Christmas Traditions; God's Traditions?

I am like most Americans. I have fond memories of the Christmas traditions I experienced as young child. I remember having trouble sleeping at night, because mom and dad said Santa was on his way to bring me Christmas presents. When I was little, in Eastern Kentucky, we didn't have much. In the early 60's most men barely made enough money to buy flour and meal and pinto beans to complement the hog that was killed every fall and the vegetables from the garden that were canned and stored away to use until the next harvest. So my memories of Christmas traditions don't consist of a whole of lot of "stuff" I received.

It is mostly made up of little things, like getting apples, oranges, grapes, and other fruit that were not a part of the normal fare at our table. I remember the snow caps on the fence posts in our front yard and the smell of a coal burning pot bellied stove that kept our four room little home warm on wintry evenings. I remember playing on the ice in the creek that ran in front of our house, falling in and nearly freezing to death. And I remember getting warm by the coal fire while my Granny told me stories and riddles. Mostly my good memories of Christmas have to do with my family, some long ago gone home to be with the LORD. But now things have changed. Those Christmas traditions are no longer something that I embrace. I used to believe they were God's traditions, but my eyes have been opened to the truth.

Christmas no longer holds the place in my heart that it once did. Therefore the Christmas traditions that I grew up in are no longer a part of my life and that of my family.

Now before you jump to conclusions, I am not a Jehovah's Witness (in the sense of the movement,) nor a Seventh Day Adventist. I did not become a proselyte; a Jew by ritual. I am not an atheist, an agnostic or an old "Scrooge." I am a believer in the Yeshua, or Jesus as HE is known as by the professing Western church. But, I've come to understand a few things in my historical and Scriptural research. HIS birthday is not on December 25th, and the day we wrongly celebrate as HIS birth is really a pagan celebration of the winter solstice. Christmas traditions are pagan traditions, not God's traditions.

The winter solstice celebration is replete with rituals celebrating the lengthening of the day's sunlight. It has its roots in sun worship that, according to the Bible, is something followers of the true God are to stay completely away from. In fact the LORD judged Israel for allowing sun worship to come into the temple and practiced alongside worshiping HIM. This is why the Christmas traditions are no longer something that I practice. In fact, we no longer celebrate the festival at all, because they are against, and in the place of God's traditions.

You've heard it said that we must put Christ back into Christmas. But, was HE ever in it in the first place? Syncretism was something that the LORD judged Israel for many times. Since HE has not changed, according to HIS own Word, would HE not judge the church by the same righteous judgment? Scripture is replete with commandments to keep from idols, (Paul reiterated that himself) from allowing pagan practices to become intertwined with the truth of Scripture that we might not be drawn away to worship other gods, that are no gods at all. Why do many in the body of professing believers fight so hard for Christmas traditions, or in fact the holiday itself, that is never mentioned in Scripture.

A festival that has its origins in the worship of pagan gods, filled with debauchery and emptiness, while at the same time rejecting the commanded Feasts of the LORD - God's traditions, that, when kept by faith, speak of our Savior, and bring blessing and life to the one who keeps them? Why do we, a professing Christian nation, fight over a pagan holiday? Why is it, every year around this time, Christians are so very angry that the stores and media refuse to say "Merry Christmas?" I use to be one of them, until I learned that I'm fighting for something that is ungodly. Christmas traditions are no longer something that I fight to hold on to. I now, by faith in Messiah, seek to observe the festivals that HE commanded in HIS Word - God's traditions. I don't have a problem observing the birth of my Savior, any time of the year. But most theologians believe HE was born around the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. That is in the fall of the year, not on the "venerable day of the sun," December 25th. The traditions that God wants us to observe are written in HIS Word. The traditions of what we call "Christmas" are not something that HE commanded us to observe. In fact, as I stated earlier, Christmas traditions are not God's traditions.

According to Wiccan High Priestess Selena Fox, "Yule, the winter solstice, is a festival of peace and a celebration of waxing solar light. I honor the new sun child by burning a[n] oaken Yule log in a sacred fire. I honor the great goddess in her many great mother aspects, and the father god as Santa in his old sky god, father time, and holly king forms. I decorate my home with lights and with holly, ivy, mistletoe, evergreens and other herbs sacred to this season. I ring in the new solar year with bells." Now I ask you, does this describe God's traditions found in Scripture?

Now you are probably just like me and most other professing Christians. You are probably saying, "But I don't see it that way. I'm not worshiping the sun, or any pagan idol. I'm celebrating the birth of my Savior." Well the question is "How does God see it. Does HE see your Christmas traditions as a valid, Scriptural way to honor HIS Son's birth? Does HE see your Christmas traditions as God's traditions?

Here is an example from Scripture, as to how God sees our efforts to worship HIM in our own prescribed manner, in place of the commanded feasts and festivals that make up God's traditions. In the book Exodus, Chapter 32, we see the people of God, after they have heard the Word of the LORD, HIS commandments, which included God's traditions they were to observe and HIS prohibition of bowing "down to their gods… nor doing according to their works," making a conscious choice to disobey God and revert back to the traditions they were freed from in Egypt. By the way, an interesting note, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the first observance of Christmas was in Egypt. So, what did the children of Israel do? They talked Aaron into melting down their golden earrings and other gold items they had brought out of Egypt and constructing a golden calf image that they would worship. Aaron even called it the god who brought them out of Egypt, when God had just told them that HE was the LORD their God who brought them out of Egypt. And then Aaron went so far as to try and redeem the pagan practice that he and the people were reverting to by making a proclamation, saying, "Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD." Aaron, in the face of God's commandments, replaced God's traditions that HE said to observe, with man-made traditions, and attempted to establish it as a feast to the LORD! Because of that decision by Aaron and the people three thousand people were slain that day! Remember that the wages of sin is death? This is an example to us, according to Paul's admonition in 1st Corinthians 10.

So when we say that our Christmas traditions, though they are pagan through and through, and are a pagan celebration and practice, in violations of God's commandments and in place of God's traditions, are a "feast to the LORD," how do you think God sees that? How did HE see it with Aaron and the many other times in Scripture when HE brought judgment upon HIS people for the act of blending man-made, pagan traditions with God's traditions that HE commanded? I believe it is something the professing church must consider. How tightly we hold to practices that are in opposition to God's traditions and how ferociously we fight against anyone who would replace pagan Christmas tradition with God's tradition! It is very upside down. It is truly a time when men call good, evil and evil, good.