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.
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.