HOLY_ _ _ _ !!!!!
What word did you fill in? Was it crap or the sh- word? Well this is a trick question. The answer is days, D A Y S, yes, days. Here’s a grammar lesson. Drop the Y and add an i and you have a new word…Holidays. Even though we used the word to describe all kinds of events, days off and vacations, it’s meaning rings true. Holidays are something that we allow ourselves to take a day and celebrate life and spend time with the ones we love. We relax after the hard work of preparing for them and enjoy special places and traditions that create lasting memories that we treasure. Stopping taking a moment to live, love and enjoy certain days of our lives is very Christian. Let’s see what we are responsible for.
CHRIST MASS
Christmas or Christ Mass is the celebration of Christ’s birth and the mass part means that it is for everyone, the masses. Yes, we incorporated the pagan rituals of the winter solstice, the Feast of Stephen . When Constantine the great ruled the Roman empire in 315 A.D. he converted to Christianity and tried make Christmas on December 25th an immovable date as Pope Julius I had declared five years earlier. Trying to bring the people in to a real reason to celebrate was hard as they had been celebrating the birth of the zun gods Attis and Mithras, ( depending on where you lived) and the god Saturn.
All reasons lead to excesses in liquor, food and social chaos. Even Christmas was celebrated this way and 1 ,324 (or more) years later during the reign of Oliver Cromwell of England all Christmas festivities were banned. throughout time we have tried to turn it around and explain to even the faithless that it is about giving. Christians celebrate by giving because of all God gives to us. We enjoy too much traditional, delicious food and we spend too much money. Guilty as charged. We give to those whether they believe in Christ or not because we do. Guilty as charged.
Every year we see people totally lose their focus and spend nights in parking lots waiting for stores to open, people crowding, people spending too much money and totally losing the true meaning of Christmas….but….they are doing it in an attempt to give…to give to someone else. A seed of The Truth is planted and maybe someday will grow into the desire to be God’s.
And Christians…..RELAX ABOUT Santa Clause. Santa clause is a legend about a real man, a saint named Nicholas of Bari who lived in Lycia which is now the country of Turkey. Born to a wealthy family, it is said that when his parents died, he took the money and gave it to the needy. At age 17 he became a monk and then a priest and an Archbishop. His story of earnest prayer and healing the sick are almost overshadowed by his generosity to those in need. He died on December 6th somewhere between 345 A.D. of 355 A.D. right around the time that people in Rome were trying to get their act together to celebrate Christmas. People celebrated St Nicholas Eve and children would put out straw for his donkey and in the morning they would awake to some sweet treats and toys. The treats many times were put in the stockings that were hanging there to dry out as the family needed to wear them the next day as they had been washed. More times than not, the family was too poor for many stockings and needed to wash them each night.
The legend of Saint Nicholas of Bari inspired other Christian men to do the same and create legends of their own in different countries but all of them were about giving, giving as Christian men as much as they had to give. As a matter of fact, the spirit of Saint Nicholas was not very welcome for a long time because of the pagan disaster that Christmas first was. But, now we have the opportunity to set the record straight.
We need to think. When we take our children to a friend’s birthday party at a pizza place with people dressed up as giant mice, dogs, a moose whatever…do we really expect the child to think that it is the mouse’s. dog’s or moose’s birthday? We expect our child to know…to know that it is really little Johnny’s birthday and that is the reason that we are here and the mouse or the dog or the moose are just here to celebrate Johnny’s birthday.
We can definitely translate the spirit of Santa Clause the same way. Anyway, Santa is a lot more impressive than any of those guys and Christ deserves the best at his party.
The world has counted on the fourth quarter of sales in the United States for their success. 70% of the U.S.’s economy is based on the power of ” We the People” to spend. It is called consumer confidence. 70% of our spending is on giving in the fourth quarter for Christmas. Even though we are to focus on the real meaning of Christmas and not be materialistic, there is a good seed that we are doing it ‘to give to others‘. Look at all the people that work for charity and give to charity at Christmas that usually don’t any other time of year. The inspiration is there. The U. S. was started in the name of freedom and God and God’s plan of freedom. Christians worked hard and fought to make this country happen it should be no surprise that our strength is in our giving because so much is given to us by God. Guilty as charged.
PRESIDENTS’DAY
We used to have Washington’s birthday and Lincoln’s birthday. Then we combined them into Presidents’ Day. We celebrate the men who have fought for God’s plan of freedom in God’s country Washington. Fought for freedom from British rule and to be an independent, free and better nation. Where no longer would working people be slaves to the upper crust and be held back from their dreams.
