From:    heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
To:      "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
Date:    Mon, 29 Dec 1997 03:43:51 +0000
Subject: The Celebration of Christmas

 

From:          Melissa Susco
To:            heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject:       Re: THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTMAS - Encyclopedia Britannica


A pagan Christmas, or not?
just a point to ponder- i could be wrong.  i do celebrate Christmas. i am the
only one in my family who follows Christ.  Being a young daughter of 18 and
only Christian for about three years, it is sometimes difficult to live in an
unsaved household and be the light.  Even though they are not Christian, we
have always celebrated Christmas and Easter as a Christian holiday together.
It's a great opportunity - an open door - to tell my family more about
Y'shua/Jesus.  Ordinarily, my family is very strongly opposed to me talking
about Jesus.  I've been hated and persecuted, yelled at, separated, ....etc-
everything except listened to. But I pray for them.  Their hearts are so cold
and so closed to Jesus, but around these holidays of Christmas and Easter they
become more open.  It's interesting to me how God can use even a holiday that
maybe wasn't appointed by Him but celebrated for Him now to reveal Himself to
unbelievers who haven't even asked for Him.  We find unbelievers who never go
to church sitting on a pew in a Christmas service because somebody made them
go, and the Spirit reaches out to them through the "Christmas story" to bring
a message of hope and salvation-and people responding and laying their lives
before Jesus for the first time.  They dedicate their lives to God.  
If God can use a donkey to speak, can't He speak through a holiday that may have
originated pagan, but been transformed to celebrate the birth of the King of
kings?  just a question.  i don't know about you guys, but my origins weren't
good.  Much like the origins of Christmas began in bad soil, i began in sin-
but God transplanted me. He transformed me.  we aren't to just to bind the
evil, but transform it.  Sorrow can't become joy by binding it-doing that
leaves it to still exist, just powerless. But if we transform sorrow to joy-it
no longer even exists.  if you expose darkness to light, it is no longer
darkness. the darkness has been transformed into light.  i was a sinner with
bad origins, but transformed -i am a child of the Light. Do you see?   my
church doesn't say "we celebrate Christmas because it's about the birth of
Christ Jesus and we throw the tree and presents in with it to make it more
enjoyable"  Christmas isn't just a time of entertainment and materialism for
us with Jesus thrown in somewhere.  Jesus is the center of this holiday for
us.  The Christmas tree for us represents the family tree of Jesus, the
fulfillment of prophecy that He would follow His father David.  During this
season we do exchange gifts as unto the Lord that He may be glorified. We do
it in worship just as the Magi worshipped and adored Him with gifts.  But we
also realize that we have nothing to give except that which He has given us to
give because He owns everything. In thanksgiving, we give.  Dying to our own
selfish needs, we open our eyes to see the needs of others and bless them with
His love instead of being me-focussed.  Maybe I'm wrong, but just as i have
been transformed from darkness to light, so has He transformed the meaning of
Christmas for me.  i not only celebrate Christmas and Easter though, i
celebrate every day alike for each new day is His creation, each breath He
gives me is unearned but received in grace, and my redemption is eternal
because of Him. I am saved by faith through the grace of my Savior, Messiah
Y'shua.  Conceived in sin, i celebrate daily because He set me free from sin.
As believers in Y'shua, we should all rejoice everyday-not just Christmas or
Easter or any appointed festivals-but always!  Does it matter if we celebrate
just a little more concentrated on a day called Christmas than on other days?
In a pagan america, can we use a former pagan holiday to reach people with the
gospel like Paul used a pagan altar "to an unknown God" to reveal to the
Romans who this God he serves really is?  It's a close call, after all, He
does change ashes to beauty....doesn't He?
would appreciate your thoughts.

Attached to the Vine,
Missy

>From Eddie:
**************

     Missy,

         I appreciate your testimony and the sharing of your heart.  
Your testimony is the exact BALANCE that I try to present when we 
talk about Christmas and the Biblical Festivals on this newsgroup. 

As I have shared with the newsgroup in the past, I celebrated 
Christmas and Easter for most of my life. I have seen and witnessed 
God use Christmas and Easter to touch the hearts and lives of people. I 
can witness that even though I celebrated Christmas and Easter for 
most of my life, God still loved me. He still answered my prayers. He 
still lovingly led me by His Holy Spirit into a deeper and deeper 
personal relationship with my Lord and Savior. Keeping Christmas is 
not a salvation issue. I was saved and I kept Christmas. You are 
saved and you have kept Christmas for the three years that you have 
been saved and have accepted Yeshua/Jesus as your personal Lord 
and Savior.  

       The reason why God still can use Christmas and Easter to 
touch the hearts and lives of people is that God is a God of GRACE, 
LOVE and MERCY. He still honors when HIS name is proclaimed and 
HIS message that HE loved the world so much that HE sent 
His Son Yeshua/Jesus into the earth to be our redeemer and our 
Savior and to save people from their sins. 

