What to do with the Holidays?

What are we, as Christians, to do with the holidays?  Are we to avoid them, follow Old Testament holidays, go full bore into all the holidays and all of the trappings that go with it or can we make them our own.

We have had quite a bit of thinking and discussing about Christmas and all the holidays through out the year.  Christmas seems to be one of the most controversial holidays in a lot of Christian lives.  So, we have been giving it a lot of thought.  We do celebrate Christmas and the other holidays and some people we know do not.  So we wanted to write a post on why we do what we do and hopefully bring to light the paganism of ancient times that formed a lot of our customs in the holidays now and also address the paganism of today.

One of the reasons we celebrate Christmas is that we have a little girl and if we stop celebrating Christmas we are going to need to tell her why because she is going to ask.  If we say it is founded in paganism, then we are going to have to wipe out birthdays because birthday celebrations had is roots in paganism too.  They thought evil spirits made a point to visit you on your birthday and so you would need some protection from that.  So we now will have to tell her no more birthday celebrations which means you cannot participate in other childrens' birthday parties.   We can't be going to weddings that have matching bridesmaids outfits because that was pagan too. They thought evil spirits were going to visit you on your wedding day and cause you to get sick or die so you have to have girls dressed similar to each other and to you so the evil spirits would be confused on who the bride was.  Also no wedding cake as that came from a pagan fertility blessing or no throwing rice for that matter because of the same thing and no going to weddings that are in a church buildings because we can thank the Catholic Church for that one, because before that people just got married in their homes.  But the Catholics said that you needed to be married in the church for your marriage to be holy and valid.  No getting a Valentines Day card from Mom and Dad because even though it has a very special meaning to us it had it's roots in paganism of fertility and immoral acts.  Well by then you have pretty much crushed the joy and innocence of a child.  

Our outlook on all of this is, why let Satan have all the credit in tradition?  You know we happened to think of an ancient history class that one of us took in High School and they told of this ancient civilization that had a female deity that was a virgin and gave birth to one of the gods and since this was all before Abraham and Moses, they said that the Jews and Christians just copied this ancient religion in their belief of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.  Of course we didn't buy it.  We knew that the virgin birth of a Savior and Redeemer was God's plan from the beginning and Satan just corrupted the truth and put his spin on it.  He is really good at that you know.  Satan always takes the truth and something good and twists it and puts his spin on it.  The ancient practice of worshiping the sun and celebrating the winter solstice  comes from a lie of Satan.  He was getting people to focus on a celestial light and not the light of the Truth that God is the creator of the sun and the whole universe is contained in him and we are to worship Him alone.  Rome celebrated Saturnalia and the birthday of the sun god, Sol Invictus at the end of December.  Both of those were emulating heavenly bodies.  People all over the earth have worshiped the sun but it was even more important for those further away from the direct rays of the sun, like Europe.  The return of the sun by the lengthening of  days gave them hope in the mid-winter of the warmer days to come and for new life and crops.  It was natural for them to have celebrations and holidays at this time.  Being agriculturally based this was their life blood, the return of the sun. They were depending on the physical world and not on God the creator.  Satan always uses that diversion on mankind.  Paganism is alive and well today but it has taken another form.  In our society the worship of the sun and other heavenly bodies in not done.  So the symbols of Christmas that pointed to ancient paganism doesn't really mean anything anymore, they have just become customs. Now instead of worshiping the sun, they worship technology and sensuality.  They think the computer can tell you everything you need to know. Education and Medicine is what you need.  They love being sensual by dressing provocatively and being sexually immoral, worshiping youth and not wanting to look old.  All of this is a lie telling you to trust in the physical world and not in God. 

         

So, we feel a holiday or tradition can be redeemed without compromising our testimony.  God set up holy days and traditions in Israel.  When we got saved if we were to trade in all our holidays and traditions for the ones that God set up in Israel, then he would of told us to do that.  He said that the Sabbath, which was a holy day, was for man and not man for the Sabbath.  The holy day was a day of rest from the working by the sweating of their brow.  It was a short relief from the curse that all mankind has because of sin. God set up holy days and holy convocations that involved celebrating and remembering for man's sake, not for God's.  Like Paul in the New Testament, said all of that in the law was to lead them to Christ.  It was God's original idea to have a day of rest and reflection not Satan's.  So, we don't think we get in trouble or are compromising our testimony by participating in a day of rest and season of reflection.  