Lincoln fought for freedom from believing the evil lies of slavery and freedom for those that enslaved themselves with lies and those that suffered indescribably from all of it.. God’s gift of freedom in God’s country and we celebrate it. Christians…guilty as charged.
VALENTINE’S DAY
This is not a “greeting card” holiday. Saint Valentine lived in Rome and was a priest that assisted martyrs that were being tortured and killed by Claudius II. Some historians say that he refused to renounce his Christian faith. Others claim he was defiant to the government. He was caught marrying young Christian couples that were ‘in love’ despite the consequences” He was then ordered to be beaten and beheaded and died on February 14th in about the year 270. Then in 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius marked February 14th as St. Valentine’s day. Archeologists have uncovered his grave and an ancient catacomb and a church dedicated to him. So we gave him a day of remembrance. A day of love…true love…. God’s love. Christians…guilty as charged.
- PATRICK’S DAY
Saint Patrick lived from AD 387-461. He began life in Rome born to parents of high ran, ( somehow people imagined that they were important). At the age of 16 he was kidnapped and sold as a slave to work for a chieftain named Milchu in Dilardia. For the next 6 years he tended this man’s flocks and prayed. When released from his slavery, he was on a mission to free the Irish people.
He was prepared with a strong knowledge of the Celtic language and had studied amazing amounts of Scripture. Attacked by the Druids, as he was against Druidism, he has an amazing story of heroism and Sainthood all for God and His children. Saint Patrick died on March 17th 493.
The holiday to celebrate St. Patrick is a religious day of remembrance and the lifting of restrictions from lent food or drink. It is supposed to be about celebrating freedom to be Christian, not just a drunk…but when anyone is free truly free..God’s way, they have the right to choose. St. Patrick devoted his life to freeing people from slavery and the internal slavery of believing lies. With outstanding love he tried to get the word of God to everyone and performed many miracles along the way. His story is amazing and after we read it, we realize, once again, that the price of freedom is faith, hard work and sacrifice. We can decide how we really want to celebrate St. Patty’s day. The Christian/freedom thing again….guilty as charged.
EASTER
Say what you want…. it is all about Christ…totally
MEMORIAL DAY
Here we go again , remembering those who have fought for our freedom. This time it is for those who lost their lives doing so. They stood in front of guns, bombs and planes to stop those who wish to destroy and control us. They believed in freedom so much that they were willing to fight and die. Freedom from the beginning of the God/man relationship as in Eden. Many of the fallen are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Cross after cross after cross. Their choice not ours. How many soldiers throughout the history of this country are buried under a cross. Christians…freedom fighters…for God…and His people…Guilty as charged
INDEPENDENCE DAY
Oh no! The freedom thing again? People left everything to come to a new land to start over with next to nothing. They wanted to get away from the control freaks of their previous homes. They suffered. They died. They survived and learned how to make a go of it here. Then can you imagine? The control freaks came over and fought like hell to take it for themselves. They didn’t mind the people here doing all of that crazy hard work and going through all of the hardships as long as they got revenue in the form of tax money from all of our hard work. Don’t think so….NO.
Neighbor was against neighbor and brother against brother because freedom scares as many as no freedom does. Do we know about green coats? Look them up. They were bound to be Americans BUT they were loyal to the King of England. So we had the blue coats (the good guys), the red coats (greedy) and the green, coats(cowards). Guess who won? The good guys of course.
Why did they believe in freedom so much? The vast majority of people were Christian. God’s will. There’s that freedom thing again and again always hooked up with the Christians. So when we watch the fireworks from a safe distance we need to remember that the first fireworks were not safe at all. They killed and people fought to the death for the freedom we have today. We have to admit that the freedom for atheists and other people to trash Christ and his followers was fought for and died for by Christians and then maybe when we know it and speak it…they’ll know it too. Christians.. hmm.. guilty as charged.
LABOR DAY
Work…work…work gets the job done. Honorable work, done with care to do it right…work for fair wages.. work so we can depend on each other and make things last like our society. Work with fairness to everyone including time off, time with our families.. memories.. holidays too. We have fought for fairness and equality in the workplace for years and there will always be room for improvement. We are trying and we do pretty well. There will always be people that are workaholics. They are inspired by fear. Fear of not feeling important enough and/or not having enough money and what it buys drives people to work ungodly hours and miss all of the real events in life. So we set aside a day to remember all of it.
We need to think about the hard honest work that has made this country what it is and the work we do now to hopefully raise the quality of everyone’s life even those that don’t work. We need to think about the battles that we have fought to keep people from being slaves to their work just to keep food on the table. We need to think about the freedom that has inspired innovation and business so we could hire others to make a fair living. We need to think about how Christ would work, his hours, his quality of work, his relationship with fellow workers, how would he be as a boss? He is our ultimate boss.
