WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS MEAN TO YOU?

Have you ever wondered why the devil has worked so hard to distort the meaning of Christmas? How Santa Claus, decorations, foods, parties, and gift-giving have taken the place of celebrating Jesus’ birth in the secular world? The most common theory is that it started as a Roman pagan festival called, “Saturnalia or Mirthas,” worshiping the agriculture god Saturn. The festival was first celebrated for one day and eventually grew to seven days, during which people would party, gamble and give gifts to each other.  The gift-giving custom continued in celebrating Christmas and while it was nice, it has become a huge source of profit for stores, as their commercials have made Santa Claus, Christmas trees and decorations more important than Jesus. The enemy succeeded in moving the public focus from the birth of Jesus to buying, giving and receiving gifts, and parties with traditional, expensive foods and drinks. Maybe you too were thinking that secular advertising erased Christ from the name of the celebration, when they started calling it X-mas. Well actually in Greek, the letter “Chi,” that looks like Latin letter “X,” has been used for centuries as a Christian symbol and starts the name of our Savior, Χριστός (Christos). But I still do not consider it right to replace the name of Christ with a Greek letter and for sure many non-believers prefer it for seeming to remove the name of Christ.
 
Many historians say that the first documents mentioning celebrating Christmas, date from the 4th century, when the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine declared Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire and decided that the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ needed to be a major yearly celebration.
 
The Calculation hypothesis, first proposed by the French priest and historian Louis Duchesne in 1889, says that December 25th was chosen for Jesus’ birth date because it was nine months after a date chosen as Jesus's conception by the Catholic church, March 25th, the Roman date of the spring equinox, according to “Wikipedia.” Other historians are saying that Emperor Constantine decided Christians should celebrate Christmas while pagans were celebrating their pagan god Saturn, so that it would unite in the same feast, around the winter solstice, so 25th of December seemed the right date for it. But was Jesus born on the 25th of December?

• Luke 1:26-27 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

 
Based on what the Bible says about time of the birth of Jesus, we know that the 25th of December could not be the right date. Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah was from the order of Abijah, which was the 8th priestly division according to 1 Chronicles 24:6-19, and served in the Temple of God during the tenth week of the priestly cycle. That week starts on the second Sabbath in the Jewish month of Sivan, which in our calendar is approximately from mid-May to mid-June. Soon after Zechariah returned from his Temple duties Elizabeth became pregnant with John the Baptist. And since six months later, the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive Jesus, that had to be in the month of Kislev (December). With the nine months that are needed for a normal pregnancy, since December leads to the conclusion that Jesus was born around the month of Tishri, which is mid to late September.
 
Besides all this, in the early days of United States, the Puritans banned celebrating Christmas, believing that celebrating birthdays would offend God. They considered that all martyrs, including Jesus should be celebrated only for their death. Celebrating Christmas has also been banned in various places and times throughout the earth, for many different reasons.
 
So, what should we do as Christians? Should we celebrate Christmas? The Bible urges us to praise the Lord at all times. In considering that, should we not praise our Savior and celebrate His birth?

• Psalm 34:1 I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

 

• Psalm 30:11-12 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, to the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

 
This is a personal choice that each person must make. Certainly, even if the date is wrong, how could it be wrong to celebrate the arrival of the Savior of all mankind?

In conclusion, Satan tried to steal God’s glory and get mankind to worship him instead of God, since he rebelled in heaven and he has never stopped. By getting people to focus on Santa Claus and even the Easter Bunny, and all kinds of distractions, he tries to exclude Jesus from Christmas, as well as Easter. But as long as we love our Lord and we do our part in telling the truth and worship the only true God, the Creator of the whole universe and Father of our Savior Jesus Christ, we can make a difference and help as many people as possible to find and follow the only real God that deserves all our worship, love and adoration! Only Jesus died for every single one of us, paying the penalty for our sins! Hallelujah, thank You Lord Jesus!