So my daughters and sons in laws (brothers) have decided to worship God as Messianic Jews (they have chosen Jesus as Saviour and Believe he is the Son of God) because rather than the Baptist church they were raised in which tended to avoid many tough subjects and lightly skim through others rather than delve in depth to learn, teach and understand, they wanted to learn and use entire Bible (as God intended)
My dilemma is that they have sent me a link following several discussions regarding why not to celebrate Christmas due to pagan roots So I read up on the history of Christmas. Yes, the cut tree, the red and green lights and ribbons and the wreath and mistletoe all have pagan origins, however no one knows the exact date of Jesus birth since they did not keep track and from what I gather, it sounds like worshipping God as Christians was banned and punishable by death in many countries and cultures blending these cultures with celebrating Jesus birth became a way of basically worshipping in secret and the gifts represent the gifts the wise men brought To Mary and Joseph. And the lights are like blending in Hannukah as well. Never did get into the whole Santa thing.
Both our son in laws parents (friends of ours) and my husband and I still want to get everyone together and celebrate Christmas and believe the kids are being legalistic. Currently one of our daughters and her family wish to go do something else because they don’t agree.
Praying they come around,
May I get yall’s thoughts please.
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I'm a bit busy to check this now, but I recall the bible mentioning Jesus being born around the time that shepherd's were tending young lambs... so we can estimate which month Jesus was born.
Our family celebrates Jesus Christ's birth on December 25, but without any of the Pagan associations. We have no gift-giving or tree cutting or flashing lights or mistletoe and instead everyone is asked to cook one side dish for everyone else to enjoy and our family invites Jesus to celebrate his birth with us.
We set a place at the head of the table for Jesus Christ. We recognize that we don't know Jesus exact birth date and we each speak of acts or teachings of Jesus Christ that was specifically important to us during the year.
I think that is a good compromise.
EDIT: With enough research, I wonder if we could narrow down Jesus' birth date even further. If we could narrow it down to a few weeks then we may attract enough traction to move Christmas to a more accurate date and abandon the Pagan aspects. I'd like to see the needless consumerism of Christmas replaced by caring for strangers as a gift to our Lord and Savior.
AMEN