How does he think we are doing? Are we resting on Sundays? Why not? It is a commandment. Do we spend time with our families or are our lives just about money. Is money our master instead of God? Christ told us one or the other. Labor Day is a huge stop sign! It says stop and think. Take a day to enjoy people, love, nature, God’s gifts, the things we can’t buy no matter what kind of income we make. We need to keep things in perspective and take a minute ….breathe. Freedom, fairness, balance, priorities…God. Christians guilty as charged
TRICK OR TREAT
Halloween began as the ancient Celts believed in Samhain, a day where the souls of the living and the dead came together on October 31st each year. It was the night for the psychics and mediums to relay messages from dead loved ones. They built fires and dressed like animals in their rituals.
Soon the Romans conquered the Celts and brought their version Feralia and combined it with the Celts and a celebration to honor Pomana, a Roman goddess of fruit trees. Yep, bobbing for apples started here. Well, the Christians tried to come along and replace the pagan festivities with All Saints Day. As with most of these events, the whole Halloween thing ended up a conglomeration of traditions from everywhere.
When Halloween first came to the United States there was a lot of reluctance to accept the craziness that they left behind. However as more European immigrants brought their traditions with them, this new Christian country tried to put a positive spin on it. Dressing in costumes offered a perfect disguise for many to do nasty pranks to houses in the neighborhood.
Since special sweet foods had been a tradition in all the different festivals, people decided that if they gave out home baked sweet treats that the troublemakers would skip their prank destruction of their house. Then ‘trick or treat’ was born.
Christians need to experience and teach Halloween differently than non-believers. It is true that satanic cults, witches covens and etc. believe their own deal for Halloween. It is also true that Christians are always trying to turn lemons into lemonade.. Let’s think. Let’s teach our children to celebrate the God given gifts of creativity with our costumes and the talented things that we do with food for dessert/candy. We need to teach them the God given gift of imagination and the charity of all the people that hand out candy. We can negate all of the other crap. If we remain silent, disgusted and scared, it might very well peak their curiosity to explore the ‘dark side’ without God in the picture.
Think…an infant gets upset when his/ her mom wears a hat. A toddler gets upset at happy costumes like a fairy.. A young child is frightened by the scary costumes but not the happy ones anymore. A school age child is pretty much not frightened by any costumes just scary fun houses and movies. As they become teenagers the costumes are just fun or ‘cool’, haunted houses are pretend and fun if they are ‘cool’, movies…not so much. They may like them but they aren’t scared. They have gone through a process of realizing that all of this is just fun nonsense and people are who they choose to be no matter what they look like. A person that is choosing to be an evil jerk does not need a costume to be dangerous. We have eliminated the power of fear of the underworld and it’s followers by exposing them as fakes and supporting their spiritual journey with God’s Truth…His love. Spiritual boot camp about good and evil…real and fake. Killing the problems of pranksters with kindness. Not a bad thing.
Generosity.. and open hand to ‘wanna be’ troublemakers. Christians….guilty as charged
THANKSGIVING
One story or another, whatever. People like to rewrite history all of the time to suit their own personal agenda. What was really served, what was available? Did they really eat with Indians? Were we friends? Once people get over themselves they will realize that these people went through hell to get here. Then they started from scratch, no electricity, no phones, no 911, no drugstores, no heat, no air conditioning, no real communication with anyone that they left, new ground, no houses, no wagons, burying over half of their people.
Instead of being a group of bitter, greedy, whiney losers, they decided to give thanks to God for what they had. There is so much respect and awe due these people, already, and then they left us one of our most beloved holidays and our most precious memories of Thanksgiving. Christians giving thanks to God for surviving being heroes Christians,…guilty as charged.
So if Christians are all about the holidays…it must be because we are all about Christ. Christ Mass…
JOHN 3;16
For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Esther 8;17
And in every city and province, as the king’s decree arrived, the Jews were filled with joy and had a great celebration and declared a holiday.
Obviously all of God’s children have been celebrating life for a long time now.
Ecclesiastes 2;25
For God gives those who please Him wisdom, knowledge and joy…
Life on Earth matters,
OR
God wouldn’t have created this.
AND
Eternal life matters
OR
God wouldn’t have created that.
IT IS TRUE
Life on Earth matters to our eternal life
OR
We wouldn’t have The Bible and Christ
SO
Don’t just count on the Good Guys at the very last minute……
Christian Theories and Concepts 