Ho HO HO...

[Stan]

Roses are reddish

Violets are bluish

If it weren't for Christmas

I would be Jewish.

[phkrause]

LOL, I guess I'm covered than, either way. :)

[FLO]

Roses are reddish

Violets are bluish

If it weren't for Christmas

I would be Jewish.

more like...

Roses are red, Violets are blue

If you enjoy Christmas so much,

might as well call yourself a pagan too.

Sound harsh? Just do some research...

[Stan]

Flo Bors

more like...

Roses are red, Violets are blue

If you enjoy Christmas so much,

might as well call yourself a pagan too.

Sound harsh? Just do some research...

Not sure you are into the New Testament...

if you are study this...

Quote:

16Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day

It is more than welcome to give reasons why you do not want to celebrate anything.. passing judgement on other... is more a reflection on you then you might think.

How is winter in Agincourt treating you? Heard you had some nasty weather.

[Nan]

Not sure if this should be here, but a friend in Britain sent it to me, from the BUC newsletter (current).

CHRISTMAS: PAGAN, CHRISTIAN, OR CONVENIENT? [Andrew Willis]

[Editor's Note: Andrew Willis, a Course Tutor in the Adventist Discovery Centre, enjoys research and history and shared the information below in a morning worship with staff at the British Union Conference office. As he deals with some of the questions that church members ask at this time of year we asked to reproduce his worship for your insight.]

This may sound like a riddle found in a Christmas cracker but today many seem to take for granted the idea that the celebration of Christmas on 25 December is a pagan idea. Atheists mock Christians for celebrating a "pagan" festival, some Christians decline to make the day a celebration while others argue that regardless of its origins it is a good evangelistic opportunity. Who is right? Is Christmas really a pagan festival that the Christians took over?

To answer that question we need to go to North Africa at the end of the 3rd Century.

In AD284 Diocletian became emperor and under him (around 298-305) the Church suffered some of the harshest persecution in its history. Many Christians, including Church leaders, renounced their faith in the face of persecution. With the abdication of Diocletian, persecution stopped in the west and Christians returned to a life of peace and security. There was one problem, should those Christians who gave up their faith under duress be allowed back? Could the leaders who left be allowed to take office again?

The Church said 'yes', and following their Saviour's example forgave and welcomed them back, giving them the chance to make a new start.

In North Africa however there was a movement in the Church which rejected this idea. They believed that the Church should not be contaminated and no one who had turned their back on the faith should be allowed back. They were concerned with the purity of the Church and wanted to avoid any pagan influences. This group became known as the "Donatists", after their leader Donatus.

What does this have to do with Christmas? The Donatists are recorded as celebrating the birth of Jesus on 25 December. This group, who were studious in their avoidance of anything that even looked like compromise with the world or any hint of paganism, were following an old tradition of remembering the birth of Jesus on the same date most Christians celebrate today.

So where do we get the idea that 25 December is a pagan day?

Some claim it is to do with the winter solstice and that Christians simply borrowed this.

The problem is that the solstice is actually a few days earlier. Some suggest that it is because of the Saturnalia festival – but that runs 17 - 23 December.

Some claim it is to do with sun worship and bring up the festival of "Sol Invictus" (Unconquered Sun) which Emperor Aurelian instituted on 25 December 274. However when we look closer we see that this was not a traditional sun worship date. The two sun temples in Rome celebrated their feasts on 9 and 28 August (not December), and had fallen into neglect by the time of Aurelian. A new sun god, Mithras, was becoming popular. Although long thought of as a development of eastern sun worship, historians now believe Mithras worship to be a roman invention – a cult created by and for the imperial bureaucracy. But even Mithras did not have any feasts associated with solstices or equinoxes until a hundred years later. So it appears that Aurelian, who was hostile to Christianity, picked a date with no pagan sun worship and created one. Why? It has been suggested that he was trying to create a pagan alternative to another feast on that day; a pagan festival that would help unite his empire. That festival was the celebration of Jesus' birth. In fact, in spite of Aurelian's pronouncement, there is no record of celebrating Sol on 25 December until 354/362 AD, much later than the Christian celebration in Africa and elsewhere.

It was only in the 17th and 18th Centuries that secular enlightenment scholars started to suggest that Christianity had borrowed the date of Christmas from the pagans.

Yet this leads us to another problem. We know from the accounts of Jesus' birth in the Gospels that it was unlikely that He was born in December, so why had the Church chosen to celebrate it then?

The answer has two parts: the date of Jesus' death, and Jewish tradition!

For the Early Church, celebrating the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus was very important. It worked hard to determine the date of this event, a calculation made more difficult by having to work out which year it was, and which calendar – Jewish or Roman – to use). After much deduction the Church in the West and Africa settled on 25 March as the date of Jesus' crucifixion.

