Ok, so I’m not going to win any art awards, but surely you can tell which one of us is which. Just for fun I made some desktop wallpaper out of these little pictures. Check it out!
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I was wondering if I should write again about Christmas myths this year. Last year I wrote about the legend of the candy cane. In 2003 it was 7 Things you might not have known about Christmas…. So what’s left?
First, I want to backtrack slightly on the 2003 post. I wrote about how that night in Bethlehem was probably not all that silent. Ok, I know I’m probably right on that one. But perhaps now that I have a couple of young kids I get the point – these songs are supposed to be lullabies to Jesus. I mean, seriously – the most popular lullaby of all, Away in A Manger, wouldn’t be a lullaby at all if it said,“The cattle are lowing, The baby awakes, and screams his small head off, what a fuss the guy makes!”
So let’s cut the song writers a little slack. They really did know what they were doing. 🙂
No, this year I wanted to write very briefly on the origins of Christmas debate. Briefly because others have done a good job writing on this one.
There are really two questions. First, is Jesus the reason for the season? Second, does it matter?
I had always heard that Christmas had its roots in pagan customs. As people became Christians, they infused the holidays with new meaning, leaving behind their pagan beliefs. In other words, Jesus is not the reason for the season. We find ourselves in a similar situation, in a culture that has in many ways abandoned all religious celebration for Santa and shopping.
Obviously, there are dangers in “adapting” pagan customs – you’re liable to mix Christian and pagan beliefs together, and that doesn’t make good egg nog. Then again, it’s natural that new Christians would find ways of worshipping in their hearts as they got together with family that was celebrating for a different reason. And Christianity is not a reason to abandon everything you did before you met Christ. There are many things in life that can be redeemed in the light of the truth. Jesus Himself came in the form of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3), the Bible says – becoming a man He redeemed humanity.
Besides, these pagan beliefs are generally not associated with the holiday anymore. I never had a problem with Christmas, as long as for me and my family it’s a time to worship. Of course, Easter should also be important to us. But when you think of how much celebration and emphasis is put on Christ’s incarnation in Scripture, I think it’s perfectly appropriate to celebrate at this time of year.
All that is very well, but doubt is being cast on the whole theory that Christmas had its origins in a pagan holiday (these would be the holidays that are clustered around the winter solstice, probably since the beginning of time, but specifically Roman and Greek celebrations of Jesus’ day). So where did Christmas come from?
The other point of view is this. Christmas was not a “Christian alternative” to a pagan holiday. Instead, the pagan holiday was an alternative to the Christian celebration!
Though the exact day of Jesus’ birth isn’t known, some early Christians believed that many prophets died on the anniversary of their birth or conception. By fixing the date of Jesus’ death, and so guessing the date of His conception, they worked back 9 months and came to – you guessed it – December 25th. Later, a pagan Roman emperor instituted a pagan holiday to try to strengthen traditional Roman beliefs at a time when his government was in trouble.
John Chrysostom, the patriarch of Constantinople (300s AD), wrote that the early church considered December 25th Jesus’ birthday. Also, using the information we have about Elizabeth and Mary’s visit in Luke and traditions about the priesthood, John calculated that it was likely that Jesus was born around this time of year.
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Though we don’t have evidence of Christmas celebrations much before the early 300s, there does seem to be reason to believe that Christians long before that observed Christmas in some sense.
So, in light of the fact that the birth of Jesus is considered an important reason for celebration in Scripture
In light of the fact that angels celebrated and magi gave gifts (likely quite a while after Jesus’ birth, but still related)
In light of the fact that Christians have celebrated Christmas throughout the last 2000 years
– – – Merry Christmas!
It’s up to us to have pure hearts and to celebrate Jesus’ birth for the right reasons, and to use this time to show the world the love that Jesus brings, and the transformation the Spirit makes in the lives of His disciples. May we be transformed this Christmas, and may we clearly communicate His Truth in the coming year!
Thanks to JollyBlogger for his thought-provoking post, The Ol’ Origins of Christmas Debate.
It really is the little things. You may remember our adventures last year – a little tiny latch on our van broke, and caused a lot of trouble!
Our van is once again having "little" problems. This time it was the driver side seat belt. The latch was getting a little worn, and was coming loose. Obviously, this could render the seat belt useless, so we took it in to be looked at.
