Anticipate the celebration.........kinda

The Christmas season is all around us. It touches our senses throughout this month in the smells of pine, and burning logs in a fireplace; in the sights of winter in her majestic coat of sparkling white, and the colored lights strung-up all around the town; in the touch of a crisp shivering cold; in the sounds of family gathered around the dining table. Christmas is a love gatherer. Sisters and brothers, cousins, grand-parents, parents, aunts and uncles all, eating together and all talking at once as they try to catch up and cram into one day, an entire year that has passed. An entire year of living far apart.

Christmas is a good thing in that it gives us an excuse to come together in celebration of love. A token gesture of the quick embrace and a lightening speed kiss-in-the-air-on-either-side-of-the-cheek with friends and relatives we haven’t seen in years.

Yes, Christmas is all about family, the obligatory togetherness, and certainly a good time to hold to our religious beliefs and give thanks for all our blessings. What Christmas is not about, is the birth of Jesus.

And there it is. I said it.

“The tradition of celebrating December 25th as Christ's birthday (originally) came to the Romans from Persia. Mithra, the Persian god of light and sacred contracts, was born out of a rock on December 25th . Rome was famous for its flirtations with strange gods and cults, and in the third century the unchristian emperor Aurelian established the festival of Dies Invicti Solis, the Day of the Invincible Sun, on December 25.”  Historians Gerard and Patricia Del Re

Do you know, do you even care that virtually all of the customs associated with Christmas are recycled from ancient pagan festivals honoring other gods?

If you know your Bible, then you know that Jesus was not born on December 25th.

The story goes that the shepherds were in the fields at the time of the birth of Jesus but "….. the birth [of Christ] could not have been on December 25th since the weather would not have permitted shepherds to be out in the fields with their flocks.  The Interpreter's One Volume Commentary on the Bible, Edited by Charles M. Laymon ~ Abingdon Press

Luke's account of Christ's birth suggests that Jesus may have been born in summer or early fall. Since December is cold and rainy in Judea, it is likely the shepherds would have sought shelter for their flocks at night rather than keeping them outdoors.

Luke 2:1-4 also tells us, at the time of the birth of Jesus, that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to register in a Roman census. The Romans would not have conducted a census in the dead of winter when traveling was difficult. The Romans were not self-defeating.

And then there’s this: the Bible doesn’t even mention Christmas let alone tell us to celebrate Christ's birth. The Bible does, however, tell us to commemorate His death.

"For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.' These instructions of Jesus Himself, to the Christians, were conveyed by the apostle Paul, "In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes . . . Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup." (1 Corinthians 11:23-28)

The full significance of these acts and what Paul is actually describing here is the Passover. NOT Christmas, NOT the birth of Christ.

Reference (Matthew 26:18-19; Mark 14:14-16; and Luke 22:8-13, 15)

Christmas is a very big enterprise, big business. BIG. A corporation of economic media that leads us by the nose in the direction that best suits their needs driven by commercialism. That’s it. Bottom line.

Notwithstanding, it is a holiday steeped in tradition that brings families together in love, and if for no other reason I, for one, am looking forward to the magic of the senses surrounding me in L.O.V.E.