If God required that those who believe on His name worship 
God with 100 perfection before He ever worked in the lives of people, 
then he would never work in the lives of any of His people and there 
would not be any human beings in heaven.

         Because God DOES work in the hearts and the lives of His
people who attend church on Sunday, who keep Christmas and Easter, 
I have a problem with those who discover the truth about the sabbath
and the Biblical Festivals and become "Anti-Christian" and refer to
those who still worship on Sunday and keep Christmas and Easter as
pagans.  If you have accepted Yeshua/Jesus as your personal Lord and 
Savior, you will be in heaven and you are therefore not a pagan. 

        What I try to present on this newsgroup is that AFTER we are 
saved, we need to GROW in our understanding of God and His ways. 
GROWING is a PROCESS.  Growing takes TIME. It is not something that 
happens overnite. It requires one to STUDY.  When we GROW,  God 
requires for us to be MATURE in our walk with the Lord.  GROWING in 
God often requires CHANGE in the way we view God and how we 
worship and express our love and devotion to God.

         I went to church for nearly 20 years and NOBODY taught me 
that the Biblical Festivals meant anything to the non-Jewish believer in 
Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah. God had to lead me by His Holy Spirit / 
Ruach HaKodesh (even while I was celebrating Christmas and Easter) 
to discover the significance of the Biblical Festivals to HIM and 
therefore their significance to ME. In the process, I learned about 
the pagan origins of Christmas and Easter. I learned how the Catholic 
church changed the sabbath to Sunday and documented that they had 
the right as the "true church of God"  and "God's representative 
church on the earth" to do so.

            After 20 years of being a believer in Yeshua/Jesus as 
Messiah, God showed me the truth regarding these issues. In John 
8:32,  Yeshua/Jesus spoke these words:

"And ye shall know the TRUTH, and the TRUTH shall make you FREE"

            If I believe the words of Yeshua/Jesus, by knowing and 
understanding the TRUTH of Christmas and Easter and the TRUTH 
about the Biblical Festivals being HIS Feasts (Jesus died on 
Passover, was in the ground on Unleavened Bread,  was 
resurrected on First Fruits and the Holy Spirit was outpoured 50 days 
later on the Feast of Pentecost) and the Fall Festivals teach about 
the 2nd coming of Yeshua/Jesus and ALL the Festivals together teach 
about the SPIRITUAL WALK that God desires for EACH BELIEVER, was 
I now going to call Yeshua/Jesus a LIAR and say that the truth was not 
going to set me free?

             Was I supposed to tell the Holy Spirit / Ruach HaKodesh, 
'Thanks for telling me the truth but it really doesn't matter if I 
celebrate Christmas / Easter rather than the Biblical Festivals' ???
Was I supposed to tell God that after HE showed me that HE will 
REQUIRE that ALL NATIONS keep the feast of Tabernacles during the 
Messianic Age that it doesn't matter to HIM that I celebrate Christmas 
and Easter rather than the Feast of Tabernacles ??? If it doesn't 
matter to HIM, then WHY will HE REQUIRE ALL NATIONS to keep the 
Feast of Tabernacles?

              I decided that I wasn't going to fight with God or the 
truth that HE showed me. He in LOVE NOT CONDEMNATION showed 
me how HE prefers to be worshipped. I decided that it was in my best 
interest before God to acknowledge the truth in His Word. I decided 
that if I told God that the truth in His Word didn't matter then I 
would be fooling myself.  

              I NEVER felt that my Christian walk in God was now 
invalidated and God thought that I was a pagan when HE showed me 
the truth about HIS Festivals and the pagan origin of Christmas and 
Easter and what HIS word said about MIXING the worship of God with 
paganism (the golden calf system of worship). I acknowledged the 
truth. I thanked God that He showed me the truth and the Holy Spirit 
/ Ruach HaKodesh convicted me that with knowledge comes 
responsibility. I realized from all of this that faith and worship of 
God is a PROCESS. After 20 years of being a believer in Yeshua/Jesus 
as Messiah, I was still GROWING. I realized that God LOVED me enough 
to show me the TRUTH and I LOVED God enough to acknowledge the 
truth. 

              Many believers get offended when you tell them that 
something that they are doing is not Biblical. Some think that it 
will invalidate their Christian life to acknowledge that they have 
been doing things for years because of Church tradition and not 
because it is Biblical truth. Some are like the children of Israel 
and like the tradition of men more than the truth of God's Word. 

              Because your salvation comes by accepting Yeshua/Jesus 
as your personal Lord and Savior and not whether your celebrate 
Christmas  and because God still uses the "Christmas story" to 
touch the hearts and lives of people, we must be careful to speak the 
truth of the Biblical Festivals which is the heart of God in LOVE to our 
fellow  believers. We must SHOW them and ENCOURAGE them to 
STUDY  and eventually keep the Biblical Festivals that GOD gave us 
to celebrate. Condemnation brings rebellion. But showing the "truth 
in love" (Ephesians 4:15) helps other believers to GROW in Messiah. 
Bible knowledge without love puffs up (I Cor 13:2) but knowledge with 
love edifies.

