It's that time of year again; The time where lights, candles, jingle bells and Christmas trees light up houses and bring happiness in the dull, cold season of winter. Almost everybody loves Christmas...For some, the reason of celebrating is Christs birth, and many it's for carrying on traditions cheer and "being merry". If someone were to ask me a few years ago what my favorite holiday was, i'd say Christmas without a doubt. It's the one where we have more plans, decorate the most, exchange gifts, and admire all the lights around town.
Last year, I was on social media and saw a once-Christian who had walked away from the faith post a story. On the post it stated that Christians are one of the most hypocritical religions... it listed a few reasons, the one that stuck out was that we "celebrate christmas which originated as a pagan holiday and we partake in the traditions". Naturally, being taught that Christmas is all about Jesus, and thinking that (exculuding santa), everything we do to celebrate was originated by Christian's for Christ, I thought it was a bit far fetched; Someone looking for a reason to look down on Christian's or not believe in God.
Having no knowledge of the history of Christmas, I looked it up expecting it to maybe have a couple controversial web pages, some stating our traditions started from Christian's and others not. To my surprise, the first things that come up when searching up "what is the origin or Christmas" was this, "Christmas stems from both the pagan and a Roman cultures." In my mind I was thinking ok that's not good, but let's see what it says about the Roman culture, they must have been the Christian ones celebrating. It goes on to say however, that the Romans celebrated the birth of their sun god on December 25th, as well as another god the weeks leading up to that day. That was shocking for me to see, especially when I kept searching for pages that would debunk that and only found more that support. I asked a few people if they knew about that, some brushed it off and said "yea they've heard rumors but it doesn't really matter for us today." Others never heard of it, and didn't have much to say. So I stopped looking into it for another year and forgot.
Let's just pause and disclaim that there are probably many areas of tradition or culture in my life that may have controversial backgrounds. I could probably search up any brand or product and find some "bad history" tied to it. I am simply writing this for the sake of sharing knowledge with Christian's who may not already truly know what the background of certain traditions are, and what the Bible says about them. I think the human response for many may be they don't even want to know because they've already made up their mind that nothing they do to celebrate Christs birth is harmful to anyone. Some won't read this, and some will read and will be upset, some might just read it and realize that i'm not going far too find these historical resources. I am not able to look at a website and determine fact or myth, but I am able to recognize that when all the websites say the same things regarding the history, It is most likely true to an extent. If you are interested for yourself, I encourage you to look up backgrounds if you want to learn or are doubting these statements.
This year, someone brought the conversation back into my mind, and I wasn't too thrilled to think about it. I was being more concerned about "if it's true, then how would it affect how I celebrate." I took it as "far fetched" or offensive but was shortly reminded that there is evidence that supports the claims, and I was being prideful in not wanting to hear for selfish reasons. I won't go into detail on what I believe or how I plan on celebrating in the future because I am still figuring that out. I will share a few of the objects that have pagan origin and allow the reader to decide for themself.
It seems as though the early Christians did not celebrate Christs birth. They didn't pin point an exact date for His birth and did not decorate with trees, lights and manger scenes, some even opposed the idea of celebrating it since they did not know the date. A few traditions that were going on then, or in a time period after... was the Roman and pagan celebrations of their sun God on december 25, and the celebration of the winter solstice. On the same date in Rome, during Constantine's rule, he officially made it the day to celebrate Christs birth. Some think it was to weaken the pagan traditions of celebrating the sun god.
The thing about it is that Christian's adopted the pre-existing methods that other cultures used to celebrate their gods, as a way to celebrate ours. For example Saturnslia that was celebrated in December was the pagan festival leading up to december 25. The Romans would decorate with wreaths, gifts, egg nog, and lighted up trees. These things, among many others were how the pagans celebrated their holiday. Christian's adopted these traditions and carry them out to this day.
Today we hear it being taught in churches that wreaths signify the crown of thorns on Jesus head when he died and that lighting trees represents Christ's light in a dark world. That might not stick out as a red flag to many, but according to God's word and what He says about paganism and not worshiping our God in the same methods that they used, it should raise some concerns. I have done my best not to make this about my personal opinion on what is right and wrong because I am still learning and don't have full confirmation on the extent of things. I can say that with knowing these things I am bothered by it especially in how many people don't know, or know and don't seem to care. In conclusion, I will try to give an analogy to see it how it might be better explained. Say for instance your great great great grandparents worshiped their god with a carved calf. They die and pass it on to the next generation who knows what it was used for but decided that they want to keep it because it's pretty. The next generation liked it and knows what it was used for, they don't feel right about it but still want it in their home. They create a new meaning for it and say that to them it represents something biblical. By the time it comes to you, the knowledge you have might just be that it's a pretty decoration that represents Christ. To not know is one thing, but to find out the background and then decide from there what to do about it is the part to consider. All this being said, I do have to state that despite the traditions, Jesus was born in a manger to the virgin Mary to bring light into the world! No matter the date or time the gospel stays the same and the event of Christ's birth does not change!
Read Jeremiah 10 and Deuteronomy 12
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