The Real
Story of CHRISTMAS
Halloween is over. And in
stores everywhere images of jolly fat men in red make their annual
debut behind counters, in display windows, and in media
advertisements. Canned yuletide music already pours from
store sound systems. Artificial evergreen wreaths and tinsel
garland plaster walls or hang from ceilings as visions of green
stuff dance in merchants' heads.
This is the Christmas season,
a celebration supposedly honoring the birth of the Savior of men.
And each year the hype seems to emerge a bit earlier, almost
subtly, until seemingly everyone is caught in the encompassing
"holiday spirit."
But it isn't all "peace
on earth, goodwill to men." Recent statistics show that
45 percent of all shoplifting occurs from October through
December. Shoplifting accounts for $16 billion in store
losses annually. Murders increase dramatically at the Christmas
season, as do suicides.
Increasingly, articles in
newspapers and magazines lament the overcommercialization of a day
they say has nearly lost its original meaning. But what was
its original meaning? Do they know? Do you?
Where did the celebration of
Christmas come from? Have you ever stopped long enough from
your frenzied gift buying to ask yourself why you spend yourself
into debt at this time each year? Why do you observe
Christmas? If it is the celebration of the Savior's birth,
what on earth is Santa Claus doing in it? Why the Christmas
tree, mistletoe, gift-giving, holly wreath, yule log, stockings,
eggnog, and all the other trappings that are so much a part of
this holiday? What do all these fixtures have to do with the
Messiah's birth? Many of us even as children had a problem
reconciling this question.
Too often we drift along
doing what everyone else is doing without ever asking ourselves
why. It is sometimes more comfortable not to ask too many
questions for fear of what we may find. The truth can be
disturbing.
Every year newspapers carry
articles about the rank heathen origins of Christmas customs,
while we smile and say, "How quaint." And we
continue kidding ourselves that we really are observing the
Savior's birthday. If we were only to open our Bibles, we
would find that the word Christmas is nowhere within its pages.
There isn't a single passage that tells us to observe the
Messiah's birthday. Shocking? Perhaps, but
nevertheless a fact.
It is time you stopped and
took a long look at this most popular of celebrations and asked
some hard questions. The Bible says in Jeremiah 10:2,
"Thus says Yahweh, 'Learn not the way of the heathen.'"
Then in verses 3-5 the Great Creator gives a stinging rebuke to
those involved in the custom of taking trees from the forest and
setting them up in any form of worship.
Your very salvation hinges on
whether you will follow the truth of the Bible or go along with
millions of others as they indulge in the popular ways of a
deceived world. Paul wrote to the Corinthian assembly,
"Wherefore 'come out from among them and be separate,' says
Yahweh, 'and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive
you," 2 Corinthians 6:17.
"But My Intentions Are Good..."
You may argue, "Okay, so
Christmas isn't in the Bible. But what's wrong with doing
good to others at this time of year? What's so bad about
giving the kids some happiness and having a good time
myself?"
If there is no Creator in
heaven, then it doesn't matter. You can continue buying and
displaying Christmas decorations and other trappings that in fact
derive from ancient fertility rites, idolatry, and polytheism.
You can have as good a time as the Babylonians who worshipped
nonexistent "gods" and who actually started the whole
holiday of Christmas.
But if there is a Heavenly
Father, you cannot do both--you cannot mix pagan practices with
the holy. The Eternal Yahweh said, "Be not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship has
righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light
with darkness?" 2 Corinthians 6:14. You cannot
kid yourself that you're really observing Christmas because of the
birth of Yahshua the Messiah. The name of the holiday and
its declared purpose cannot hide the fact that its roots are
firmly anchored in a winter festival of the pagans, which we will
see shortly.
Israel's Lesson for Our Day
The Eternal Father Yahweh is
quite jealous over how He is worshipped. When ancient Israel
conquered the pagan nations around them, Yahweh told His people
that the surrounding nations were being punished for their vile,
heathen worship. The barbarians indulged in every kind of
perversion and idolatry imaginable, and Yahweh abhorred it.
They cherished the very practices that provided a basis for modern
Christmas customs--worshipping fertility and the sun god--and even
sacrificing humans to their deities.
