My husband and I decided that we were no longer going to celebrate Christmas about two years ago. Yes, you read that correctly. I am certain that your first response is surprise, since I have tried to be open about my Christian faith. This may be even more surprising considering the recent movie, Saving Christmas, produced by Kirk Cameron. You might also be thinking, but Christ is in Christmas or that Jesus is the reason for the season or other such commonly spoken sayings. Unfortunately, we believe that many of us have been lied to and deceived our entire lives when it comes to this holiday. I will try to explain our reasons for dropping this holiday from our list of celebrations. First, lets look at the date....December 25th. Many people know and recognize that this is not the actual birth date for Christ. But how was this date selected? This date was selected by the church in Constantine around 354 A.D. Thats right, it was first celebrated over 300 years AFTER Christ was dead, buried and resurrected. In other words, this was a man made holiday. But why? It is important to understand that the spread of Christianity was not going very well among the pagan cultures, especially with the history of martyred Christians. Nothing advertises quite so well as being fed to the lions, right?. In fact, many of them did not want to give up their current holidays and practices. Thus, once Christianity gained the support of Constantine, the churchs solution was to incorporate the pagan holidays by masking them with a Christian covering. In this particular case, the celebration of the winter solstice, or the birthday of the sun god, was masked as Christmas. This ultimately results in a conflict for us. Deuteronomy 12:1-4 states, These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God. Basically, we believe that this passage is telling us that God wanted all pagan altars, gods, and traditions to be destroyed. And that whatever it was that the pagans practiced was not to be done unto our God. We are further admonished in Jeremiah: Jeremiah 10:2 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. Deuteronomy 12:30-31 also advises that we are to Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. By participating in any celebration that originated with winter solstice, a pagan holiday, we have learned the way of the heathens. And I dont know about you, but we do not want to do or practice anything that God may consider to be an abomination. Secondly, we also take issue with certain traditions that are commonly practiced in celebration of this holiday. For example, lets take a look at the traditional holiday tree. Yep...the Christmas tree. Lets go back and look at Deuteronomy 12:1-4 again. See that phrase that I wrote above? And under every green tree. This is not the only reference that the Bible makes to a tree: Jeremiah 10:3-4 admonishes, For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. I find it truly amazing that God would provide such specific instructions in His Word that describe what we are doing today. Secondly, because this passage is in Jeremiah, which was a long time before the birth of Christ, we know that this was a pagan practice that had nothing to do with celebrating Christ. So, why are we doing this today? And dont forget the traditional song, Oh Christmas Tree, where we would actually sing about a tree provided pleasure and glee - things that we should be obtaining through Christ: O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree! Much pleasure thou canst give me; O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree! Much pleasure thou canst give me; How often has the Christmas tree Afforded me the greatest glee! O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree! Much pleasure thou canst give me. Finally, we have a tradition of using things like stars, angels, evergreens, and more to decorate our homes and trees in the spirit of the holidays. Unfortunately, God has something to say about this too: Exodus 20:4 instructs us, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: I dont know about you, but this passage seems to eliminate us manufacturing any type of ornament in the shape of any God-created item. We know that these types of images were carved in the temple, but that was, we believe, at Gods direction. This was not an easy decision for us to make. Both of us have fond memories of celebrating this time of year with family and friends. We also like to share the traditions of our past with our children. But we are not willing to celebrate any holidays that put us in opposition to God or His Word. We are planning on celebrating more Lords feasts throughout the year, which we will be happy to share with you; you need only let us know that you are interested. We understand that our decision may be puzzling to some and that others might disagree with our Biblical understanding. We are okay with that, too; however, we felt compelled to share our reasons with our family and friends (which includes YOU) in the hopes that our decision to not celebrate will be respected. It is our goal to live our lives as pleasing to God as possible. Of course, if anyone has any questions, we would be happy to do our best to answer them. Be blessed.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 01:30:58 +0000
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