Merry Christmas to all!
Posted on 12/04/2005 7:27:20 AM PST by DouglasKC
Does Christmas really honor Christ?
It does the way I and many Christians celebrate it. Maybe the author would be happier if a holiday that celebrates the birth of Christ was eradicated, like sweeping the Ten Commandments from courtrooms. 1) Unrealistic. 2) Stupid.
Pardon me for saying so, but this self-righteous, sanctimonious approach is completely asinine.
Does God require that we not celebrate Christmas? Of course not.
Also, can other human beings give us salvation? If honoring God's truth determines our salvation, then why honor men over God?
We are saved by faith in Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross, not by works. (Eph. 4)
Jesus Christ said to those who appeared religious but denied the power of His true teaching, "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46; compare Matthew 7:21). Since Christ is opposed to Christmas, why would any thoughtful Christian observe it?
The assertion that Christ is opposed to his people celebrating his birth, whether it was in December or not, is ridiculous.
Walking in Jesus' footsteps in a world that doesn't is never easy. But it is much better and eminently more rewarding than following the empty ways of the world.
True. But to say that God is upset with us for celebrating Christmas is a load of malarkey.
Merry Christmas to all!
One can honor the denoted day of Jesus' birth. It's a biggie. After all, that is how the human race marks the passage of time. All calendars go by the current calendar, even if it's to mark Haj, Hindu or Chinese dates. Perhaps it IS a GIANT coinkydink that we do that, but we do.
The secularists, athiests and Christ-haters want to use "common era" and "before common era," but THAT is still based on Jesus' birth. It isn't exact by our modern tools of measurement but, in the long view of history, Jesus' birthday is extremely accurate. Jesus was born into an extremely literate area where all cultures wrote, spoke and kept records in Greek, Latin and Aramaic. Not so with other cultures where our knowledge of their past history is from oral traditions.
Celebrating Christmas with the pagan rituals, which was, by the way, done by all conquerors (using indigenous days to bring in the conquerored), isn't a bad thing but it's not the nub of the celebration. Going overboard and celebrating ONLY the pagan rituals disgraces the REAL celebration.
This article is typical of the stuff that comes out this time of year, every year.
Time and Newsweek usually do it at Christmas and Easter, just to remind us of their opinion of Jesus' birth, passion, death and resurrection. They tell the "story" as if it were 99% myth and children's foolishness.
Now the History Channel joins in on the same kind of thing. Even FOXNEWS had the garbage "Birth of Jesus" crap, beginning their version with the same "telling-a-story-to-morons-about-how-really-silly-this-Christ-thing-really-is.
It's a tried-and-true way of denegrading.
* The Liturgical Year: Dom Gueranger
And firstly, with regard to our Saviour's Birth on Dec. 25, we have St. John Chrysostom telling us in his homliy for this Feast, that the Western Churches had, from the very commencement of Christianity, kept it on this day. He is not satisfied with merely mentioning this tradition; he undertakes to show it is very well founded, inasmuch as the Church of Rome had every means of knowing the true day of our Saviour's Birth, since the acts of the enrollment, taken in Judea by command of Augustus, were kept in the public archives of Rome.The Holy Doctor adduces a second arguement, which he founds upon the Gospel of St. Luke, and he reasons thus: we know from the sacred Scriptures that it must have been in the fast of the sevent month (Lev 23.the 7th month, Tsiri, corresponded to out Sept, beginning of October) that the Priest Zachary had the vision in the Temple; after which Elizabeth, his wife, conceived St. John the Baptist; hence it follows that that the Blessed Virgin Mary having, as the Evangelist St Luke relates, received the Angel Gabriel's visit, and conceived the Saviour of the world in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, that is to say March, the Birth of Jesus must have taken palce in the month of December.
* Or, one could ignore the Records of the Enrollment, the Bible, Tradition, Ecclesiastical Calendars etc and continue to sow enmity and error in an attempt to discredit the Church Jesus established (matt 16:18)
I'm fairly certain that the author would not advocate sweeping the Ten Commandments from courtrooms. I think the main objection to Christmas as a Christian holiday is that Christ created holy days, listed them in the bible, and told His worshippers when to observe them. When Christ incarnated, he observed the very same days he created. He did this for a very good reason. Christmas was not one of these days.
Celebrating Christ's birth honors him in how we do so. So long as we treat it as a time for charity, generosity, forgiveness, and joy - it is a credit to His life and mission.
Merry Christmas!
Not really. Christ knows what his people need to worship him. He created specific days, called them "his" and then commanded his followers to observe them. Christmas, or the celebration of his birth, was not one of them. Observing his birth with disctinctly non-biblical traditions at the exclusion of the days HE commanded is certainly at the least disobedience to his written word.
Thank you Dr. Scrooge.
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*Yes. And He had to teach us how to worship the Triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.;. He taught that at the Last Supper/First Mass and Commanded His Apostles (Catholic Bishops) to worship Him in that way until He comes again.
The pluperfect Sacrifice of the New Covenant is His Sacrifice on the Cross re-presented in a Sacramental manner in real time via the Priesthood He established and it is through the Priesthhod He established that Jesus, as both Priest and victim, offers Himself to God as an act of propitiation and we Redeemed Christians gather with Him at the altar to offer this perfect Sacrifice of the New Covenant and then we Redeemed Christians consume the New Covenant Meal/Heavenly Banquet, the Eucharist.
Why do you think "New Covenant" is only spoken about by Jesus at the time of the Last Supper/First Mass? Why would anyone refuse to participate in this New Covenant Sacrifice and Banquet?
LOL Touche
Not to be contentious (and I really do not mean this in a hostile wat), but what other holidays do you celebrate? The Feast of Unleavened Bread? Feast of Tabernacles?
I like what it says in Romans 1:5-6:
" One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God."
I feel quite certain that what you do is to honor God, and with that confidence, may God bless you.
SD
* And you know that because...
Do you think it impossible God migh have CHOSEN to be born on that date? God uses Grace to build upon nature. nature. I think God make a great choice..talk about a sense of humor. "These clowns worship the Sun? OK, soon hey really WILL worship the Son"
I've been laughing for days at the people who think that calling a decorated evergreen a "Holiday tree" rather than a "Christmas tree" somehow denigrates the Savior.
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