Hello all! Firstly, Merry Christmas to all!
I do have a few questions.
How do you explain where Christmas comes from? I hear many claim it is a pagan holiday…
Another thing, I know many say it’s the birthday of Jesus, although I know it’s not literally the exact day, we celebrate it at this time. However, there are some who find it misleading and say no to this. Is there a good way to say something about how Christ is the reason for the season? Is it good enough to say “Merry Christmas! Remember that Jesus is the reason for the season!”
I’ve heard many doing that, plus the old #CHRISTmas, etc.
Thank you!
Hello beautiful person. I’m sure most Christians would agree with me in saying Christmas proper, the current version, is not pagan. If for no other reason than to say that “Christmas” in its current form was a Christian invention. That being said however it also has incorporated into it many pagan customs and rituals over the years ,under the assumption originally I believe , in order to entice lure and make more comfortable various pagans in being converted over to Christianity. Not the least of which is its date of celebration, December 25. Several differing theories have been offered as to why this date but given the events happening arround the early church in the 3rd century or so it seems most probable that this date was chosen as a compromising competitive celebration for the pagans of the day. However if we go by evidences found in the bible we would probably be closer to the truth if we picked any other season in which to celebrate his birth than winter. This seems to be beside the point though since it’s a celebration of his birth and not his birthday. We could at least attempt to pick the correct season though in my opinion. Its creation seems to all boil down to that most distasteful of words, human politics sadly.
Our modern version has picked up many traditions along the way for various reasons. So much so that it looks to me as if more and more people who celebrate Christmas with different traditions have become more enamored of them than of the intended focal point for the celebration in the first place. Hence one of the common phrases passed arround these days for appeasement -“Jesus is the reason for the season.”
I can easily believe that it has become the one religious celebration that a pagan gladly “celebrates”/tolerates in joyful anticipation of exchanging/getting gifts, getting time off from work, and the parties to attend etc. while carrying an open contempt for Christ. It seems to me that the early attempts at pagan appeasement are starting to come full circle so that “Christmas” is becoming more and more worldly while retaining some Christian overtures instead of vice versa. Christmas pagents, holiday exstravaganzas, tv specials and on and on seem more and more of a celebration of human achievment and creativity than of a celebration of divine salvation. And these self touting philanthropic pet projects of the wealthy or famous under the pretence of being good Christians is bewildering. So much for that early pagan compromise. Men compromise and it ends in failure. God does not compromise and is always victorious.
There is all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the “Christmas mass” etc. I’ll grant you but it seems to be a once a year expanded show of piousness on a day which we know the event we’re celebrating didn’t happen. A day we should be celebrating all year anyway. Just seems too much like playing dress up for a day. For some anyways.
I guess one should expect these kinds of twisted behaviors in the latter days.
I for one, ironically, nearly want to wash my hands of the whole thing and get back to simply practicing the mere Christianity that instead of appeasing pagans Pisses them off. As if I have the strength.
God save me from my ignorance.
