Post by JEM on Dec 31, 2008 4:57:44 GMT
WHY DO WE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS?
==================================
What a mixture our modern Christmas is from feasts, dinners and parties;
dances and pantomime. Sales, long queues, congested streets, late night shopping, lights strung across roads, trees lit up in public squares and in business and public buildings entrances, lots of people buying lots of goods.
Overdrawn credit accounts, endless playing of Christmas music in the shopping malls and streets, remarkable decorations, and houses overburdened with electric displays, special shows on television, competition for the latest hit disc or computer game or accessory. Carol singers outside supermarkets raising money for charities, the endless run of begging letters from every conceivable charity from save the ponies to defending battered wives; millions of cards changing hands,
Santas all over the place, and the other side of the coin, recession, depression, insolvency, redundancy, thousands of families having lost their homes by repossession, or war, suffering acute poverty from the collapse in currencies or genocide in Africa, people suffering from famine, want, debt, and illhealth. Even religion trying to push it’s snout in the trough.
For a few it may be a season of peace and goodwill. For many it is a struggle to survive. Why is it so?
Because at this season of the year several events take place that were started centuries ago, long before Christ appeared as a baby at Bethlehem and have become traditional and merged into one.
Several millennia ago a large boat came to rest on a hillside in the Caucasian mountains after a great flood had deluged the landscape over a large area.
From it stepped out 8 people and a quantity of animals, all pleased for access to fresh air after being cooped up in the boat for 150 days.
From these four human couples descended 38 royal families of the nations, and millions of those who now inhabit this planet. The oldest of the group, we now call Noah, and when they left what became called the Ark, they made a stone altar, and an animal was sacrificed and they gave thanks for their deliverance to the one true God the Creator of all things.
At that stage they all believed in, and from experience knew, the one true God and they freely worshipped him.
Then along came the children, one of whom was Nimrod. He became the builder of towns, a mighty warrior, and a rebel. His generation made gods of their own which grew into the religions of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, India and China.
It is from Babylon that a lot of our Christmas customs and traditions originate.
From the title of this event, Christmas, one might suppose that it originated with Jesus Christ to be observed annually by those who believe in him, the Christians, who formed the original thousands of congregations across Europe, the middle East and North Africa that together were to be His Church.
NO! He did not teach it, and they for several centuries did not celebrate it.
====================================================
It was invented in the 4th century AD by Roman Catholicism, a religion that grew out of the original Christian movement of those who trusted in Jesus Christ and tried to live as he had taught.
This Roman Catholicism all but destroyed the original true Christian movement by slaughtering millions of people world wide, as they took over dominating the affairs of nations for long centuries led by their Pope, until first the kings of the nations and then the people themselves who elected their governments learned to defy and to oppose this domination.
In Britain there was a Christian Church of many congregations whose first were established before there was a Church at Rome and remained independent of Rome for 5 centuries and joined with Rome in 6th century with great reluctance and misgiving at the Synod of Whitby
For the next 1000 years members of that original movement continued to resist but when they were arrested they were usually executed and often burnt alive so proving that Roman Catholics, in fact had nothing whatever to do with Jesus Christ, who had taught tolerance, urged people to forgive each other and love one another.
However in the 14th century the Greek Christian New Testament was rediscovered. That blew the lid off Roman Catholicism and all it’s false teaching and wrong doing. As this Greek New Testament was translated into German, French, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Dutch, and English it sparked off the Reformation that changed the face of Europe and eventually Earth and liberated the true Church of Jesus Christ.
Of course Roman Catholicism reacted violently against any that opposed them much as Islam does today, but eventually as millions left them they had to make some changes to their beliefs and practices. Today that religion still persists and still is led by a Pope, who since the 13th century has claimed the title Vicar of Christ, which he never has been, and from the 19th century has claimed to be infallible, which means incapable of making a mistake or misleading people which was, is and always will be self deluding deceitful rubbish as the long history of popes proves. Naturally any criticism of them is likely to antagonise them.
The original movement of Christians formed congregations whose members elected and confirmed their leaders, with each one having a pastor and deacons.
Some also later had elders. Widows of martyrs also formed an influential group. There was no overall leader over all the congregations. Eventually many congregations in a geographical region associated together and appointed a bishop who had responsibility to care for all the pastors and congregations within his region but not to order them about.
