Day 12 – Check it out!

Ok, after eleven semi-earth shattering mini-blogs, I am hard pressed to come up with a twelfth one. I could write about how our door-to-door Christmas Caroling has its roots in Wassailing (which wasn’t always the cleanest/nicest). Or I could write about how other traditional Christmas things have pagan roots (Yule Log, 8 Reindeer, mistletoe, etc). But instead, let me take this blog to encourage you to do something:

 

No matter what we read or hear, we need to check things out for ourselves and discover the truth. Many of us hear stories about the song the 12 Days of Christmas and the Candy Cane as both having Christian roots. But as we saw earlier in the blogs, if we check them out, we find out that it’s not true.

 

Sometimes throughout the year, we’ll get emails about things that may or may not be true. Again, we must check them out. Could I suggest that before we pass on an email that has a story that sounds too good to be true (positive or negative), that we check them out first? Websites such as snopes.com and wikipedia.com are good resources.

 

Although I am not opposed to coming up with creative ways to segue into witnessing and telling others about Jesus, we must not promote lies. If we promote a lie to promote the gospel; once the lie is exposed, the person may not believe the truth about Jesus. That would be a travesty.

 

(Here’s another great blog about Christmas origins: http://m.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/features/27647-stealing-christmas-).

Day 11 – The Religious Roots of the 12 Days of Christmas?

This Christmas, a friend of mine heard on the radio that the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was originally written to teach some truths about Christianity. This got me curious and so I decided to look this up. I discovered 2 interesting things:

First, there was a song called “In Those Twelve Days” which was written to help teach the catechism. This song was written to coincide with the 12 Days of Christmas (the days, not the song). It includes things such as 1 God, 2 parts of the Bible (OT and NT), 3 in the Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit), 4 Gospels, 5 books of Moses, 6 Days of Creation, etc.

Second, the song “The 12 Days of Christmas” was not written for that purpose. Perhaps many have mixed up these two songs, since they both have to do with 12 Days of Christmas.

With that said, we as Christians can think about the parts of “In Those Twelve Days” whenever we read or sing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” We can also use it as a teaching tool for Christianity, like the song “In Those Twelve Days.” However, let’s be careful not to mix up the origins of these two songs.

Here’s a link to the snopes.com article about the songs:
http://snopes.com/holidays/christmas/music/12days.asp

Day 10 - Candy Cane story?

At Christmastime, many share the story about the Candy Cane. But actually I don’t like the story at all…and for a good reason!

The story is told about how the candy cane was invented by a candy maker who wanted to make candy that would symbolize the true meaning of Christmas. The hard candy was shaped like a " J " to stand for Jesus. The candy was white, that stands for the pureness of Jesus, and the red represents the blood that Jesus shed to save us from our sins.

It may be neat to say that to us it can symbolize all of that, but to say that the story is true is simply a lie.
I don’t care for the story because it is not true.

And if we as Christians spread lies about the Candy Cane like this, couldn’t that lead some to believe we are lying about Christ’s birth, death, burial, resurrection, and being the payment for our sins – you know, the gospel message?

Here’s a link to the snopes.com article about the tale: http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/candycane.asp

Day 9 - Why do we give gifts?

Don’t get me wrong, who doesn’t like to give or get gifts, especially at Christmas?! But why do we do it?

Some say it’s because God gave His greatest gift – His Son – at Christmas.
Other say it’s because the Magi brought gifts to Christ.
While we can certainly say that Christmas’ gift-giving reminds us of God’s gift or of the Magi’s gifts, the real reason we give gifts is because of a pagan holiday.

Below is part of an article from Wikipedia explaining the origin in the celebration of Saturnalia, how the church banned gift giving, and how we’ve now redefined it:

“The exchanging of gifts is one of the core aspects of the modern Christmas celebration, making the Christmas season the most profitable time of year for retailers and businesses throughout the world. Gift giving was common in the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, an ancient festival which took place in late December and may have influenced Christmas customs. Christmas gift giving was banned by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages due to its suspected pagan origins. It was later rationalized by the Church on the basis that it associated St. Nicholas with Christmas, and that gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh were given to the infant Jesus by the Biblical Magi.”

Day 8 - The Need to Celebrate Christmas

A cousin of mine has gotten some heat recently for stating that, although he’s a Christian, he doesn’t celebrate Christmas. To some, this is blasphemous. But as we already pointed out, Christmas (Dec. 25) is not really the date of Christ’s birth.

Here are some of the things he has pointed out about Christmas:

“Nowhere in scripture are Christians commanded to celebrate the birth of Christ. I challenge anyone to find a scriptural reference to the First Century Church celebrating Christmas. In fact, two of the four canonized gospels don't even mention the birth of Jesus.

