Beware of the Anti-Christmas

Ok, it's been a while. Sorry.

Now, on to the premise of today's blog.

Christmas.

I'm kind of torn here. The idea of getting together with friends and family for a good feed and some pleasantries is a fond memory. Granted, there have been some rather despondent Christmases, like the first couple of them after my ex-wife stole my children and vanished with them, but on the whole, it brings back thoughts of happiness.

But then....

There's always a "but then....."

I grew up. I was gloriously saved by the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, and had my sins forgiven, and was "born again".

One of the things that God does for us after we are saved is, "He leads us into all truth".

Let me tell you, "all truth" isn't always pleasant or necessarily welcome. Sometimes it's downright intrusive.

Such was the revelation that christmas isn't biblical or Christian. I don't want to cause any unnecessary angst here but a simple investigation into the whole thing leads one to the fact that it just ain't.

My first clue was the Santa Deception. This supposedly omnipresent, omniscient character who lives on milk and cookies whose name, if one rearranges some letters is Satan. Not a nice thing to discover. Ok, flimsy stuff, and certainly no evidence there, but it is compelling.

Next, "and the shepherds were keeping watch of their flocks by night". Whoa. Stop. Back up.

Um, in case you didn't notice, December 25th is winter time. Even in ancient Israel it got mighty cold there at night around then. So cold that shepherds weren't "watching heir flocks by night" around that time, they were warming their feet by the fire somewhere. And the sheep? They were nicely tucked away in their stalls in their wool coats.

That one made me stop and think.

How about the fact that traditionally, December 25th has been used by the heathen as a time to celebrate the winter solstice. No doubt throwing a baby or two into the burning arms of Molech to ensure a good year to come. As one good old boy put it, "That ain't Crischun!"

Enter the Romans.

The early church and Rome were not compatible. If you will recall, even Bugs Bunny new that Nero burnt and generally murdered lots of true Christians. But, dag nab it, he discovered God's math, kill one two more pop up. Kill them and four more appear. kill those four and then there are eight, & cetera. It might cut down on the competition for the position of being the riegning "god", but it also shrinks the old tax base. And such was the dilemma facing the old tree worshiping, sun worshipers of Rome.

Enter Constantine and his "conversion". He declared the entire Roman empire as "Christian". No repentance needed, you just are one now. Of course, the true Believers saw right through this and said, basically, we're outta here. And the heathen? They didn't like the idea one bit either. They hated Jesus and his followers, so why would they want anything to do with them, even if it was only in name.

Problem.

Think Caesar, think. What to do? Hmmmm.

Insert light bulb here.

Why not make the old pagan "holy days" Christian, thereby making everyone happy. And so they did. And from this we got "Christmas" in it's embryonic form. Of course it has been modified and adapted over the years to become what it is today, a highly commercialized, celebration of greed, covetousness, lust, drunkenness, and many other like sins.

When I hear the cry, "They're trying to take Christ out of Christmas", I want to scream,

HE WAS NEVER IN IT!

Here is a link to an article that I would consider to be a good primer on the subject,

http://www.donimon.org/christmas-christsworksatanswork.html

There's much more to add to this subject but I feel like I've covered the basics.

Happy Holidays!