Let’s Quell the controversy over Christmas and its traditions.
Every Christmas season many of us are confronted with various notions about the origins of Christmas and many cherished Christmas traditions. But what can we learn from the original writers of history itself about these controversial ideas?
It’s been called “the most wonderful time of the year.” Christmas for most of us has enjoyed a long history of traditions that make the heart of the winter season a rich time of festive celebrations.
For many of us, growing up in America in the late 20th Century, our memories from childhood include the happy songs of Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls with boughs of holly, and “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.” There’s nothing wrong with any of that. When I was a child, singing Christmas songs like Silent Night and Joy to the World … around the piano with my grandmother… well, nothing could be more delightful to enthusiastic, ever-optimistic young children. Although Santa, for my generation, played a fairly significant part of the wide array of Christmas traditions… there was never the slightest thought that “the night before Christmas and all through the house…” was ever anything more than an amusing way of celebrating the ‘rest of the story’ that was more fully expressed when we sang “Joy to the world, the Lord is come” and “O Come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.” In fact, singing Christmas carols for our neighbors on cold winter nights in December will always be a treasured memory from childhood, through adolescence, and through college days as a young adult. We never lost sight of the real meaning of Christmas. And no one, that I can remember, ever behaved like a Scrooge or a Grinch that stole the heartbeat of Christmas, which was always about the birth of Jesus, 2,000 years ago.
Many Christians today have lamented the fact that modern commercialized society has made Christmas into a highly secular time of year.
November every year in America is historically a time of remembrance and Thanksgiving. What other culture in the world has a tradition like that?
To better appreciate the roots of this special season for us as a people, let’s unravel the chain of events that helps us understand the implications of what led to the divinely innovative beginning of a whole new national identity.
Nobody I know does that better than my friend Bill Federer – Listen as he describes parallels between the treacherous 16th century time of the Pilgrims and our time 400 years later.
Kings typically killed some of their own country’s population that they didn’t like
The St Bartholemew’s Day Massacre described.
John Calvin wrestled with Romans 13. What do you do when the authorities have a mandate to kill your wife and kids?
Eph 6 .. children obey your parents… is he required to obey an ungodly parent’s demand to do something against God’s expressed will.
Martin Luther King comments on unjust laws… obey government as long as it lines up with God’s word.
If you remove a king… chaos results. Another king comes in to change things… followed by more chaos. how do you remove a king to restore order without another chaos?
The Pilgrims, following Bible concepts, began a “Covenant” form of government, where everyone follows a covenant with God and with each other. Everyone is taught the “law.” What motivates them is that they are personally accountable to God. Second, everyone is in a covenant with each other and with God.
05:35 The Pilgrims looked to ancient Israel as their model – particularly the first 400 years after Israel’s exodus from Egypt, before King Saul.
After Joshua’s time, there was no king in Israel for 400 years.
The kings of England adopted the ‘divine right of kings’ paradigm from the Biblical time of kings Saul and David and afterward.
06:35 The Calvinist puritans of New England looked to the pre-King Saul Bible period.
Kings of England were a theocracy. The king was head of the church. From 1535 onward people were required to take the “oath of supremacy” which forced all English subjects to obey the King in all matters, even of a religious or spiritual nature.
King James had several attempts on his life because of the discontent fomented by royal heavy-handedness.
Guy Faux assassination attempt.
King James was paranoid of dissenting groups whom he feared might assassinate him. This included the Pilgrims.
America’s founders came to get away from a “theocracy.”
09:36 Book of Common Prayer… The government raided those who prayed without this book being used to pray. Dissenters were officially condemned as ‘heretics’ and branded without fair trial because they dared to defy the king’s regulations of even their thoughts and prayers.
10:54 Conventical Act became The Riot Act in England because the government feared the “covenanters” could be planning a riot in their secret meetings as Christians wanting to gather in their homes to worship God.
John Bunyan was subjected to arrest and imprisonment for 12 years because of his boldness to meet privately in his home church.
Jesus clearly made following his teaching completely voluntary
Covenant churches were made of those who had no bishops and no requirement to bow to government authorized priests. They decided to not meet in church buildings but in the open fields.
17:18 The idea of having to believe the way the government believes prompted one group to buy passage from England to the Netherlands (the Pilgrims).
Federal is Latin for ‘covenant.’
The constitution is a way to prevent a president from ruling through mandates.
Thanks to Bill Federer, we can better see the powerful influence that rulers have over an oppressed people.
Do you think Jeremiah’s prophetic words speak to our generation today?
“Thus says the LORD, ‘Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you shall find rest for our souls…’” Jeremiah 6:16
Isn’t it remarkable how the events recorded in God’s Word can often provide insight for the roots of discord that our generation faces even today?
After Gideon died in the book of Judges, the people of Shechem gave a wicked son of Gideon seventy pieces of silver … which he used to hire worthless and reckless fellows, who followed him.
In his historical review of how wicked rulers of the past used identity politics and community organization tactics to gain power, Bill Federer explains at a recent series of presentations he did for Pastor Jack Hibbs some very eye-opening principles. Be sure to access the complete illustrated presentation at the link here – https://youtu.be/aOysMK5xK5c . Seeing how notable villains of history built a pattern for modern treachery helps us all identify some of the subtle schemes the devil is using to condition impressionable people to follow immoral, illegitimate elitists until God’s providence uses others to overthrow them. A big part of their strategy is to create discord.
Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians 2:11 about being taken advantage of by Satan, saying that “we are not ignorant of his schemes.” Today we’ll unpack a treasure of insight of how our enemy has used his number one tool to devastate human lives down through history, and how he’s doing it now.
Historian William Federer is a friend I’ve appreciated for many years. He’s written many books and has a very busy ministry unwrapping the often-hidden details of history and how God has sovereignly guided the affairs of humanity since the beginning of creation. Nothing escapes His notice. The words of Paul at Mars Hill in Athens in Acts 17 remind us that God “Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.” And then he dares to declare that the Creator “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” … and get this… “having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation!”
I wanted to write a personal little Christmas letter to all four of my dear kids and 10 grandkids.
Would you agree that Christmas ought to be far more exciting than the ‘tinsel-town’ fluff that’s typically merchandized so heavily in our desensitized, fast-paced society?
I wanted my own kids to get this clearly so they would help my grandkids to personally know the One for whom the original Santa Claus sacrificed his life… but you all might like to use it yourselves in sharing this Christmas season in a life-changing way. You could even gather your little ones around you to read this short review of how we got some of our Christmas traditions.
Today’s Western world is so monopolized by highly marketed big business and the secularized ‘lame-stream’ media that it’s completely understandable how the true origins of Christmas and many of its colorful traditions have been stolen and hijacked. (more…)
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