These bishops were based at such Christian centres as Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, Cordoba, Marseilles, and Rome.
Eventually the bishops of Rome and Alexandria ganged up against the bishop of Antioch and started ordering everyone about and naturally this was resisted.
Out of that came the Holy Catholic Church as a universal organisation, but that soon split into the West Catholics directed from Rome and the East Catholics directed from Constantinople, the Roman Empire’s new capital. The East Catholics became the Orthodox Churches as they are today, and the West Catholics became the Roman Catholic Church,
The Roman Catholic Church has been through internal reformation, and counter reformation and at the Second Vatican Council during the 20th century many reforms were made including authorising that services no longer be conducted in Latin but in the local language, and in encouraging the reading of the Bible by the ordinary people - the laity - in their own language, but it is still the Catholic Bible not the Protestant Reformation Bibles. Since the publication of the New International Version on whose committee Roman Catholics were represented, Catholics have been encouraged to read it..
But while the Roman Catholics persist in celebrating the Mass, their particularly objectionable form of the communion, while they continue to have a priestly hierarchy culminating with a Pope or international universal leader of the Church, who regards himself in a direct apostolic descent from St Peter and as the Vicar of Christ on Earth and infallible, and while they still venerate Mary as the Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, unity with the other Christian churches is impossible, and undesirable.
Direct unity between Protestant Churches is similarly impossible while some communions baptise babies who are incapable of themselves believing.
Believers Baptism by total Immersion was the norm of the early church until midway through the 3rd century and persisted in many places for the first 5 centuries until the churches were all forced by the authority of the Pope supported by the Emperor to obey the directions of the Vatican, rather than the Word of God.
So this has divided from one another on the one side
[ 1 ] Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist and United Reformed Churches from
[ 2 ] Baptist, Brethren, Free Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches. and
[ 3 ] The Quakers and the Salvation Army who do not practice Baptism in any form nor Communion, which creates another division.
Over the nature, purpose and method of baptism unity between all Christians is impossible although even modern churches observing the Baptism of believers only, by total immersion, differ from the method of the early Church in which converts after waiting for at least a 3 year probation period of discipleship and a 6 week course in Bible supported doctrine, were then baptised 3 times at a time, once in the name of the Father, then in the name of the Son and then in the Name of the Holy Spirit.
At no time did Jesus Christ resign his leadership of His universal Church to a Vicar. Jesus Christ when he was here on Earth said that “he was a King but his kingdom was not of this world. He had come from a Kingdom, to set it up on Earth and draw people out of all nationalities into it and he would come again at a later date after lots of things had happened here and when His father, the Creator God gave the orders.
His return to Earth is the next epoch making event to happen but it cannot do so until His conditions are fulfilled and his message has been delivered to every human on the planet, and there are at least a couple of billion who have not yet heard about him.
Of course many people by choice have rejected it all as false, an illusion, a widely repeated lie, but to as many as believed God has promised they will be children of God and live for ever. For them true life on Earth is terminated by death but continues after death in another place.
The Christians of the first few centuries did not observe Christmas nor did they baptise babies, celebrate Mass, nor observe Lent, Good Friday, Ascension, Advent nor Saints Days.
These are all inventions of that other religion, Roman Catholicism
led by their Pope, that dominated Europe for over 1200 years from the 4th century, and almost destroyed true Christianity while slaughtering millions of it’s followers.
That began to change during the Reformation in the 16th century with the rediscovery of the Greek New Testament, lost for centuries, and then translated into other European languages which revealed the errors of Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholicism came into existence in the 4th. Century AD when Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity in gratitude for a military victory that gave him the throne. In the 5th century AD all Romans were ordered to observe Dec 25th as the Mass of Christ, or Birthday of Christ. Many did not follow their emperor in becoming Christians. But they accepted Dec 25th as a day for partying as it was already a Mithraic feast, and the cult of Mithras was an all male club.
They got it from the Egyptians as in their religion it was the birthday of the son of Isis the Egyptian name for their “Queen of Heaven”
The Egyptians got it from the Babylonian Cult of Nimrod, as it was the birthday of Nimrod, the son of Ham, and grandson of Noah.
Nimrod is credited with having started the rebellion against God which is now worldwide . His name in Hebrew is Marad, meaning The Rebel.
