Holidays
We use the word holiday to represent a Holy-day, a day that we deemed as time to celebrate God. The word holiday does not appear in scripture, for each of the six days of creation, plus the seventh day of His rest, are all called holy-days, for Life is Holy, for it comes from no other source than from God.
Let us take that dreadful look at christmas, a subject that very few ‘christians’ really want to talk about.
Although it was not called christmas, this twelve day celebration was, with it yule-tide logs, and the mistletoe, well established in the pagans almost two thousand years before Christ was born. It was a festival of the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, with what resembled more of an orgy, with its’ continuous drunken binge where most anything was allowed. But when Constantine wanted to conquer the world for his benefit, and could do so with compromise instead of war, he made a treaty with the pagans to allow them to keep their festive days in exchange for pretense of being his subjects. This wouldn’t fly very well, so he reformed it to look as if it were a celebration of the birth of Christ by moving the day of His birth, just a small trivial compromise, to December twenty-fifth; but it was the same event as before, only called different; Christ’s mass. The mass, the gathering of folks in the assembly hall, was important to Constantine, as it is today, for his ego was stroked each time the gathering met. It made him think that he was significant in the eyes of the common man, even though they gathered by the order of the soldiers, he could pretend that it was for him; a mass of people that wanted what he wanted.
The celebration, that many call christmas, was not birthed in Truth, but through the self-righteous egos of the mind of man, and I hate to say it so bluntly, but God’s not a participant.
Constantine was converted to christianity by those that were zealous to their religion, but back then, as it is now, was a far-cry from what God wanted His people called into, or maybe I better say; called out of. The pronoun christian should be a wonderful way of identifying ourselves, and would be if man hadn’t of interfered with his regulations that went against the Grace of God. But man, thinking he had to help God out, regulated it, (that is denominational living) and the people surrounding it, with all their rules, and rites, and ceremonies, that it no longer resembled the Rock of Revelation that the Church was built on. And Constantine too, fell into this category. So after these compromises were made with the pagans, and those that worshiped other gods, the acceleration of the downfall became more rampant.
Does it take a scientist to figure out who invented the character of santa claus? The world, the pagans, invented what we know as christmas, and I think they have a right to their ways, but it doesn’t belong to God or His Christ; so let them have it back.
The resurrection of Christ is one of our main focuses in our walk with Him, and should be adhered too with the most solemn of our belief. Christ was not only resurrected, He is the Resurrection, our only hope of True-Life. But this ‘thing called easter’, falls into the same category that everything that man put his hands too, did; a far cry from what God wanted His people to be called into.
Here we go with the paganism again; almost two thousand years before Christ was born, they again celebrated the holiday feast of Ishtar, (pronounced es-tar) and for those thousands of years preceding the ‘great compromise’ of Constantine, the festival was again about sex; i.e.; the bunny rabbit and egg. Ishtar was a prophet who sent her first-mate out to the mountains to receive from their goddess, a prophetic word. Somehow thru the week-long event in the forest, at the crack of dawn, was eaten by a wild boar, which is why they rose early to watch the sun rise in remembrance of him, and then ate their ham at dinner for revenge. This too was tweaked to fit in with the ‘christain’ standards that his man-made governmental church was establishing. And is a far-cry from what God wanted His people to be called into.
I won’t go far into the halloween festivities, but will say this; It doesn’t, in any form or way belong, in any stretch of the imagination, even in these ‘things called church’, and is strictly a thing of the world. I don’t care if it’s called a fall festival, or a hallelujah party, or a ‘holy ghost weenie roast’, it all the same practice of high spirits.
The one holiday that I enjoyed and felt good about was thanksgiving. For many years man hadn’t polluted it with the pretense of worldly values. It was about family sharing and fellowshipping one with the other, and for the most part had remained pure, at least in appearances. But man with his techniques, took a non-commercialized day of thanks, and has turned it into a great sales event, and why they call it ‘black Friday, I’ll probably never know, but now they have black Thursday so many can get a head-start on the deals of the decade. One of the great events of Thanksgiving is college football, so it’s not hard to see that this holiday too is not far from being something that barely resembles what it began as. I was talking with a lady the other day, and asked about her Thanksgiving plans, and was a big meal planned with family. Her response was that this year their family wasn’t getting together; the temptation of the great prices was the culprit, since now the sales are moved up to a day earlier.
What are we? A people made in the similitude of God, given His Spirit, and called by His name, having nowhere to go, but still yet we’re in a hurry to get there, because we have left our first Love, for the love of the world and self. Therefore, we have places to go, but it’s time for the world and their ‘church’ to quit dictating where it is. Should we gather together? YES—and I think it’s wonderful to have family together, even show our appreciation toward them, enjoy each other, enjoy activities with them, and share a meal, but when we make the compromise to call it an event with Gods’ name attached, and canonized by the ‘church’ as being sacred, simply means that we have downwardly evolved into what the world wants, because their lack of a relationship with God, but a need to fit in.