Yahweh warned Israel not to
be entrapped by the practices of the pagans: "Take heed
to yourself that you be not snared by following them, after that
they be destroyed from before you; and that you enquire not after
their mighty ones, saying, 'How did these nations serve their
deities? even so will I do likewise.' You shall not do so
unto Yahweh your Elohim," Deuteronomy 12:30-31.
He specifically commanded
Israel not to ask why the pagans worshipped as they did, why they
decorated their temples in such a way or why they practiced
certain feasts and orgies. Why? Because Yahweh knows
human nature and man's desire to participate.
What happened? Israel
did exactly what they were commanded not to do. They
embraced pagan customs and mixed them with pure worship:
"And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of
Yahweh, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the mighty ones of
Syria, and the mighty ones of Zidon, and the mighty ones of Moab,
and the mighty ones of the children of Ammon, and the mighty ones
of the Philistines, and forsook Yahweh, and served not Him,"
Judges 10:6 (see also 1 Samuel 7:3,4; 12:10; 1Kings 11:5, and 2
Kings 23:13).
Just as ancient Israel, our
society has adopted pagan customs and incorporated them into its
worship. Decorated Christmas trees are a common sight in
many churches in December. Christmas parties of all sorts
are a part of church functions. Even Santa Claus has been
seen entering church doors bearing gifts. Has man changed?
Let's take a closer look at this most popular of holidays and see
what its customs and practices mean.
Christmas 4,000 Years Ago
The word
"Christmas" derives from the Old English "Cristes-masse,"
a Catholic mass that grew out of a feast day established in the
year 1038. A mass is a prayer for a dead person. Why
is it applied to the birth of the Messiah?
Perhaps the answer is found
in the Encyclopedia Americana, 1942 edition, vol. 6, p.
623: "Christmas was according to many authorities not
celebrated in the first centuries of the Christian Church as the
Christian usage in general was to celebrate the death of
remarkable persons rather than their birth. A feast was
established in the memory of the birth of the Savior in the Fourth
Century. In the Fifth Century the Western Church [Roman
Catholic] ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the
old Roman Feast of the birth of Sol [the sun]."
The Encyclopedia
Britannica, 1946 edition, says, "Christmas was not among
the earliest festivals of the church." For the first
300 years, the religious writers are silent regarding the
Christmas observance. An Armenian writer of the eleventh
century states that the Christmas festival was first celebrated in
Constantinople in 373. In Egypt, the Western birthday
festival was opposed during the early years of the fifth century,
but was celebrated in Alexandria as early as 432. In 1644,
the English Puritans forbade any merriment or religious services
by act of Parliament on the grounds that Christmas was a heathen
festival. They were so opposed to its observance that they
ordered a fast on December 25.
Why didn't the early converts
celebrate Christmas and what made it a "heathen
festival"?
To answer that, we must go
back to ancient humanity itself, to the great mother of pagan
worship--Babylon. The founder of the Babylonish system was
Nimrod, grandson of Ham, one of Noah's three sons. Nimrod's
name in Hebrew means "he rebelled." He built the
wicked city Nineveh, while his father Cush was responsible for the
tower of Babel in opposition to Yahweh (Alexander Hislop, The
Two Babylons, p. 26).
Genesis 10:9 says,
"Nimrod was a mighty hunter before Yahweh." The
word "before" here means "in defiance
of." Nimrod was so reprehensible, ancient writings say,
that his own mother, Semiramis, bore him a child. Semiramis
would become known as the Babylonian Queen of Heaven or Goddess
Mother.
Because of the people's
rebellion and wickedness Yahweh confounded the one-world language
at Babel and the masses scattered in confusion. Nimrod
shortly afterwards set up his own kingdom based on man-ruled
governments and worship of himself. An entirely pagan
religious system grew out of worship of this "hero."
Gradually, through trade, influence of Babylon spread to other
nations as they incorporated its government and religious system.
As we shall see, the customs, practices, and beliefs of these
heathen Babylonians have survived to this day and are found in
nearly every nation on earth.
Everywhere a Mother and Child
The universal mother and
child theme, which has been passed down over the centuries through
many different nations and which remains strong today, had its
start with the Babylonian Semiramis. Many monuments in
Babylon show her with a child in her arms. As the
Babylonians dispersed throughout the known world, they carried
their mother-child deity worship with them Surprisingly,
many nations were already worshipping a mother and child before
the Savior of men was even born!