How much did we spend fixing the problem? Over $200! And the mechanic was generous enough not to charge us for all the labour time. Ouch!
There also seems to be a problem with one of the doors, and it looks like we may need a couple of new tires. We need your prayers as we deal with these little things.
These days we’re enjoying some good little things too. Hannah and I made a pomander yesterday, a fun Christmas activity for us. Today we’re looking forward to seeing some of Shari’s family, including the smallest member Ashlyn. We weren’t sure that Shari’s parents were going to be joining us, but they have arrived. The weather is cooling off (it was around 15C/60F earlier this week, but today only 8C/46F), but probably not cool enough for snow. But that’s a typical Calgary Christmas.
We hope you’re having a great weekend, enjoying the good little things and trusting God in the bad little things (and big ones too!).
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It all started at a club called L’Orage in Montreal, Canada. Jean-Paul Labaye ran the club, and was fined because of the indecent acts that went on there.
This went all the way to the Supreme Court. And yesterday, the Supreme Court came out with its ruling – clubs like this are perfectly legal. This means that in Canada, where the age of consent is 14, 14 year olds can now be involved in group activities that I won’t describe. Legally. So, Dad and Mom, don’t try to stop them.
It could be argued that this isn’t the worst part of the story. This wasn’t just a ruling on a specific club, or even all clubs of its type. This ruling actually struck down the legal understanding of decency.
Now as far as law in Canada is concerned, there really is no absolute morality (in practice, anyway. Actually, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms clearly says that “Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law”). So how could we know what decency or morality is? Well, you look at the community and see what may offend them. If the community doesn’t like people running around wearing only their red socks, then the law bows to the community’s standards.
But the Chief Justice, Beverley McLachlin, took it all a step further. Who cares what the community thinks? It’s only a matter of what harms people.
So it looks like this:
Harm? What’s that? Physical? Spiritual? Mental? Who is being harmed? How much? Does long term harm count, or only short term? Good questions, but unanswered ones. Although we have heard that this includes harm to society. Pretty open ended.
This is a huge shift in how we understand morality in the law in Canada. It will drastically change how the courts rule – especially when it comes to sex issues.
Two out of 9 Justices dissented, and wrote a lengthy explanation of why. An article in the Vancouver Sun says: In a biting dissent, justices Louis LeBel and Michel Bastarache accused the majority of turning their backs on public morality and the established legal order. The majority decision could lead to “anti-social behaviour,” they wrote. “This new harm-based approach strips of all relevance the social values that the Canadian community as a whole believes should be protected,” said the lengthy dissent.
The news is getting world attention. In the USA, CNN informed their readers about the lift on the ban on Swinger’s clubs in Canada. In the UK, as in New Zealand, the news made it to the Oddly Enough file. And in places like India, the news talked about Canada’s nod to such indecency.
Of course, bloggers are picking up on this one as well. While some are booking their flights to Canada, others are shocked. Today, here there be walruses writes on the USA’s Intelligent Design ruling as well as Canada’s decency ruling. North Western Winds has some thoughts on causing harm.
Meanwhile, with funding from friends in Florida, Jean-Paul Labaye is planning to expand his business. And he won’t be the only one.
We just enjoyed a visit from Grandpa and Grandma Cottrill. We celebrated an early Christmas, and tonight we even went for a swim.
Grandma Cottrill is an animal lover, so here are a few links in her honour. These are the kind of links you’re likely to see in our Random Link of the Moment (as soon on our home page and other pages too). But this time, I thought I’d introduce a few in my blog.
First, here’s a fairly new blog site that is rapidly becoming very popular on the net – check out Cute Overload 😉 for really cute animal pictures – yikes!
Next, check out the video of this rather intelligent parrot – Einstein, as seen on Animal Planet.
Make your own weird and wonderful animals at SwitchZoo.
Finally, some of my favourite animal photos from our own photo album –
At this time of year, with all the toy drives and food bank drives and charitable banquets and fundraisers, we’re apt to think of ourselves as pretty generous people. But now it’s time to crunch the numbers. The Fraser Institute measures just how generous we are in Canada and the USA each year, and here’s what they’ve found (with a few other missions stats I’ve gathered from other sources)…
As I see how we’ve been blessed this Christmas season, I pray that God will teach my family and I how to make that joyful sacrifice – may we all learn how we can give to Jesus as we celebrate His birthday.