              So, while we recognize the love and grace of God to 
work in the lives of people and to touch their lives for the glory of 
His Kingdom through an imperfect church and imperfect messages
to communicate the Gospel, we also recognize the truth of the origin of 
Christmas and Easter and the truth that God gave and commanded 
His people to celebrate the Biblical festivals that HE gave 
to His people in Leviticus 23. We do this recognizing the difference 
between salvation and GROWING in the Lord. We also recognize that we 
need to ENCOURAGE other believers to GROW in the Lord by speaking 
the truth of God's Word in LOVE to EDIFY our fellow believers and 
not to condemn them for their ignorance or because of how they have
been erroneously taught through the traditions of men.

             Missy, may God love and continue to bless you!

***********************************************************************

From:          Dee Crabb
To:            heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject:       Re: Christmas Comments and Keeping the Festivals

Eddie,

I, too, have really enjoyed your very truthful and tactful and honest
facts about Christmas and Hanukkah. You have done an excellent job
over and over and over again. When we discovered, or should I say, "I"
discovered the truth of Christmans, I very easily dropped it like a
"hot potato". It was easy for me, but my family had a cow! They wanted
their Christmas, and yes, their tree with all the trimmings. I allowed
them to have the tree, but they could not count on me to help with it.
I was tactful and loving, so as not to offend any more than necessary.
I stayed upstairs while they did their thing down stairs. I knew the
truth and I would not take part in the ritual of the tree. We don't
buy gifts at Christmas for them any more. If we desire to buy a gift
there are many other days that it can be done. At first we bought
gifts at Hanukkah, but then realized that was a new "tradition" of
sorts and not accurate. So now, we give  them a gift after the
holidays and they enjoy that very much. My point is: When you give it
up, you do not do it again, no matter how much you may love your
family. You can still have your family gathering, and your meal, minus
the non-kosher foods, and still enjoy one another's company. I do not
provide the meal any more either. We go to their house since all are
married and have a family of their own. They seem to understand, and I
do not push them to the way of my beliefs. However, I do supply them
with lessons on such matters. And many of these I have printed off
recently from your news group. And I know that they do read them, and
everything is in G-d's timing, so I do not worry. G-d tells us, that
by our obedience our family will be covered, and He will call them
when the time is right. So I am confident that that most certainly
will take place. 

Shalom, love to all, 

Dee.

>From Eddie:
**************

         This year we had no Christmas tree. We never decorated the 
house for Christmas. I didn't buy presents for my brothers, sisters 
or mom and dad. However, I did attend the Christmas day meal with 
the family and was in the same room when presents were exchanged. 
Afterward, I played cards with my dad and my brothers. Everybody 
respected my feelings toward Christmas and I respected their feelings. 
My dad commented afterward that we had a good family gathering.
This I believe is the right approach and balance of things with your 
family.

************************************************************************* 

From:          Chosen Arrow
To:            heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject:       Re: Christmas in the Bible

The manger........which is in a cave under a church in Bethlehem is
actually made of stone. This cave is typical of the type shepherds
would keep their sheep. So actually, the manger is not a tabernacle or
sukkah at all, rather a stone feeding trough located within a
cave-stable for sheep. Most fitting for our sacrificial lamb!

>From Eddie:
**************

         I have been to Israel twice. I have seen the "manger" of 
Jesus in Bethlehem both times.  The guides told us how the site in 
Bethlehem and some of the other Christian tourist sites came to be in 
the land of Israel.  After the "conversion" of Constantine to 
Christianity around 321 C.E., his mother, Helen, went to the land of 
Israel to discover where certain events in the life of Jesus took 
place. While there, it was told to her that such and such thing 
probably happened around this spot. So, a church was built to 
remember the "holy spot" where such and such event happened. 

           This is how the site at the church in Bethlehem where the 
"manger" is today came to be.  So, the "manger" of Yeshua/Jesus
is NOT under a church in Bethlehem. 

            Once again, this demonstrates the power that tradition 
has in the minds of men. As I showed in an earlier note, the manger 
was actually a type of sukkah.  In Genesis 33:17, a sukkah is 
associated with a place for cattle. The reason why there was "no room 
in the inn" was because it was the Biblical Festival of Tabernacles 
and God required all males to be in Jerusalem for the feast (Deut 
16:16). The city of Jerusalem was always overcrowded during the days 
of the festivals so it makes legitimate sense why Mary / Miriam and
Joseph / Yosef might not find somewhere to sleep for a night.

               The Bible story is still more powerful when you 
understand the "roots" of your faith rather than the traditions of 
men that the "manger" of Yeshua/Jesus is located below a church in 
Bethlehem.

************************************************************************ 

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