Thought on Christmas

    Imagine a scenario where you are a renowned philosopher. Your teachings permeate the world with your outlook of care and concern for others and obedience to a moral code of personal conduct. You take a sabbatical to a remote location isolated from everything telling your followers you will return. When you do return you notice something bizarre has happened. Your philosophy is all but forgotten instead you have become an icon of the culture. Your book still is the best selling in the world but no one is reading it. Instead the focus is on you and what you have done, not on your message. Most of your followers have taken to celebrating your birthday with lavish parties, exchanging gifts and selling and displaying your likeness as a baby. The problem is you never told them to do this, in fact they have the wrong month of your birth!

   This little story, while it is fiction, is sadly based on someone real; the Lord Jesus Christ. Millions worship and adore the little baby Jesus during the celebration of Christmas, a day that neither he nor his disciples ever kept or sanctioned nor is the date even mentioned in the Bible. Scholars say that Christmas isn’t even close to the time that Jesus was born based on the biblical description of his birth.  Those who came to visit the young Messiah brought him gifts as was the custom of anyone visiting a king, They didn’t give gifts to each other which would have been an insult to Jesus, the King of kings.

   Today those celebrating Christmas profess to be Christ’s followers but ignore the message he brought. Jesus and his true disciples focus on a coming kingdom, the Kingdom of God. They celebrate Holy Days; God’s Holy Days not thinly veiled “holidays” of ancient Rome. God’s yearly pattern of Holy Days clearly paints a vivid picture of the Lord, his sacrifice and his future rulership as the King of kings. Christmas on the other hand is a worldwide frenzy of self-indulgence leading to massive credit card debt with no spiritual purpose sanctioned in the scriptures. Isn’t it time to break away from the masses of frenetic shoppers? Shoppers who literally trample people to death to get a trinket at a bargain price?

   Some desperately campaign to get “Christ back in Christmas” when he was never there it the first place. His philosophy of love for God and man has been discarded for a counterfeit philosophy of greed and consumption. It is reported that U.S retailers sold an amazing $469 billion (with a B)  dollars of goods during the 2011 Christmas season. Are we a happier, more righteous country with less crime and brutality because of it? I think not. Now contrast this false holiday with a true Holy Day sanctioned by God where his people are excited to learn how to live an abundant life in joyful anticipation of the return of the Messiah. He will completely revamp the human experience to one that leads to happiness and fulfillment. Isn’t it time that you opened the worlds best seller, the Bible? Start learning the true philosophy of life straight from the master philosopher and creator of all life; the Lord Jesus Christ.