Nimrod built the tower of Babel and became the King of Babylonia (situated in Modern Iraq). He began the system of organised competition, known as capitalism, of man-ruled governments and empires and profit making economic systems which has become the consumer society. It is recorded that he married his mother Semiramis.
When Nimrod died young, his mother-wife Semiramis claimed that he had returned to this world as a spirit that caused a tree stump to grow instantly into an evergreen tree. Each year on his birthday she draped the tree with decorations and gifts. This is the real origin of the Christmas Tree even if Martin Luther reinvented it after visiting a forest in Germany, and Queen Victoria’s husband Albert popularised it here in the 19th century.
Semiramis, became the Queen of Heaven of the Babylonian religion and Nimrod became the false messiah, the son of Baal the Sun God. The two of them became the Madonna and Child of the Babylonian religion the worship of whom spread all over the world and is known in Asia as Cybele and Deoius, In Egypt as Isis and Osiris, in pagan Rome as Fortuna and Jupiterpuer; and it even appears in other forms in Greece, China, Japan, and Tibet.
So much of our traditional Christmas has been going on for thousands of years long before the birth of Christ. and since then, a lot more traditions have been added including carol singing, the myths of Santa Claus, and from the 19th century the exchange of Christmas cards .
Roman Catholicism found it hard to stop pagan ways so they super imposed Biblical events on top of pagan customs.
They produced the season of preparation for the coming of Christ - Advent -super imposed upon the pagan Roman Feast of Saturnalia Dec 17-24
including the winter solstice and the cult of the ever living Sol (The Sun) culminating with the Feast of Brumalia on Dec 25 the celebration that began with Nimrod.
The traditions of the Yule log, Feasting with wine and food, decorations, decorated trees, and exchanging of gifts therefore goes back at least 3,500 years to the Cult of Nimrod and the ancient Babylonian religion.
The birth of Jesus the Christ was not upon Dec 25th
==========================================
It was not celebrated by the apostles who led by Jesus Christ founded the Christian Church, nor did the early church, begin to observe Christmas until the 4th century AD and then it was ordered to be observed by the RC Pope in the 5th century who had no authority from Christ to do so.
It was not until the 19th century that Roman Catholicism declared the Pope to be infallible, incapable of making mistakes. Who made this decision and pronouncement? Well it was the then self obsessed Pope, liar that he undoubtedly was. It was rubbish then, and it is rubbish now and it has always been rubbish.
The birth of Jesus could not have been on Dec 25th since shepherds were on the hills above Bethlehem and were summoned to go and worship the new born King, Jesus Christ at a stable in Bethlehem. Had this been in December the weather would have been too cold and wet for sheep to be on the hills at all in day or night. They would have been in stables.
What is more they were not ordinary sheep but especially bred to provide animals for the sacrifices in the Temple at Jerusalem,
The most likely time for the birth of Jesus would be in Sept or Oct, earlier than Oct 15th It has also been claimed as during March although the claim for that is based on their month of Marchesvan which corresponds to a period from mid October to mid November in our calendar which was the season of the first rain of the agricultural year. By December all sheep would have been indoors
It is falsely claimed that we exchange gifts at Christmas because of the example of the 3 Wise Men giving Jesus gifts on his birthday, but it was not his birthday as they arrived when he had grown from being a baby into a young child living with his parents in a house not a stable. They did not exchange gifts amongst themselves or anyone else, they presented gifts to Jesus as was then, as now, customary to a head of state.
The giving of gifts to children, and then by them to adults arises from stories about St Nicholas a bishop of Myra , who was said to have given monitory gifts for dowries to the 3 daughters of an impoverished man so enabling them to get married. His saint’s day was January 6th. and the legend grew that on the eve of that day he would visit the homes of children who had been good and bring them a gift ( not a stocking full; not a pillowcase or sack full, just one single gift each.
This tradition persists on the continent but in England it has transferred to Christmas Eve Dec 24th.
So each set of babies born are told by their parents whom they should be able to trust, the lie about Santa Claus or Father Christmas, and when they are a bit older and discover the truth that they were lied to, some of them think “Is anything Mum and Dad say really true? So undermining parental authority and causing many of the nations ills. Some children then say “Well is this whole God thing a lie too?”
