Pagan Christmas
It’s December. Darkness overtakes light as winter days shorten. Frigid blasts whistle through leafless, lifeless trees. The ground is frozen with a layer of ice and silence. Nothing moves. By all appearances, nature has died.
And then, intruding like hoofbeats comes the most hyperactive frenzy of merrymaking, gush and glitter ever conceived in the heart of man. Wine flows freely, songs of cheer echo through halls strung with holly and mistletoe. Gifts are exchanged while candles like a million points of light puncture the darkness. Out of the throes of encroaching death springs a frenetic celebration of life—all in the urgent hope of reviving the god of life and fertility. It’s Christmas 500 B.C.E. Time makes no difference to this changeless holiday.
Early Warning
Contrary to common belief, Christmas is not the celebration of the birth of the Savior at Bethlehem. That story was much later tacked on to this ancient festival to a solar deity. The fact that the holiday is deeply rooted in pagan sun worship was reason enough to keep the Puritans and other early American settlers seeking religious purity from taking any part in it.
The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature notes, “The Puritans regarded these diversions, which appear to have offended more against good taste than against morality, with a holy horror. Prynne says, in his strong way (in Histrio-Mastix), ‘Our Christmas lords of misrule, together with dancing, masks, mummeries, state players, and such other Christmas disorders, now in use with Christians, were derived from these Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalian festivals, which should cause all pious Christians eternally to abominate them’’’ (“Christmas,” p. 276).
Christmas, with its bag-full of life-celebrating superstition, stretches back far beyond the Saturnalia. Steeped in beliefs of reincarnation and immortality the ancient Babylonians thought that their king and sun-god Nimrod, who had been cut down, was brought back to life in the form of a green tree.
His revival coincided with the winter solstice at the end of December, when the sun returns in its yearly cycle and days begin to lengthen once more. Hence, the burning of the yule log signifying the sun’s light and warmth, and the ever-living evergreen tree strung in lights like miniature suns. As pointed out in the book, 4,000 Years of Christmas, by Earl W. Count, “Mesopotamia is the very ancient Mother of Civilization. Christmas began there, over four thousand years ago, as the festival which renewed the world for another year,” p. 18.
Lies of Yuletide – Pagan Christmas
None of these or other facts about Pagan Christmas is a mystery. All are readily available every year in a variety of media. What is mysterious, however, is the complete indifference the religious masses show toward these revelations about Pagan Christmas.
Unable to refute its pagan origins and practices, many argue, “Well, we do Christmas for the children. How can we deny them such a fun and exciting thing?” Wait a minute. What caring parent would allow their child to indulge in a diet of nothing but candy bars and soft drinks day after day? For the child nothing could be more enticing — but at the cost of his or her very health and longevity. The effects of spiritual toxicity last much longer and can be permanent.
Aside from being anchored in dark Mystery Worship, the perceived “Biblical” side of Christmas is tethered to a sequence of lies and twisted facts. Saint Nick has superseded the Savior. Children are taught to be good for Santa’s sake (a mythological character who can do magical things), not for the One whose birthday is presumably being honored. From start to finish, the entire observance is fraudulent.
No Christmas Command Anywhere
Significantly, not one verse in all of the Scriptures commands man to remember the birthday of Yahshua the Messiah’s human advent. If there were, rest assured that man would virtually ignore it, as he does the other direct commands of Yahweh. Ironically, this holiday—entirely missing from Scripture—is elevated to superholiday status.
Nowhere does the Bible say the Messiah was born on December 25. That date coincides with the Saturnalia, the pagan Roman feast held in December at the winter solstice in honor of the returning sun-god. In the spirit of joining what cannot be overthrown, the Roman church adopted this day of solar rebirth as the birth of the Savior. The Son for the sun.
Yahweh is not well-pleased. “In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,” Yahshua said inMatthew 15:9.
Along the way Bible truths truths have been twisted into fantasy. For example, the wise men never came to the manger but to Mary and Joseph’s house as much as two years after His birth (Matt. 2: 11). The Messiah was not a babe by then but a child. Their gifts were not birthday presents but royal gifts befitting a King (of the Jews). Tradition says the shepherds came and worshiped Yahshua in the manger. The Bible says they glorified Yahweh the FATHER for all that they had seen and heard, Luke 2:20. Christmas is clearly the case of an ancient rite retrofitted into a biblical story of the Messiah and the results are a compendium of error and myth.
Sending the Wrong Message
This annual greedfest is entirely fixated on gift-getting. The popular question is, “What did you GET for Christmas?” Visions of dollar signs dance in the greedy heads of retailers, who glory in the fest hoping to earn up to 60 percent of their yearly profit from the spending madness. Imagine any other birthday observance where the celebrators come together to give gifts to one another and ignore the guest of honor!
In a flagrant violation of the Second Commandment not to make or bow down to any graven image, the tree is idolized with an adoration verging on shameless worship. Gift offerings are placed at its base, while children brag to their friends about having the most presents. Adults hold contests for the most beautifully decorated property, while many churches bring trees and holly into their halls to entice more through their doors..
A Relative Latecomer
Nowhere in the entire Bible do we find that anyone was told to keep Christmas, or find even a shred of evidence that anyone did. In fact, Christmass as a celebration of the Savior’s birth was not observed before the fourth century. These facts alone are testimony to the absence of any heavenly command or ongoing Biblical practice.
Let’s read once more from the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature: “It is historically certain that the Christmas festival proper is of comparatively late institution. This may doubtless be accounted for in the following manner. In the first place no corresponding festival was presented by the Old Testament, as in the case of [Passover] and Pentecost. In the second place, the day and month of the birth of [Messiah] are nowhere stated in the Gospel history, and cannot be certainly determined… It was not till the sixth century that the whole Christian world concurred in celebrating the nativity on the same day” (“Christmas,” pp. 276-277).
A person who seeks only the pure word of truth will give up this solar survival called Christmas in favor of what Almighty Yahweh DOES command in His Living Book.
Leviticus 23 lists seven annual observances that Almighty Yahweh gave man as an ordinance “forever.” These are called Feasts of Yahweh, not Feasts of the Jews or any other nationality or race. They are for ALL men everywhere in honor of the one true Creator Yahweh, your Designer and Maker. Shouldn’t True Worshipers seek to keep the days specifically commanded in the Scriptures, and not the holidays man has devised that are not?
