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 keep telling them, if not for Jesus birth, where would the importance in His death and resurrection be?
I suspect they probably honor His birth at a different time of year, early to mid - fall. Many Messianic Congregations for a variety of reasons believe Jesus was born around the time of Sukkot, also known as the feast of Tabernacles or Booths. This would (BTW) put His entrance into Mary's (Miriam's) womb around the time of Christmas and Hanukkah. Part of the reasoning behind this comes from some hints dropped in Scripture, such as in John 1 where it says: He dwelt among us, (literally, tabernacled) and the shepherds were watching the sheep in the fields (it would be too cold and rainy to watch them in the fields if Messiah had been born in the winter, the shepherds would be in the caves) There are other reasons, some of which are here: https://jewishroots.net/library/messianic/was-the-birth-of-christ-during-tabernacles.html
https://www.christianforums.com/threads/yeshua-concieved-at-hanukkah-born-at-sukkot.7319831/
Yes, my daughter mentioned some of this, yet she also said that early Christians believed celebrating birthdays was a pagan thing so they don’t celebrate it at all, which is totally oxymoronic considering they celebrate the kids’ birthdays but have decided to eliminate candles on cakes. So many thing they have begun doing make no sense to me.
I tried to reason with her telling both she and my son n law that if not for Jesus birth then where would the importance in his death and resurrection be?