As one little lad was overheard to say to his friend, how disillusioned he was in his deceitful parents over the Santa Claus affair, and the other one said Yes, I know and I’m going to look into the Jesus Christ business too. Thus are sown from earliest years the seeds of unbelief and rebellion.
About 400 years ago during the English Civil War the Puritan Parliament abolished the observation of Christmas as papal ( of the Pope) and pagan. It became illegal to do so on pain of imprisonment.
The ban may have been observed in some cities and towns but in rural England it was widely ignored on the grounds that “Them Londoners did not know what they were talking about” and because people enjoyed feasting and the old customs. Christmas was officially restored with the restoration of the Monarchy.
Jehovah’s Witnesses do not observe Christmas, as they deny that Jesus Christ is, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, GOD, The Triune God known as The Trinity; and who regard the Holy Spirit as a force or power, not a person.
So where does all this leave us today?
No one has the authority to impose Christmas on any of us.
We don’t have to send Christmas cards.
We don’t have to exchange Christmas presents and certainly not spend a mint on children and grandchildren who think they have some right to expect or demand expensive toys and gadgets.
We don’t have to put up decorations, or have lighted trees, or party. We should tolerate those who do wish to do so. Christians may by choice observe Christmas, or by choice ignore it.
There is in Norfolk a group, the Humbugs, and similar groups elsewhere of pagans, followers of the pre-Christian religion of Britain, and atheists who do not believe in any God, who regard Christmas as a time to retreat to pubs and other places where Christmas has by mutual consent been banned.. They amuse themselves in other ways but raise large sums of money for useful charities.
The central purpose of Christian Christmas is to worship God, with gratitude and thanks giving for God’s gift beyond words of prepacked love, Jesus Christ, the boy born to be king. By whose teachings, life, sacrifice, and victory over death we have confidence of eternal life and reason to celebrate and share in loving.
WE MAY CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS in what ever way we loke providing Jesus Christ is at centre stage and we love Him. We need not observe it by the rite and custom of any church or dictated to how we do it, It is not Church traditions, Pagan traditions or Secular Consumeristic traditions that should dominate us but love for God, for Jesus and for other people who need our help
==============================================
==================================
What a mixture our modern Christmas is from feasts, dinners and parties;
dances and pantomime. Sales, long queues, congested streets, late night shopping, lights strung across roads, trees lit up in public squares and in business and public buildings entrances, lots of people buying lots of goods.
Overdrawn credit accounts, endless playing of Christmas music in the shopping malls and streets, remarkable decorations, and houses overburdened with electric displays, special shows on television, competition for the latest hit disc or computer game or accessory. Carol singers outside supermarkets raising money for charities, the endless run of begging letters from every conceivable charity from save the ponies to defending battered wives; millions of cards changing hands,
Santas all over the place, and the other side of the coin, recession, depression, insolvency, redundancy, thousands of families having lost their homes by repossession, or war, suffering acute poverty from the collapse in currencies or genocide in Africa, people suffering from famine, want, debt, and illhealth. Even religion trying to push it’s snout in the trough.
For a few it may be a season of peace and goodwill. For many it is a struggle to survive. Why is it so?
Because at this season of the year several events take place that were started centuries ago, long before Christ appeared as a baby at Bethlehem and have become traditional and merged into one.
Several millennia ago a large boat came to rest on a hillside in the Caucasian mountains after a great flood had deluged the landscape over a large area.
From it stepped out 8 people and a quantity of animals, all pleased for access to fresh air after being cooped up in the boat for 150 days.
From these four human couples descended 38 royal families of the nations, and millions of those who now inhabit this planet. The oldest of the group, we now call Noah, and when they left what became called the Ark, they made a stone altar, and an animal was sacrificed and they gave thanks for their deliverance to the one true God the Creator of all things.
At that stage they all believed in, and from experience knew, the one true God and they freely worshipped him.
Then along came the children, one of whom was Nimrod. He became the builder of towns, a mighty warrior, and a rebel. His generation made gods of their own which grew into the religions of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, India and China.
It is from Babylon that a lot of our Christmas customs and traditions originate.
From the title of this event, Christmas, one might suppose that it originated with Jesus Christ to be observed annually by those who believe in him, the Christians, who formed the original thousands of congregations across Europe, the middle East and North Africa that together were to be His Church.