Why was this important in determining the date of Jesus' birth? In Jewish tradition common around the time of Jesus, it was thought that prophets died on the same day as they were born. This idea, which seems strange to us but was understood and accepted by the Early Church, was called the "integral age" of prophets. Jesus was different to the prophets however, His life didn't start at His birth, rather it was when the angel spoke to Mary. This is why the Church celebrated the annunciation (or announcement to Mary that she was carrying the child) on 25 March. Add nine months of pregnancy and you arrive at a birth date of 25 December.

Clearly we know Jesus wasn't born on 25 December, but the Church choose to celebrate it on this day. In a similar way, this country celebrates the Queen's birthday on the second Saturday in June ("trooping the colour") even though her real birthday is on 21 April.

So even though they didn't know the real date of Jesus' birth the Early Church, following Jewish traditions, choose a date when they celebrated the fact God loved the world enough to send His Son as a baby. This date had no connection to pagan gods or ideas – these were invented years later.

So how should Seventh-day Adventists respond to Christmas? Firstly we should understand that it is not a pagan festival "borrowed" by the Church. Rather it is a very early Christian memorial. Secondly we should focus our attention on the event it celebrates and witness to the world about our Saviour. Thirdly, following the example of Adventist Church cofounder, Ellen White, we can use this opportunity to respond to the needs of the world around us.

[Nan]

It is a long article above.....I have quoted the conclusion for those who dislike long articles....

So how should Seventh-day Adventists respond to Christmas? Firstly we should understand that it is not a pagan festival "borrowed" by the Church. Rather it is a very early Christian memorial. Secondly we should focus our attention on the event it celebrates and witness to the world about our Saviour. Thirdly, following the example of Adventist Church cofounder, Ellen White, we can use this opportunity to respond to the needs of the world around us.

[Kevin H]

Nan: Thank you for sharing. It is good that this information is finally trickeling down from scholars to the public; but we also see with this information the streanth of tradition and people not wanting to give up tradition for fact. I hope you don't mind, and I am hoping that I won't be breaking any copyright rules but I will copy and past your above article on Heavenly Sanctuary.com

[Nan]

Kevin certainly I do not mind, I guess as long as it is attributed to the British Union Conference paper (not sure what that is called) they will be OK. Might be worth visiting their site.

[Kevin H]

Oh, I heard on the History Channel an Orthodox Priest refering to how Jewish tradition believed that prophets were conseved on the day they would die. I don't know if he mispoke or where he got that from but another piece of evidence in our study.

[Dr. Shane]

I read a similar story to this a few years back. Whether or not Christmas has pagan roots is itself a mystery. There is simple not enough evidence either way to make a definitive conclusion.

[Neil D]

...an old friend of mine, wrote this article on Christmas....it is an opinion piece, but well worth the read, IMHO. It does give some well thought out reasons why to NOT let the adversary get his way with a season of joy, and happyness, and good will among men....Perhaps we need to rethink the reason for the season...

Reflections on Christmas by Bille Burdick

Oh Come Let Us Adore Him ...

It was 1992 when I wrote and first posted this essay as a "Christmas card" to my net families. I wrote it originally as a response to a debate that raged on SDAnet the first Christmas that I was a part of that group over whether we as Christians, and especially as Seventh-day Adventist Christians, should observe Christmas in celebration of the birth of Christ.

It was indeed encouraging to me when after posting this essay that year, I received a very heart-warming letter in which the writer expressed thanks for the new peace that had come to their home in regard to celebrating Christmas....and how they had, for the first time, been able to reconcile the observance of Christmas with the facts of its pagan associations and its not being the actual day of Christ's birth.

Each Christmas season since then I have sent it again to my net family, as well as making it available year round on this section of our At Issue pages, hoping that those who enter in to the joy of the season may find some new thoughts about the holiday you hold dear...and that those who may have had prohibitions or reservations about celebrating Christmas may be encouraged to look at the day in a more joyful way...and join with us, and with the angels, in singing...

Joy to the world,

The Lord is come....

Reflections on Christmas...

...and solstice and pagans and Jews and Gentiles and times and seasons and angels' songs and Christmas trees--and a baby born in a stable.

On winter Solstice... Could one born in the tropics comprehend the long, dark, winter arctic night? Or even we of temperate zones, in our warm, well lighted rooms--what can we know of the feelings of earlier tribes who watched the sunlit hours grow fewer and fainter each day, until there was solstice and the sun stopped its retreat and began to return. Those who knew the Lord--that it was He who made the sun, and ordered the seasons--these surely celebrated and gave Him thanks, and praised the Lord when they saw the sun returning. When they saw the season turning, surely they worshiped Him.

But not all knew the Lord. Some saw only the things that were made--the sun and the earth that provided their food. And they (some ignorantly, some willfully) turned from worshiping the Lord to worshiping instead those things the Lord had made. We call them pagans. At the turning of the season they called solstice, they celebrated, and gave thanks, and praised and worshiped those things that were but the signs of the turning of the year.