“By contrast, the followers of Christ are admonished to observe two things: Communion and Baptism. All other feasts, festivals, and observances are entirely optional (see Colossians 2:16).”

So, if they didn’t celebrate Christmas, did they celebrate anything?
Well, we know that Jesus was at the Temple at Hanukkah at least once (John 10:22-23). So I would imagine that the Jewish Christians would have still celebrated Hanukkah.

(For more of my cousin Ken’s thoughts on Christmas, please see his blog http://random-ken.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-really-dont-like-christmas.html)

Day 7 - December 25 is Christ’s Birth?

Like many, every year my family celebrates the Birth of Christ on December 25. This is when most traditionally celebrate it. But is this when Jesus was actually born?

According to Luke chapter 2, the shepherds were abiding in their fields. This was most likely in the spring time.

So, how did we get the date of December 25? Well, when the Church wanted to set a day, they saw that many in the world were celebrating a pagan holiday on December 25 and decided to give the Christians an alternate celebration for that day – the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

You can find more info from the snopes.com article: http://snopes.com/holidays/christmas/jesus.asp

Yet, despite this, we still can (and my family will) celebrate Christ’s birth on Christmas (Dec. 25).

Day 5 - Hark the Herald Angels Sing?

Every year, we sing songs such as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” in which we refer to angels singing at the birth of Jesus. But did they actually sing?

 

In the story of the birth of Jesus, the Bible states that the angels said, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people…” It also records, “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’”

 

Nowhere in the Christmas story does it record an angel singing. Actually nowhere in the Bible does it ever record that any angels sang. I believe that this is one of the things that set us as humans apart from the angels.

Day 4 - The “3” Wise Men

Now I’ve grown up watching plays and manger scenes which all have 3 Magi or Wise men. I’ve sung the song “We Three Kings.” Yet, the Bible does not tell us how many Wise Men came to see Jesus.

We know, from Matthew 2:11 that they came bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Common sense, and tradition, would then suggest that there were 3, each bearing a gift. However, there could have been 2 (with one bearing 2 gifts) or more than 3 (with a couple bearing the same gift, or a couple bearing no gift).

Though tradition says there were 3, let’s not be too insistent on this point.

Day 2 - Epiphany

Another thing that we sometimes don’t understand is the Epiphany.

We may see it on a calendar and think, “ok, what is that?” Or we think, “Doesn’t epiphany mean a sudden realization of truth?”

On January 6, many churches celebrate the Epiphany, which is the traditional day on which the Magi visited the baby Jesus. Here’s part of the Wikipedia article about it:

“The observance had its origins in the Eastern Christian Churches and was a general celebration of the manifestation of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. It included the commemoration of his birth; the visit of the Magi (‘Wise Men’, as Magi were Persian priests) to Bethlehem; all of Jesus's childhood events, up to and including his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist; and even the miracle at the Wedding of Cana in Galilee. It seems fairly clear that the Baptism was the primary event being commemorated.

“Christians fixed the date of the feast on January 6 quite early in their history. Ancient liturgies noted Illuminatio, Manifestatio, Declaratio (Illumination, Manifestation, Declaration); cf. Matthew 3:13–17; Luke 3:22; and John 2:1–11; where the Baptism and the Marriage at Cana were dwelt upon. Western Christians have traditionally emphasized the ‘Revelation to the Gentiles’ mentioned in Luke, where the term Gentile means all non-Jewish peoples. The Biblical Magi, who represented the non-Jewish peoples of the world, paid homage to the infant Jesus in stark contrast to Herod the Great (King of Judea), who sought to kill him. In this event, Christian writers also inferred a revelation to the Children of Israel. Saint John Chrysostom identified the significance of the meeting between the Magi and Herod's court: ‘The star had been hidden from them so that, on finding themselves without their guide, they would have no alternative but to consult the Jews. In this way the birth of Jesus would be made known to all.’.”

Day 1 - The Twelve Days of Christmas

The first thing that we sometimes get wrong at Christmas is the concept of the 12 Days of Christmas.

When I was younger, I seem to recall people using the concept of the 12 days of Christmas as a countdown to Christmas. This seemed to progress to the 25 days of Christmas, as a countdown to Christmas day.

The 12 days of Christmas actually refer to Christmas Day and the 11 days after Christmas, leading up to the Epiphany (January 6). Here’s part of the Wikipedia article about it:

“The Twelve Days of Christmas are the festive days beginning Christmas Day (25 December). This period is also known as Christmastide and Twelvetide. The Twelfth Night of Christmas is always on the evening of 5 January, but the Twelfth Day can either precede or follow the Twelfth Night according to which Christian tradition is followed. Twelfth Night is followed by the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January. In some traditions, the first day of Epiphany (6 January) and the twelfth day of Christmas overlap.”