NO! He did not teach it, and they for several centuries did not celebrate it.
====================================================
It was invented in the 4th century AD by Roman Catholicism, a religion that grew out of the original Christian movement of those who trusted in Jesus Christ and tried to live as he had taught.
This Roman Catholicism all but destroyed the original true Christian movement by slaughtering millions of people world wide, as they took over dominating the affairs of nations for long centuries led by their Pope, until first the kings of the nations and then the people themselves who elected their governments learned to defy and to oppose this domination.
In Britain there was a Christian Church of many congregations whose first were established before there was a Church at Rome and remained independent of Rome for 5 centuries and joined with Rome in 6th century with great reluctance and misgiving at the Synod of Whitby
For the next 1000 years members of that original movement continued to resist but when they were arrested they were usually executed and often burnt alive so proving that Roman Catholics, in fact had nothing whatever to do with Jesus Christ, who had taught tolerance, urged people to forgive each other and love one another.
However in the 14th century the Greek Christian New Testament was rediscovered. That blew the lid off Roman Catholicism and all it’s false teaching and wrong doing. As this Greek New Testament was translated into German, French, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Dutch, and English it sparked off the Reformation that changed the face of Europe and eventually Earth and liberated the true Church of Jesus Christ.
Of course Roman Catholicism reacted violently against any that opposed them much as Islam does today, but eventually as millions left them they had to make some changes to their beliefs and practices. Today that religion still persists and still is led by a Pope, who since the 13th century has claimed the title Vicar of Christ, which he never has been, and from the 19th century has claimed to be infallible, which means incapable of making a mistake or misleading people which was, is and always will be self deluding deceitful rubbish as the long history of popes proves. Naturally any criticism of them is likely to antagonise them.
The original movement of Christians formed congregations whose members elected and confirmed their leaders, with each one having a pastor and deacons.
Some also later had elders. Widows of martyrs also formed an influential group. There was no overall leader over all the congregations. Eventually many congregations in a geographical region associated together and appointed a bishop who had responsibility to care for all the pastors and congregations within his region but not to order them about.
These bishops were based at such Christian centres as Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, Cordoba, Marseilles, and Rome.
Eventually the bishops of Rome and Alexandria ganged up against the bishop of Antioch and started ordering everyone about and naturally this was resisted.
Out of that came the Holy Catholic Church as a universal organisation, but that soon split into the West Catholics directed from Rome and the East Catholics directed from Constantinople, the Roman Empire’s new capital. The East Catholics became the Orthodox Churches as they are today, and the West Catholics became the Roman Catholic Church,
The Roman Catholic Church has been through internal reformation, and counter reformation and at the Second Vatican Council during the 20th century many reforms were made including authorising that services no longer be conducted in Latin but in the local language, and in encouraging the reading of the Bible by the ordinary people - the laity - in their own language, but it is still the Catholic Bible not the Protestant Reformation Bibles. Since the publication of the New International Version on whose committee Roman Catholics were represented, Catholics have been encouraged to read it..
But while the Roman Catholics persist in celebrating the Mass, their particularly objectionable form of the communion, while they continue to have a priestly hierarchy culminating with a Pope or international universal leader of the Church, who regards himself in a direct apostolic descent from St Peter and as the Vicar of Christ on Earth and infallible, and while they still venerate Mary as the Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, unity with the other Christian churches is impossible, and undesirable.
Direct unity between Protestant Churches is similarly impossible while some communions baptise babies who are incapable of themselves believing.
Believers Baptism by total Immersion was the norm of the early church until midway through the 3rd century and persisted in many places for the first 5 centuries until the churches were all forced by the authority of the Pope supported by the Emperor to obey the directions of the Vatican, rather than the Word of God.
So this has divided from one another on the one side
[ 1 ] Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist and United Reformed Churches from
[ 2 ] Baptist, Brethren, Free Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches. and
[ 3 ] The Quakers and the Salvation Army who do not practice Baptism in any form nor Communion, which creates another division.
Over the nature, purpose and method of baptism unity between all Christians is impossible although even modern churches observing the Baptism of believers only, by total immersion, differ from the method of the early Church in which converts after waiting for at least a 3 year probation period of discipleship and a 6 week course in Bible supported doctrine, were then baptised 3 times at a time, once in the name of the Father, then in the name of the Son and then in the Name of the Holy Spirit.