In Egypt, the Mother and
Child were worshipped under the names Isis and Osiris (Egypt,
Bunsen, vol. 1, p. 444). In India, the pair are known as Isi
and Iswara (Hindoo Mythology, Kennedy, p. 49). In
pagan Rome it was Fortuna and Jupiter-puer, "Jupiter the
boy" (Dymock's Classical Dictionary). In China,
the mother deity was Shingmoo. She is shown with a child in
her arms and rays of glory around her head. The ancient
Germans worshipped the virgin Hertha holding a child. Among
the Druids, the Virgo-Patitura was venerated as the "Mother
of God" (Babylon Mystery Religion, p. 3). In
each case, the child is believed to be a "reincarnation"
of his father.
Semiramis is also known as
Rhea. Her child from Nimrod is referred to in Scripture as
Tammuz (Ezek. 8:14). In this verse Yahweh is condemning
Israelite women who professed to be worshipping Him but in secret
were actually worshipping Tammuz. In the next few verses,
Yahweh denounces sun worship, part of the Babylonian
"abominations" in the worship of Nimrod and Tammuz.
Interestingly, the Greeks
adopted this son of Semiramis and gave him the name Baccus, the
deity of wine and revelry. His birthday was at the winter
solstice (mid-December) and its celebration was marked by orgies
in honor of the "son of the mother-god." At the
winter solstice, the sun begins its northward trek once more and
these pagans were celebrating the lengthening of days. The
hope of spring and the rebirth of nature was rekindled as daylight
lengthened. More on December 25th shortly.
Although the Bible doesn't
say how Nimrod died, profane history indicates that he met a
violent death at the pinnacle of his glory. Semiramis
immediately proclaimed that her husband had become deified and was
resurrected to life through Tammuz.
According to The Encyclopedia of World Religions, Tammuz
was the god of vegetation. "Every year a festival was
held at which his 'death' and 'resurrection' was celebrated.
The vegetation god was believed to die and rise annually, and in
the myths of the descent of the mother goddess into the land of
the dead there is a dramatic image of the search of the mother for
her lost son and lover, the search of the earth for the
temporarily lost fertility which the new spring restores."
p. 20.
To depict his resurrection,
the Babylonians believed that an evergreen tree sprang out of a
dead tree stump. The old stump symbolized the dead Nimrod,
and the new evergreen was Nimrod resurrected in Tammuz. (Babylon
Mystery Religion, p. 152). Green holly, popular at
Christmas, has long been a symbol of eternal life and it played an
important role in portraying the rebirth of Nimrod.
December 25
Anyone who has attended
Christmas plays at school or church has probably heard Luke 2:8
quoted: "And there were in the same country shepherds
abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by
night."
From the middle of November
to the middle of April is the rainy season in Palestine.
Shepherds, because of the cold, dampness, and sometimes snow, take
their flocks into sheepfolds at night (see Daily Life in the Time
of Jesus, by Henri Daniel-Rops), Ezra 10:9 speaks of those in
Jerusalem sitting outside in early December and trembling in the
rain. Yahshua considered the severity of the winter in
Palestine when, in His prophecy of the end times (Matt. 24:20)
said, "Pray that your flight be not in the winter...."
Historians have long
recognized that Yahshua the Messiah was born in the autumn and not
in the dead of winter. The sheep were still in the open
fields. "It was an ancient custom among Jews of those
days to send out their sheep to the fields and deserts about the
Passover (early spring), and bring them home at commencement of
the first rain," Adam Clarke Commentary, vol. 5, p.
370.
Furthermore, at the time of
the Savior's birth, Caesar Augustus was collecting taxes from
Palestine, Luke 2:1-5. Each had to make a journey to
"his own city" to pay his taxes. Joseph and Miriam
(Mary) traveled to Bethlehem. Requiring the people to make
such journeys at the severest time of the year--in the dead of
winter--would have sparked a revolt against the hated Roman
Empire. The simplest and most logical policy would be to
collect taxes after the fall harvest, when storehouses were full
and resistance would be the least.
