I spoke to my brother not long after posting the blog 'The Great Lie of Christmas'. He informed me that he has never led his kids to believe there is a Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny or Santa Clause… and they are none the worse for the wear. They get just as many gifts as any other child and enjoy the experience as well as any child can. With one main difference! They have a crystal clear picture of what Christmas and Easter represent, and know that teeth falling out are part of growing, and cause for celebration within the family. They are young children who are just becoming of school age and when adults ask them; “what is Santa bringing you for Christmas?” There response is almost comical for some one of such a tender age. Their reply is something like; “There’s no Santa Clause, my parents by me presents. Christmas is Jesus’ Birthday. Santa has nothing to do with it!”
Wouldn’t it be great if every child in America could get the last part of that answer right?
But how can they? When instead if being in the world we have allowed them to become a part with it? The Bible tells us to be separate from those that live in this world 2 Corinthians 6:16-18. We are in the world but we are not to be part of the world system.
I think we have failed in this area when it comes to Easter and Christmas. These are two of the holiest of days we have as Christians. Yet they are polluted with the trappings of this world. The main reason we as Christians celebrate either of these days has to do with Jesus…yet He takes second place in most households behind Santa and the Easter bunny. And the traditions of both Easter and Christmas have trappings in pagan theology.
Here are two excerpts from The Restored Church of God.
This is a web site that investigates the origins of our Holidays.
The first is an excerpt surrounding Christmas, from: The Origins of Christmas
According to Langer’s Encyclopedia of World History, (article “Santa”), “Santa” was a common name for Nimrod throughout Asia Minor. This was also the same fire god who came down the chimneys of the ancient pagans and the same fire god to whom infants were burned and eaten in human sacrifice among those who were once God’s people.
Today Santa Claus comes from “Saint Nicholas.” Washington Irving, in 1809, is responsible for remaking the original old, stern bishop of this same name into the new “jolly St. Nick” in his Knickerbocker History of New York. (Most of the rest of America’s Christmas traditions are even more recent than this.) “Old Nick” has long been recognized as a term for the devil.
In Revelation 2:6 and 15, we read about a “doctrine of the Nicolaitanes,” which Christ twice tells His Church “[He] hates.” Let’s analyze the word Nicolaitane. It means “follower of Nicholas.” Nikos means “conqueror, destroyer.” Laos means, “people.” Nicolaitanes, then, are people who follow the conqueror or destroyer—Nimrod.
This is an excerpt about Easter, from: The Origins of Easter
Does the following sound familiar?—Spring is in the air! Flowers and bunnies decorate the home. Father helps the children paint beautiful designs on eggs dyed in various colors. These eggs, which will later be hidden and searched for, are placed into lovely, seasonal baskets. The wonderful aroma of the hot cross buns mother is baking in the oven waft through the house. Forty days of abstaining from special foods will finally end the next day. The whole family picks out their Sunday best to wear to the next morning’s sunrise worship service to celebrate the savior’s resurrection and the renewal of life. Everyone looks forward to a succulent ham with all the trimmings. It will be a thrilling day. After all, it is one of the most important religious holidays of the year.
Easter, right? No! This is a description of an ancient Babylonian family—2,000 years before Christ—honoring the resurrection of their god, Tammuz, who was brought back from the underworld by his mother/wife, Ishtar (after whom the festival was named). As Ishtar was actually pronounced “Easter” in most Semitic dialects, it could be said that the event portrayed here is, in a sense, Easter. Of course, the occasion could easily have been a Phrygian family honoring Attis and Cybele, or perhaps a Phoenician family worshipping Adonis and Astarte. Also fitting the description well would be a heretic Israelite family honoring the Canaanite Baal and Ashtoreth. Or this depiction could just as easily represent any number of other immoral, pagan fertility celebrations of death and resurrection—including the modern Easter celebration as it has come to us through the Anglo-Saxon fertility rites of the goddess Eostre or Ostara. These are all the same festivals, separated only by time and culture.
We may have changed these original pagan reasons for the season to flow around Jesus… but as Christians I think we need to take a lot closer look at the symbolism behind most of the traditions we allow to inhabit what we accept to be the holiest of holidays for us.
God gave the Israelites a multitude of days and seasons to celebrate their separation from the world unto Him-self. I am not advocating we return to Jewish tradition…
But I am an advocate for taking the two holidays we have as Americans to celebrate Jesus’ Birth, Death and Resurrection and making them 'Holy Days', to teach our children what an awesome God we celebrate. With out introducing pagan ritual or institutionalized commercialism to water it down and make it something less than what it is.
Let us be salt and light to a lost world… let us be wholly, Holy unto God… and teach our children by word and deed to be the same.
I encourage you to read in their entirety The Origins of Christmas and The Origins of Easter. There is much more there than the two small excerpts that I pulled out. It is an eye opener to the perversion we have allowed to infiltrate the days of celebration that we have earmarked for the Awesome God that we serve.
1 comment:
your blog is very good......
Post a Comment