Christians are supposed to be disciples of Jesus. We call him Lord and Saviour; “the author and finisher of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus gives us this charge: “Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptise them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you.” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Nevertheless, many of us who call Jesus “Lord, Lord” do not do the things he says. (Luke 6:46). Worse still, many Christians are unfamiliar with the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus never told anyone to celebrate his birthday. If he wanted us to do so, he would have told us when and how. He did not. Moreover, we know from the scriptures that the early church never celebrated Jesus’ birthday. There is no such record in the Acts of the Apostles. We are told to remember the Lord’s death (Luke 22:19), and not to celebrate his birth.
Ungodly birthday parties
Every birthday celebration recorded in the bible is ungodly; and results in either mischief or disaster. As one of the special features of his birthday, Pharaoh had one of his servants, the chief baker, hung. (Gen 40:20-22). In similar fashion, one of the highlights of Herod’s birthday party was the beheading of John the Baptist. (Matthew 14:6-11).
Job fears the birthday parties of his children are prone to ungodliness: “When these birthday parties ended – and sometimes they lasted several days – Job would summon his children to him and sanctify them, getting up early in the morning and offering a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said, ‘Perhaps my sons have sinned and turned away from God in their hearts.’ This was Job’s regular practice.” (Job 1:4-5).
True enough, God wiped out all of Job’s children in one disaster that came while they were celebrating the birthday of his oldest son. (Job 1:13-19). Thereby, Job came to realise the vanity of life. He cursed his birthday, saying: “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’” (Job 3:3). So does Jeremiah who exclaims: “Cursed be the day in which I was born! Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me!” (Jeremiah 20:14).
Birthday parties are carnal and worldly; therefore believers are never seen holding them in the scriptures. Jesus says: “Whoever loves his life loses it.” (John 12:25). True believers do not celebrate every extra year spent on earth away from God.
Unscriptural Christmas
Jesus says: “Salvation is of the Jews.” (John 4:22). However, Christmas is not Jewish: it is Roman. You will not find in the scriptures any of the things normally associated with Christmas, such as the exchanging of gifts; the Christmas tree; the singing of carols; Santa Claus; the hanging of the mistletoe and the burning of the yule log. These are all of pagan origin.
Charles Spurgeon, the famous English preacher of the nineteenth century, said: “Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas… we find no scriptural word whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Saviour; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because (it is) not of divine authority.”
Christmas was not celebrated in the first centuries of the Christian church. The general Jewish pattern was to celebrate the death of a remarkable person rather than his birth. Thus, Solomon says: “A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.” (Ecclesiastes 7:1-4).
The word “Christmas” itself comes from the combination of two words; “Christ” and “mass.” The mass, according to Roman Catholicism, is a prayer read for the soul of a dead person. The contradiction of celebrating the death of Christ on a date alleged to be his birthday came about because Christmas originally had nothing whatsoever to do with the birth of Jesus.
However, the Church of Rome absorbed the customs, traditions and general paganism of different tribes, cultures and nations, in the bid to make it easy for pagans to become Christians. Accordingly, a feast was established in memorial of Jesus in the fourth century. In the fifth century, the Roman Catholic Church ordered it to be celebrated forever on the same day as the pagan feast of the birth of the sun.
Pagan Christmas
December 25 celebrations actually started with sun-worshipers during the time of Nimrod; the man who supervised the building of the tower of Babel. His widow, Semiramis, said to be the queen of heaven, had a son called Tammuz; venerated by many as the god of the sun. It was believed that Tammuz died on December 22 and rose from the dead three days later.
Emperor Aurelian of Rome proclaimed the sun god Tammuz to be the principal patron of the Roman Empire on December 25, 274 AD. The date corresponds with the winter solstice when pagans celebrate the renewed power of the sun. It was also the day of the Roman Saturnalia; a festival dedicated to Saturn, the God of Agriculture, after whom Saturday is named.
The Romans also observed “the Kalends of January;” representing the triumph of life over death. The entire season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis; the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun.”
After Constantine, the Roman emperor, won the battle of the Milvian Bridge, he forced all the pagans of his empire to be baptised into the Christian church. So doing, Christianity became paganised, especially because pagans far outnumbered Christians. December 25, the date of Tammuz’s alleged rebirth, was then designated as also the birthday of Jesus.
Christmas tree
Thenceforth, pagan traditions of feasts, partying, giving and receiving of gifts and drunken orgies became grafted into the Christianity. This means whenever Christians say “Merry Christmas,” we are actually mixing the name of Christ with paganism.
It is written in Jeremiah: “Thus says the LORD: “Do not learn the way of the heathen; do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are futile; for one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple.” (Jeremiah 10:2-4).
What we have here in the scriptures is a perfect description of the decorated Christmas tree. God castigates this as “the way of the heathen.” He expressly commands we should not subscribe to such idolatry. The green tree is mentioned 14 times in the bible and, in every instance, it is linked with idolatry. And yet, it is this same green tree that Christians use as our Christmas tree.
The tradition of bringing an evergreen tree into homes and decorating it began with heathen Greeks who used it to worship their god Adonia. They claimed Adonia was killed and brought back to life by the serpent Aessulapius. Therefore, when Christians decorate green Christmas trees with lights, glitter and tinsel, little do they know they are following the God-forbidden protocols of a pagan festival in honour of an idol god!
(TO BE CONTINUED)
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