Then there is the fact that
the Jews would be congregating in the autumn anyway, "going
up" to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles (John
7:8-10; Acts 18:21). Perhaps this is the reason the parents
of Yahshua found "no room for them in the inn":
the cities were swollen with travelers to the Feast of
Tabernacles.
We can determine the
approximate date of the Savior's birth by knowing when John the
Baptist was born. Worship at the time centered on the temple
at Jerusalem, where priests were required to perform duties for a
week twice in the year, 1 Chronicles 24:1-18. John's father
Zacharias was from the family of Abiyah, and had his turn on the
eighth week of the year, 1 Chronicles 24:10.
Beginning the count from the
Days of Unleavened Bread at the beginning of the year, we come to
the third Hebrew month Sivan. It was at this time that the
angel of Yahweh told Zacharias he would become the father of a
son, Luke 1:13. When his duties were finished he went home,
verse 23. At that time Elizabeth conceived, verse 24.
This was about the middle or end of our June. Moving forward
nine months in the gestation period, we come to March and John the
Baptist is born. Luke 1:36 notes that Yahshua was six months
younger than John. So six months later, the Savior was
born--at the end of September or first part of October.
It is commonly recognized
that our Savior's ministry lasted three and a half years. He
began when He was 30 years of age, Luke 3:23, Numbers 4:3.
Therefore, he was put to death at the age of 33-1/2 and died at
Passover--which falls in the spring at about April. Starting
in April and counting back six months to His birthday, we end up
with an autumn birth date.
How, then, did December 25
become connected with the birthday of the Messiah? Alexander
Hislop explains: "Long before the fourth century, and
long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated
among the heathen at that precise time of the year, in honor of
the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may
fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and
to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the
same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the
name of Christ." The Two Babylons, p. 93.
Indeed, the Catholic
Encyclopedia confirms the merger. "The well-known
solar feast of Natalis Invicti [The Nativity of the Unconquered
Sun] celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the
responsibility for our December date." vol. 3, p. 727.
Mithraism
Makes Its Mark
Recall that the Roman world
was originally pagan and steeped in heathen customs and practices.
They loved festivals and would organize a banquet at the slightest
pretext. Chief among these was the Feast of Mithras,
celebrating the deity's birthday on December 25. Mithraism
was merely a spin-off of the ancient Babylonian worship of Tammuz.
In Egypt, it was believed that Osiris (Tammuz) was born on
December 25.
Often portrayed as brilliant
as the sun, the deity Mithras was known as "The Invincible
Sun," or "The Sun of Righteousness."
Mithraism promised immortality to its faithful.
Further details on the
relationship between December 25 and sun worship are brought out
in The Golden Bough (p. 416): "In the Julian
Calendar the twenty-fifth of December was reckoned the winter
solstice, and it was regarded as the Nativity of the sun, because
the day begins to lengthen and the power of the sun to increase
from that turning point of the year. Now Mithras was
regularly identified by his worshippers with the Sun, the
Unconquered Sun, as they called him; hence his nativity also fell
on the twenty-fifth of December.
The Encyclopedia of World
Religions casts additional light on the connection between the
Mithraic cult and Tammuz-sun worship: "The Persian
Mithras was a god of contract, a mediator between gods and man,
and was closely connected with both the sun and the kingship, the
principle of law and order in society." p. 97.
The merger of Mithraic
beliefs with the customs and traditions surrounding the birth of
the Savior was largely because Mithraism was popular at the time
of the Messiah's birth. "Between 1400 B.C.E. and 400
C.E., Persians, Indians, Romans, and Greeks worshipped the deity
Mithras. He was particularly important in the Roman Empire
in the 2nd and 3rd centuries," Encyclopedia of World
Religions, p. 94.
Mithraism, in fact, was one
of the last of the oriental "mystery cults" to reach the
West. It became the chief rival of Christianity.
Altars to Mithras, dating from the first to the fifth century, are
common in England.
The pagan feast of the
Saturnalia, which the Romans celebrated in honor of the deity
Saturn from December 17 to 24, eventually encompassed the Feast of
Mithras. Many of the practices of Christmas trace to the
Saturnalia celebration. At the Saturnalia, Romans lavishly
decorated their homes with evergreens. Men discarded their
togas for more festive holiday garments. Families and
friends exchanged gifts of candles and clay dolls. Nero
enjoyed having himself appointed "Lord of the Misrule,"
or the one who presided over Saturnalia merrymaking. He is
reported to have led the Grad Parade, playing his harp and singing
bawdy ballads. And even today, Christmas time--like the
Saturnalia--lasts seven days.
