I think… YES!
Why? Because we’re winning… BIGLY!
It seems like at every turn we’re winning. Many have suffered in this war, many tragic episodes. Unfortunately, real war takes much.
The reason I’m posting this is because many of us know that tomorrow isn’t Jesus’ birthday. It feels a bit hollow knowing that.
BUT, why not blaze a path towards true understanding? Just try again.
To be honest, I don’t worry much about when it happened, as much as the fact that it DID happen. I believe that God became man and His sacrifice on the Cross and His blood are what matter most. What saves us.
Do I believe that the Son of God was born on 12/25? Nah, don’t. But if we can humble ourselves and try to love them, maybe we can heal faster. I don’t know, but I hope.
We’re winning. Let’s Celebrate the Love of Christ.
Thank you, and you're exactly right. But TBH I think the calender was deliberately misdated by Dionysius Exiguus about 900 years ago.... so much history has been hidden by this, see e.g. Formenko's New Chronology.... the film has been playing for centuries now...
Yes, in 525 AD. It's a great joy to recover God's festivals and chosen appointments! I tell people that Jesus celebrated Hanukkah (the translation of "Dedication" in John 10:22).
There’s a lot of people here who aren’t ready for that one!
I’m curious what the Hanukkah celebration of his day looked like. Bet it wasn’t gambling for chocolate with dice rolling while listening to moronic Elton John spoof songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Z4WE-kt64
Same with Haman at Purim. Let’s make cookies of his cut-off ears while booing him, because we are truly more righteous!
This probably isn’t fully right either, but Hanukkah strikes me as something of a more righteous version of The Alamo, in the first level of understanding, before moving on to the deeper levels of what evils had been done and the deeper truths of what is involved in restoring and maintaining the temple. I’m sure there’s much deeper than that, too. How would the feast be put on top of that and what would it look like?
Reweigh all the traditions. The foundation is Scripture, test it all, hold to what is good, and rebuild carefully.
Great question. It seems to me that clay tops (dreidels), oily foods like potato pancakes (latkes), and gaming for counters like beans (bupkes, no just kidding) could have been part of the celebration early, with the game being themed toward the motto of miracle. But probably not all by Jesus's time, because the book of Maccabees would be read but it doesn't include the miracle of the oil, which was added later, whether it was originally oral history or just legend. Also in early centuries some would drip drops of honey on the parchment scrolls to give the kids a positive tactile experience of a Torah, though that's not necessarily festival-related. And "6:13" is rather scattershot in their hits and misses.
John doesn't tell us how to celebrate. The temple menorah had seven branches so the ability of the ordinary person to remember the occasion with a nine-branched menorah sounds more European.
Purim is to be celebrated with great rejoicing and this is taken as being more raucous than other festivals, but I don't know the ages of traditional foods. Certainly all these festivals are encrusted with cultural layers just like Christmas.
"Reweigh all the traditions" is a great watchword! In my reweighing I've just started saying "Merry Christmas" more often!
Oddly, the same, while not celebrating it anymore, and not by choice.
It’s tied to Christ right now, for better or worse. Rejecting it publicly seems counterproductive.
There are likely things to work through within the body, while keeping appearances without.
As with fasting. Let your appearance be that you are not.
https://greatawakening.win/p/19A0yDrIgQ/x/c/4ZHkHvGgI4e
I’m putting this comment over here, rather than there, specifically to hopefully keep other eyes off of it. (So as to not be Debbie Downer)
One of the hardest things there is to do is to point out things like this in love…
It can be hard enough to realize them, but much harder to communicate them where they can be heard.
I enjoyed Santa Claus growing up, knowing from a very young age that he didn’t exist, because we didn’t even have a chimney, come on, pull the other leg, but meant I woke up to a load of new toys that I got to pick out and order, and even with being dumb enough to open my mouth about it, my parents kept getting me cool new stuff every year anyway.
My cousins either did believe in Santa or pretended they did for the fringe benefits into their adulthoods. Was an absolutely untouchable thing for them.
Other children, people I’ve known, will find out Santa isn’t real, ask “what else did you lie to me about? Where is your evidence that Jesus is real, you liar?” then spend 10, 20, 30 years… or a lifetime… wandering in the desert in rejection of salvation and righteousness.
Because of a “fun story”.
We can point things out like this with our families, and endure the fracturing and heartbreak it does and will create, but is there a better way?
How do we break through the lies in love?
How do we break through the genuine, heartfelt, warm feelings we had as children to get through to the truth?
I know this, I’d sooner try to eat a live cat than kick off a comment to joys1daughter with the sentence “Santa is evil!” after she just merrily posted the Santa NORAD tracker…
Father, we are a stiff-necked people, and there are so many lies, and we are so prone to error, please have mercy on us.
Be blessed and welcome, u/GaetzIsInnocent
I don’t know how we do those things fren. I struggle all the time with “knowing” that what we have been told are lies. (I’m not saying I know all the truths either, but like most here I’m constantly looking for them).
All I’m saying is to meet “them” (friends and family) where they are now. They need love and understanding even if many don’t deserve it.
I cringe at the spells put on people, but I believe that God (with our help) can change many of them. The truth will be waiting for them in bite size morsels.
Thanks for the thoughtful post.
St. Nicholas was actually real but nothing in the way like Santa Claus is portrayed. Yes he left food items in the shoes of those in need because in that time, people actually left their shoes outside by the door. We have a pastor that talks a good bit about the real "St. Nick" at Christmastime which is pretty interesting.
Sometimes it feels like Christmas is no different than a facebook post where some people feel really good about themselves while others are left feeling not so good about themselves.
When I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, Christmas became almost meaningless to me. Easter has become more important but not in the typical way. For me, were it not for Easter, then all is in vain. (My apologies for going all Ecclesiastes here).