At no time did Jesus Christ resign his leadership of His universal Church to a Vicar. Jesus Christ when he was here on Earth said that “he was a King but his kingdom was not of this world. He had come from a Kingdom, to set it up on Earth and draw people out of all nationalities into it and he would come again at a later date after lots of things had happened here and when His father, the Creator God gave the orders.
His return to Earth is the next epoch making event to happen but it cannot do so until His conditions are fulfilled and his message has been delivered to every human on the planet, and there are at least a couple of billion who have not yet heard about him.
Of course many people by choice have rejected it all as false, an illusion, a widely repeated lie, but to as many as believed God has promised they will be children of God and live for ever. For them true life on Earth is terminated by death but continues after death in another place.
The Christians of the first few centuries did not observe Christmas nor did they baptise babies, celebrate Mass, nor observe Lent, Good Friday, Ascension, Advent nor Saints Days.
These are all inventions of that other religion, Roman Catholicism
led by their Pope, that dominated Europe for over 1200 years from the 4th century, and almost destroyed true Christianity while slaughtering millions of it’s followers.
That began to change during the Reformation in the 16th century with the rediscovery of the Greek New Testament, lost for centuries, and then translated into other European languages which revealed the errors of Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholicism came into existence in the 4th. Century AD when Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity in gratitude for a military victory that gave him the throne. In the 5th century AD all Romans were ordered to observe Dec 25th as the Mass of Christ, or Birthday of Christ. Many did not follow their emperor in becoming Christians. But they accepted Dec 25th as a day for partying as it was already a Mithraic feast, and the cult of Mithras was an all male club.
They got it from the Egyptians as in their religion it was the birthday of the son of Isis the Egyptian name for their “Queen of Heaven”
The Egyptians got it from the Babylonian Cult of Nimrod, as it was the birthday of Nimrod, the son of Ham, and grandson of Noah.
Nimrod is credited with having started the rebellion against God which is now worldwide . His name in Hebrew is Marad, meaning The Rebel.
Nimrod built the tower of Babel and became the King of Babylonia (situated in Modern Iraq). He began the system of organised competition, known as capitalism, of man-ruled governments and empires and profit making economic systems which has become the consumer society. It is recorded that he married his mother Semiramis.
When Nimrod died young, his mother-wife Semiramis claimed that he had returned to this world as a spirit that caused a tree stump to grow instantly into an evergreen tree. Each year on his birthday she draped the tree with decorations and gifts. This is the real origin of the Christmas Tree even if Martin Luther reinvented it after visiting a forest in Germany, and Queen Victoria’s husband Albert popularised it here in the 19th century.
Semiramis, became the Queen of Heaven of the Babylonian religion and Nimrod became the false messiah, the son of Baal the Sun God. The two of them became the Madonna and Child of the Babylonian religion the worship of whom spread all over the world and is known in Asia as Cybele and Deoius, In Egypt as Isis and Osiris, in pagan Rome as Fortuna and Jupiterpuer; and it even appears in other forms in Greece, China, Japan, and Tibet.
So much of our traditional Christmas has been going on for thousands of years long before the birth of Christ. and since then, a lot more traditions have been added including carol singing, the myths of Santa Claus, and from the 19th century the exchange of Christmas cards .
Roman Catholicism found it hard to stop pagan ways so they super imposed Biblical events on top of pagan customs.
They produced the season of preparation for the coming of Christ - Advent -super imposed upon the pagan Roman Feast of Saturnalia Dec 17-24
including the winter solstice and the cult of the ever living Sol (The Sun) culminating with the Feast of Brumalia on Dec 25 the celebration that began with Nimrod.
The traditions of the Yule log, Feasting with wine and food, decorations, decorated trees, and exchanging of gifts therefore goes back at least 3,500 years to the Cult of Nimrod and the ancient Babylonian religion.
The birth of Jesus the Christ was not upon Dec 25th
==========================================
It was not celebrated by the apostles who led by Jesus Christ founded the Christian Church, nor did the early church, begin to observe Christmas until the 4th century AD and then it was ordered to be observed by the RC Pope in the 5th century who had no authority from Christ to do so.