  

The things that were symbols of paganism those hundreds of years ago in holidays and special days, for the most part are not even thought of in that way now.  Nobody thinks that having a birthday party or a cake with candles is keeping the evil spirits away or that a matching bridesmaids dress is used to confuse an evil spirit.  We don't know of anybody that takes a tree into their house and bows down to it and worships it to please the gods.  Now granted there may be a few, but I think that would be special cases not the general consensus of our society.  A Christmas tree is simply thought of as a decoration just like a fancy flower arrangement.  So those simple things that a pagan used in his worship in of themselves is not evil.  It was the intent of that pagans heart, not the wax, flame, flour, sugar of a cake or the bark and needles of a tree that are evil.  We feel that if you turn around and use a birthday to show someone that you love them and are thankful that they are born, that that is a good thing.  We celebrate the day that our daughter was born because she was a special gift from God to us in our old age and we tell her that. 

December 25 was chosen falsely as the day of Christ's birth many centuries ago.  Most Christians who read the Bible know that no date was given for his birth, so if they do any thinking about it they know that December 25 is conjecture and not gospel truth.  Does December 25th have any meaning in our society for worshiping the return of the sun?  We don't think so.  It has no meaning that way now.  Apart from Christmas it is just a day on the calendar like any other day.  If we take that day that is given off by our employer and take some gifts to our friends and family and eat a special meal and enjoy their fellowship, is that action unprofitable and damaging our witness?  We are not giving credence to the Roman Catholic Church by attending their special mass in their cathedrals and we are not praying to St. Nicholas.  On Christmas Day we load up our daughter, our dog, and our gifts.  We walk in the door and say Merry Christmas.  Is Christmas an evil word or an invitation to a Catholic Mass, no, it is just a name of a holiday.  Just like Thursday came from the pagan worship of Thor and it was his day, but it is not that today.  If you said Happy Thursday to someone they are not going to think that you worship the God Thor.  The other thing we do is we hug our folks and tell them we love them.  We bring in the gifts and then start helping with the meal and tell them about the week and find out what is going on with them. 

Mainly what we are getting at here is that God is not so much interested in the physical world but in our hearts.  You can choose to avoid a holiday and have nothing to do with it and let that be your testimony or you can expose the lies of today and use it as a time to say something about the Lord and his Truth.  The lies of today are not Yule logs and Holly Sprigs but they are lies of depending  completely on technology and wealth also being highly sensual leading to sexual immorality and emulating youth and pleasure.  Another big one, maybe the biggest, is the hatred of discipline and accountability.

Some family members had a discussion with us about picking a relative to be Mary's guardians if we die before she is raised.  We don't have any close relatives to pick, either they are too old or they don't have a relationship with the Lord, to leave Mary to. We are trusting in God's promise to us that we would live to raise her.  Now to some, the promise that God gave us, is hard for them to trust in, but we are choosing to not trust in the physical world but trust in His word.  

I was told by well meaning people that medically it was not wise to try and have a baby after 45 that I was asking for trouble.  But I knew that if I waited on God and did what He asked of me and if it was His will that I have a child after 45, I would be under His direct protection.  These two things are examples of times of addressing the lies of paganism, looking to the physical rather than the spiritual, in our society today.

Another example is that we did not kiss until the day we were married.  We agreed that we would remain physically pure during our courtship.  There were people who said they wondered whether we really loved each other and were attracted to each other if we didn't kiss right away.  But that was not true with us.  Again we were trusting in the spiritual rather than the physical.  Yes we had a wedding in a church, Elena's bridesmaids had matching dresses, we had a wedding cake, which were all symbols of ancient paganism that at one time was used to get someone to trust in the physical world for protection.  We didn't focus on that, but we did focus on the lies of today.  We didn't spend a lot of money on our wedding. We didn't think that the day was all about us and we had to make it happen. We wanted to think about our guests that were coming and how the day could be done to bless them and make things easier for them. We trusted in God and I think that was the prevailing atmosphere of our wedding.  We had a bunch of people tell us that they had helped in lots of weddings and ours was the most joyful and easy of any wedding they had been a part of.  By waiting on Him, being pure and caring and not panicking because we were older and therefore had to succumb to the lies of today's society, enabled us to be a wonderful witness.  We felt this was more of a witness than just not having a wedding cake or matching bridesmaids dresses. 

Now that is how we think.  If someone doesn't like celebrating the holidays through out the year because they are associated with unhappy thoughts or are too stressful or are a trap for them in materialism and they don't want to celebrate them then we don't have a problem with that.  If they are uncomfortable celebrating them or it leads them to sin, by all means we are not going to make them feel bad for not celebrating them.   If you choose to celebrate holidays through out the whole year with the heart of sharing the Lord's truth and exposing the lies, then you have done well, if you choose to not celebrate the holidays through out the year and share the truth of the Lord, you also have done well.

"One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶ He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God." Romans 14:5-6