And then came Jesus. And Christians chose the solstice celebration and appropriated it as a celebration of His coming. And some Christians think this was a very bad thing to do--for Solstice had "pagan origins", and Christ was not born at Solstice.

But think with me a little farther. Perhaps it should not be so quickly condemned.

First of all, did Pagans really *originate* the celebrations of Solstice? I tend to agree with C. S. Lewis when he observes that Satan does not "originate" anything. He has no creative power. He only rebels, he perverts, he turns men from worshiping the creator to worshiping the creation. But it is the function of the gospel to turn men's hearts back to worshiping the true God. So why should we think of Solstice as being only a pagan holiday which was "Christianized"? (This term meaning, I suppose, only a thin veneer of respectability which covers a pagan--and therefore evil--heart.) Might we not better think of it as a holiday, a holy day--a day of celebration, praise, and worship which Christianity reclaimed--that is, removed its pagan heart--and redirected its praise and worship back to the true Creator God?

It is true, Christ was not born at winter solstice as men count the turning seasons of the year. Yet Christ was born at winter solstice--in the turning of the history of the world.

When "the light of truth seemed to have departed from among men, when faith had grown dim, and hope had well-nigh ceased to illuminate the future." when "the dark shadow that Satan had cast over the world grew deeper and deeper," when even the "priests who ministered in the temple had lost sight of the significance of the service they performed," when "the deception of sin had reached its height," when all the world, it seemed, lived in an arctic winter darkness...

"When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son". . . "Wonder, O heavens! And be astonished, O earth!" (quotes from Desire of Ages by Ellen White) Then it was that angels brought light and song and celebration to temple shepherds keeping watch...for Christ the Lord was born that day! It was "Christ-mas" day--the first glimmer of the "return of the Son", the beginning of God's "Christ-mass"--"Christ- sacrifice"--that was to culminate at Gethsemane and Calvary and burst forth on the resurrection morning in light more glorious than the noonday summer sun.

The gods of field and forest and star and sun and Roman Empire were shown to be no gods. And the day of praise which they had usurped was given back to God. The day of celebrations for the sun's return was made a day of celebration for the coming of the Sun of Righteousness, the babe in the manger.

Oh, yes, from our vantage point in history, we know that not all men gave their full allegiance to the King of Kings. We know that Christians allowed pagan thoughts to infiltrate the church, causing a period of great darkness even in the church. We know that Christians today are not single minded in their worship. We even know that paganism is arising again, that Christ is being outlawed from public schools and government property while neo-pagan and Gaia (earth) rituals are encouraged. Solstice is once more being celebrated by some. So let's be against pagan elements that have clung to (or grown upon) the holy day called Christmas. Let's be against the secular commercialization of Christmas. But please! Let's not let (or help) these same elements squeeze Christ out of our Christmas!

If the celebration of solstice had not existed, would Christians have started it? We just might have--we who lived in lands of ice and snow and long winter nights--we just might have. Darkness is depressing. We just might have cheered each other with tales of light and song and Bethlehem. I hope we would have. Maybe, in fact, we did. Our present day pagans (and their true leader) would like to take credit for much more than history actually records. Let us not glorify them. Paganism never quite lives up to its own self-portrait.

There's a song that keeps running through my head, "Christmas helps us to remember, to do what other folks hold dear." Not all the spending, or even the over-spending, that goes on at Christmas has to do with "greed" or gratification of "lusts". This is the time of year when we can lay aside our timidities and give to those we love. What if we sacrifice a bit of our selves. What if the merchant is enriched as well as our friend--it's Christmas. God gave Himself to us. It is that thought that helps us step outside ourselves and give a bit extra to each other.

At our house, we have a tree. It is a fir tree. (We can still get real trees where I live--though we can't go out and cut our own as we once did.) It will die. And as it dies it will release its perfume. More than it does in its living, it will bless us in its dying. I see symbolism here that looks beyond the manger to a life of blessing and a death of saving. We have lights on our tree--and an angel on the top--the one my oldest son picked out the Christmas he was five. We will remember--stars and angels and Bethlehem and Christmases past. Our tree trimmings all have history--some we made when our children were little, some were gifts from very dear friends, some are merely decorative. Our traditions bind us as a family--and not just our visible family. We celebrate the birthday of our Elder Brother.

For you who do not see beyond the commercialization or paganization of Christmas, I pray that your eyes may be opened. May you see, and feel, and know, along with those of us who celebrate, the peace and love and joy and hope that is kindled anew with each remembrance of His birth.

For you who sing the songs of Christmas...May your hearts open to his love and peace in a new and joyfully intense way on this Christmas.

God bless,

Bille Burdick

At Issue Editor

[Overaged]

Originally Posted By: Stan Jensen

Roses are reddish

Violets are bluish

If it weren't for Christmas

I would be Jewish.

more like...

Roses are red, Violets are blue

If you enjoy Christmas so much,

might as well call yourself a pagan too.

Sound harsh? Just do some research...

What an exquisite rendition you have provided. You must be proud of yourself.