It was not until the 19th century that Roman Catholicism declared the Pope to be infallible, incapable of making mistakes. Who made this decision and pronouncement? Well it was the then self obsessed Pope, liar that he undoubtedly was. It was rubbish then, and it is rubbish now and it has always been rubbish.
The birth of Jesus could not have been on Dec 25th since shepherds were on the hills above Bethlehem and were summoned to go and worship the new born King, Jesus Christ at a stable in Bethlehem. Had this been in December the weather would have been too cold and wet for sheep to be on the hills at all in day or night. They would have been in stables.
What is more they were not ordinary sheep but especially bred to provide animals for the sacrifices in the Temple at Jerusalem,
The most likely time for the birth of Jesus would be in Sept or Oct, earlier than Oct 15th It has also been claimed as during March although the claim for that is based on their month of Marchesvan which corresponds to a period from mid October to mid November in our calendar which was the season of the first rain of the agricultural year. By December all sheep would have been indoors
It is falsely claimed that we exchange gifts at Christmas because of the example of the 3 Wise Men giving Jesus gifts on his birthday, but it was not his birthday as they arrived when he had grown from being a baby into a young child living with his parents in a house not a stable. They did not exchange gifts amongst themselves or anyone else, they presented gifts to Jesus as was then, as now, customary to a head of state.
The giving of gifts to children, and then by them to adults arises from stories about St Nicholas a bishop of Myra , who was said to have given monitory gifts for dowries to the 3 daughters of an impoverished man so enabling them to get married. His saint’s day was January 6th. and the legend grew that on the eve of that day he would visit the homes of children who had been good and bring them a gift ( not a stocking full; not a pillowcase or sack full, just one single gift each.
This tradition persists on the continent but in England it has transferred to Christmas Eve Dec 24th.
So each set of babies born are told by their parents whom they should be able to trust, the lie about Santa Claus or Father Christmas, and when they are a bit older and discover the truth that they were lied to, some of them think “Is anything Mum and Dad say really true? So undermining parental authority and causing many of the nations ills. Some children then say “Well is this whole God thing a lie too?”
As one little lad was overheard to say to his friend, how disillusioned he was in his deceitful parents over the Santa Claus affair, and the other one said Yes, I know and I’m going to look into the Jesus Christ business too. Thus are sown from earliest years the seeds of unbelief and rebellion.
About 400 years ago during the English Civil War the Puritan Parliament abolished the observation of Christmas as papal ( of the Pope) and pagan. It became illegal to do so on pain of imprisonment.
The ban may have been observed in some cities and towns but in rural England it was widely ignored on the grounds that “Them Londoners did not know what they were talking about” and because people enjoyed feasting and the old customs. Christmas was officially restored with the restoration of the Monarchy.
Jehovah’s Witnesses do not observe Christmas, as they deny that Jesus Christ is, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, GOD, The Triune God known as The Trinity; and who regard the Holy Spirit as a force or power, not a person.
So where does all this leave us today?
No one has the authority to impose Christmas on any of us.
We don’t have to send Christmas cards.
We don’t have to exchange Christmas presents and certainly not spend a mint on children and grandchildren who think they have some right to expect or demand expensive toys and gadgets.
We don’t have to put up decorations, or have lighted trees, or party. We should tolerate those who do wish to do so. Christians may by choice observe Christmas, or by choice ignore it.
There is in Norfolk a group, the Humbugs, and similar groups elsewhere of pagans, followers of the pre-Christian religion of Britain, and atheists who do not believe in any God, who regard Christmas as a time to retreat to pubs and other places where Christmas has by mutual consent been banned.. They amuse themselves in other ways but raise large sums of money for useful charities.
The central purpose of Christian Christmas is to worship God, with gratitude and thanks giving for God’s gift beyond words of prepacked love, Jesus Christ, the boy born to be king. By whose teachings, life, sacrifice, and victory over death we have confidence of eternal life and reason to celebrate and share in loving.
WE MAY CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS in what ever way we loke providing Jesus Christ is at centre stage and we love Him. We need not observe it by the rite and custom of any church or dictated to how we do it, It is not Church traditions, Pagan traditions or Secular Consumeristic traditions that should dominate us but love for God, for Jesus and for other people who need our help
==============================================