The Saturnalia was instituted
under the name Brumalia, which meant "Winter solstice."
The Blend Begins
How, then, did these rankly
pagan festivals of sun worship become entwined with the worship of
the Savior of men? The same way December 25 came to be
accepted. The New Schaff-Jerzog Encyclopedia of Religious
Knowledge explains:
"The pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were too deeply entrenched
in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence.
The recognition of Sunday (the day of Phoebus and Mithras as well
as the Lord's Day) by the emperor Constantine as a legal holiday,
along with the influence of Manicheism, which identified the Son
of [Yahweh] with the physical sun, may have led Christians of the
fourth century to feel the appropriateness of making the birthday
of the Son of [Yahweh] coincide with that of the physical sun.
The pagan festival with its riot and merrymaking was so popular
that Christians were glad of an excuse to continue its celebration
with little change in spirit or in manner. Christian
preachers of the West and the Nearer East protested against the
unseemly frivolity with which [Yahshua's] birthday was celebrated,
while Christians of Mesopotamia accused their Western brethren of
idolatry and sun-worship for adopting as Christian this pagan
festival. Yet the festival rapidly gained acceptance and
became at last so firmly established that even the Protestant
revolution of the sixteenth century was not able to dislodge
it." p. 48.
Merely to placate the heathen
and bring them into the church, the pagan festival of Christmas
was adopted. In other words, they could have their
cherished old Saturnalia as well as their new faith--merely
cloaked in a different name!
This fact is supported by
other sources, including the Cyclopedia of Biblical,
Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature: "The
heathen winter holidays (Saturnalia, Juvenalia, Brumalia) were
undoubtedly transformed, and, so to speak, sanctified by the
establishment of the Christmas cycle of holidays; and the heathen
customs. . .were brought over into Christian use." p. 276.
Also, "There can be
little doubt that the Church was anxious to distract the attention
of Christians from the old heathen feast days by celebrating
Christian festivals on the same days. On December 25 was the
dies natalis solis invicti or the sol novus (new sun) especially
cultivated by the votaries of Mithraism." Encyclopedia
of Religion and Ethics, vol. 3, p. 607.
The Britannica says
this: "December 25, the birthday of Mithra, the Iranian
god of light and the contract and the day devoted to the
invincible sun, as well as the day after the Saturnalia, was
adopted by the church as Christmas, the nativity of [Yahshua], to
counteract the effects of these festivals." Encyclopedia
Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 7, p. 202.
Shocking parallels exist
between Mithraism and the birth of the Messiah: "Mithra,
the Iranian god of light and sacred contracts, is described as
being born from a rock, the birth being witnessed by shepherds on
a day (December 25) that was later claimed by Christians as the
nativity of [Yahshua]." Encyclopedia Britannica,
15th ed., vol. 4, p. 552.
To learn more about how the church
reacted and about various things connected with this time of year,
click on Christmas
Story (contd).
http://www.yaim.org/Pages/christmas_story.htm
"The most dangerous man, to any government,
is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without
regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost
inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he
lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he
is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not
romantic personally, he is very apt to spread discontent among
those who are." - H.L. Mencken, Smart Set magazine,
December 1919.
Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Or who will stand
up for me against the workers of iniquity?” (Psalm 94:16)
“And I [i.e., the LORD God Almighty] sought for a man among
them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before
me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found
none.” (Ezekiel 22:30)
No one
is obligated or bound to obey usurped power and those who
do will be judged by God for rebellion. Obedience to tyrants is
rebellion to God.
"The Bible is
the Rock on which this Republic rests."
--Andrew Jackson
The Constitution of the USA
Article 4 Section 4
Republican form of government guaranteed.
Each State to be protected.
The United States shall guarantee to every
state in this union, a republican form of government, and
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I sought for the greatness and the genius of
America in her ample rivers-it was not there; in her fertile
fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her
rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there.
Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her
pulpits ablaze with righteousness did I meet the secret of her
genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if
America ever ceases to be good-America will cease to be great.
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