December? This is actually something that I'm finding to be quite easy to find as well and to be honest the reason all boils down to recognition.  December 25th and the days preceding it ,especially the Winter solstice have been for centuries already established pagan holidays.   Yule, Saturnalia, Larentalia, feast of the new sun, the winter solstice itself, and I'm sure I could find others were all already established holidays.  So the Catholic church that ruled Christendom and eventually Rome decided that since there was no feast to celebrate the birth of Jesus they would  appropriate one of the already established Pagan feast days. And thus we have Christmas or the Feast of Christ.  Because of this, after the reformation many protestant Christians didn't actually celebrate Christmas due to it's day being historically a pagan feast day. In fact it was illegal in many states until the 19th century.

Ok so we've figured out that Christmas is a holiday stolen from the Pagans to worship a man named Jesus who was born 2000 years ago.  So what makes this guy so special that we still have a near worldwide holiday for him? Why does this guy deserve a holiday to begin with?

 As many times as we hear it I that we've become so accustomed to hearing it that it doesn't register like it should any more but the reason that we celebrate the day of the man Jesus's birth is that he is the only begotten son of the living God. Think about that. Not only that but Jesus himself said that he and the father are one. He is God made flesh. He is the God that spoke this entire universe into creation become one of us. Both fully man and fully God...here on earth living as a poor carpenter.  When I sit and just think on that I am awestruck!  Jesus Christ both man and God!  He gave up his majesty his riches in his kingdom, to slum it with us so that we would know him! He did not just live with us, he died as one of us. He was subjected to one of the most humiliating, painful deaths imaginable not just as one of us, but for us! All so that we might know how much he loves us. So that we would believe in him and not suffer his wrath and the Fathers wrath because of the sin of the world! THIS is why we celebrate this man's birth 2000 years later. This one day a year, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, whether they acknowledges it or not all eyes turn to this man, the only son of the living God, the son begotten not made, the second member of the holy trinity, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.

None go to the Father except the go to the Son. Have you Gone to the Son? Do you know Jesus Chist as Lord and Savior?

Christmas part 2

     So, from Christmas Part 1 post we've seen that the meaning of Christmas is literally Christ. So what about Christ? What about Christ specifically does Christmas celebrate?  It celebrates the birth of Christ.
It celebrates the long prophesied, coming of the messiah, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords!  The one prophesied even in Genesis!

How did he come? Did he come like a king? Did he come in glory and majesty with trumpets and soldiers proclaiming his arrival? No, Gods only begotten son came humbly. As a servant.  He wasn't born in a castle or a palace or even a decent Roman hut or hotel, he was born in a barn.  His bed that first night, was the feed trough for the animals. His parents weren't royalty. His mom was teenage virgin and his step-dad a carpenter. And those who came to pay homage the night of his birth, not foreign royalty but shepherds.

To the world this is absolutely ridiculous. What kind of second rate king or deity actually would subject his offspring to this type of entrance to the world? Or for that matter what kind of horrible person in this day and age would let their kid even be born at home with out the attendance of trained professionals?  This is definitely not what the Jews expected when reading Isaiah.

Paul wrote in the new testament that God makes the wise of the world foolish. This is part of the story of Jesus birth. Those who consider themselves very wise tend to consider this story foolishness. The story not only showing that Jesus first coming he come in humility and service but is a parody of the world. When Jesus returns the rulers of this world will bow to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords who entered into his time on this earth in the most humble way possible.

Christmas part 1

       We have reached the official start of the Christmas season. Anymore it actually seems like the the "Christmas season " is starting earlier and earlier, in fact I believe that Wal-mart began putting decoration out before Halloween. It's really gotten kind of silly, because you've got Freddy Cruger and Dracula at one end of the store and Santa and Christmas trees at the other.

     So what is this "Christmas" I'm speaking of. Ok, some of you may say that's a dumb question, but in today's world is it really that bad of a question?  What is Christmas?  What does this time of the year really mean? Well in this pluralistic age this is not the easiest question to answer.  However I think I can answer it or at least try.

     Christmas as we know it today is a hodgepodge. A mishmash of cultural and religious celebrations and traditions. The Christmas tree comes from Germanic and northern European  religious traditions. The day itself  ,December 25th, comes from various winter solstice traditions.  The tradition of giving presents seems to have come from St Nicholas a 4th century saint, as well as other pagan gift giving traditions. The famous and sometimes infamous nativity scene depicts the birth of Jesus Christ.( see the Christmas Wiki for additional details)

   I ask the question again...what is the meaning of Christmas. Can we get the meaning of Christmas out of any of these traditions? Many of these pagan traditions predate Christ. So is this the meaning of the season, celebrating the winter solstice and honoring pagan gods? Another possibility is the celebration of wealth and materialism that kicks off the day after Thanksgiving.  If this either of these are the meaning of Christmas, then why call it...Christmas? Yule or Solstice day or Saturnalia, or there may be others that fit these meaning better.

     So if we're not getting the meaning of Christmas from the origins of the actual traditions that we use, so we must divine the meaning of the season from the name we give the season. Christmas or Christ - mass, the root here is Christ. Christ mass, or the Mass of Christ, these words actually mean death of Christ however the meaning we've assigned to the word Christmas is the birth of Christ.  So the meaning for the season based on the name association is literally the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.