CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE: 2nd Week of December (Part 2)

CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK: Many have had the Christmas story told to them year after year their whole life. Therefore, if someone comes along and challenges what we have been told they had better have a good argument. I will take my time each day and build my case. I welcome any comments in the comment section. I will build line upon line, precept upon precept, using both Biblical truth and historical facts. How I or anyone else FEELS about Christmas is not a Biblical or historical basis for debate. Our personal experiences over the years will not be viewed as a basis for the Christmas challenge. I will do my best to maintain integrity in bringing nothing but truth and facts without regard of personal  traditions or beliefs.

We are approaching the time of the year when many people and cultures in the world celebrate the supposed birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The jingles, the Christmas songs on the radio and television, and of course our feel-good movie classics invade our sanity earlier every year. The Christmas decorations and the store advertisements now start before Halloween.  Everywhere we go, the holiday cheer comes across with the greeting of “Merry Christmas.” It seems to be inescapable from Thanksgiving to New Years day. For many though, this is a season which starts in glee and joy, but in the end becomes a struggle. Many just wish it would rush by and be over.

Yet it is also a season that requires some of us to be on our guard. Since I do not celebrate Christmas, or give Merry Christmas greeting, I often stick out in a crowd. Such a different viewpoint about Christmas creates curiosity and suspicion in some and anger in others. This curiosity is especially confusing for some since I have been a Christian since 1974 and a Pastor since 1977. Many ask why I do not keep the Christmas celebration and traditions of celebrating Christ’s birth since I believe in Jesus Christ. I respond that our Lord Jesus Christ was not born on December 25, or any other date in December. I also add that according to Scriptures, it is our Lord’s death, burial, resurrection, and return that we are to remember, which we do with the Lord’s supper, and that there is nothing remotely in Scriptures on the celebration of His birth.

1 Corinthians 11:24-26 KJV 24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.

I will get to the meat of the argument. A little here and a little there. But first I challenged you to go to your encyclopedia and read about the history of Christmas.