The Hypocrisy of Keeping Christmas

For those who keep Christmas who have no true faith in Jesus, the thought of speaking about Jesus at any other time of year, apart from Easter, or at the most in church on Sunday, perhaps, is usually repugnant. It will offend them if you tell them that you don't keep Christmas, or mention Jesus in a daily context.

To them, Jesus must be kept under man’s control, like a lion at the zoo.

On certain days, when it's sunny, one may visit the zoo and have a look at the lion, confident in the knowledge that he is being kept under control by the keeper, who feeds him at the appropriate times, and otherwise provides services for both the lion and its spectators. But the spectators have no direct contact with the lion, and should he roar from time to time, the spectators are suitably impressed. Should the lion escape from the cage, or, God forbid!, someone be killed by the lion, the keeper, of course, will be blamed and one might even attempt to get rid of the lion, or the keeper, or at the very least, introduce measures to restrict the lion’s movements, increase the height of the fence around the enclosure, erect notices warning zoo visitors that the lion is a dangerous, wild animal, and should never be fed by individuals, but only by the zoo-keeper. Visitors should, at all times keep their distance, as only the zoo-keeper is trained to deal with the lion.

Intrepid individuals, however, for whom zoos present an environment in which a lion cannot be enjoyed in its authentic habitat, will take the time and travel at considerable expense to Africa and walk out into the savannah themselves where there is no keeper to constrain the lion. These people love adventure, are not afraid to take risks, and prefer observing a lion in the wild to one in a zoo. They know that if they show no fear, and take the necessary precautions, the lion will not hurt them.

The inference has already been made by C.S. Lewis that ‘Aslan is not a tame lion’. But I am digressing.

Those who DO keep Christmas, who DO have faith in Jesus, are faced with several challenges.

1.     Christmas is rooted in pagan beliefs and was officially syncretised by the Roman Catholic Church around the end of the 4^th century AD, after Constantine the Great made Christianity legal, popular, and commercial. It was impossible to stamp out the worship of Apollo, Mithras and Zoroaster, so sun-god worship was simply amalgamated into official public religion, by outlawing or inhibiting adherence to Jewish tradition and worship (because of a wrong reaction to the Jews’ rejection of Jesus as their Messiah) including prohibition from following the Biblical, Hebrew calendar (so Sun-day worship instead of keeping the Sabbath, and keeping Easter instead of Passover became the norm.) The Celtic church continued to keep the Hebrew traditions of the Apostle John until Rome sent Augustine to the British Isles and the British were forced eventually to adopt Roman ways at the Synod of Whitby in AD 664.

2.       Jesus was obviously not born in December. A study of scripture makes this clear. It is probable that He was born during the Hebrew Feast of Succoth, in September or October.

3.       Simply because Christmas is a syncretisation of pagan practice with organised religion, it is a worldly, flesh-pleasing tradition with no benefit to the one seeking to put the Lord first in all things. Jesus said, ‘… the flesh counts for nothing…’ (John 6:63)

4.       Even those who claim that Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ (saying that it doesn’t matter when it is celebrated) agree that commercialism and materialism have ‘ruined the spirit of Christmas.’ They find it a challenge to combat these realities, but the fact remains that spending money on and preparing presents, food, drink and celebrations, as well as coming up to the expectations of others, makes the time coming up to Christmas a stressful experience, quite different from the hope which many have, that ‘Advent’ will be a time when one can quietly contemplate spiritual things.

5.       It is necessary to LIE to children at this time, claiming that a crimson-robed, imaginary figure called Father Christmas, Santa Claus, Nikolaus (or in Germany,  a pretty, blond, female angel called the Christkind) etc. exists, who either brings presents for those who have been good, or a rod for the backsides of those who have been bad. (This vindictive idea is about as far as you can get from the good news about the grace and forgiveness of God.)

This Being is supposed to live at the North Pole, employs hordes of present-packing elves, and flies through the sky in every time-zone at once, on a present-laden sledge pulled by reindeer, (one of which has a very red nose) to millions of houses in one night, entering by the chimney, (even if there is no chimney) and fills socks, shoes, stockings or pillow cases with said presents. People fill children’s heads with deceptive rubbish, but they have a problem with the Truth: believing in God and doing what He says.

6.       It may come as a surprise to many to know that Christmas is also observed by Satanists who conduct human sacrifices at their Black Masses. Have you ever wondered why terrible things so often happen at this time? Families experience strife, violence and misery, people feel alone and abandoned. Drunkenness, licentiousness, gluttony and other demonic excesses are rife. People attempt to fill the emptiness in their lives with things which only make them feel worse afterwards. And what OF afterwards? There is an almost inevitable, colossal anti-climax on December 26^th, or 27^th at the latest and people wonder where all the ‘magic’ has vanished to. May I suggest that that’s all that the hype was; magic?

7.       Lastly, scripture makes it clear that observing special religious days is a practice which only the fearful and weak in faith follow. If you have faith, then you know that Jesus isn't interested in tradition and the warning notices of dead religion; HE IS YOUR LIFE EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY.

Christmas, Easter or any other religious practice is therefore irrelevant at best and evil at worst.  If a person is dead to the world, to self and the devil, he will have nothing to do with them, not because he isn’t allowed to, but because love for His Lord has put him into a different life; a different plane of reality altogether. These things are merely symptoms of a completely false way of thinking, an adherence to idolatry; an image of the god one has made of one’s Self.

Try leaving the tradition behind, however, and you will be chased by a hoard of well-meaning, offended, sentimental people, family members, religious or otherwise, attempting to drag you back into the zoo and the fold of the fearful, to go through the motions of staring at a caged lion.

To leave empty tradition behind is one of the hardest things a person can do. But if you do, there is freedom out there in the savannah.

The Mithras Tree - reposted.

Since this particular post has been getting quite a few hits recently, I thought I'd re-post it as a new post. Last night, I had a long discussion with my German parents in law, who we were visiting, who love the German traditions of keeping Christmas the way they always have. Our 19 year old son, who is sentimental about Christmas too,  decided to be delibrately provocative and ask why we don't have any decorations up at home...'Christmas is SO lovely!' I wasn't keen on being drawn into a long discussion and quietly said what I felt the Lord giving me to say, but our son wouldn't leave it alone, and it ended up with father-in-law being thoroughly offended and leaving the table in a sulk. In the end I simply said to my mother-in-law that the Lord had shown me these things and that if I compromised with what He had shown me, then I would be being disobedient to Him, which would result in my relationship with Him being broken. As He is everything to me, what He has told me to do must come first, even if it means that those nearest and dearest to me cannot understand and even decide to withdraw from me. She was touched by this and was silent. 

Anyway, the accepted Roman date for the obligatory celebration of Christmas by Bishop Liberius of Rome, was AD 354.

A century before, Tertullian had written," On your day of gladness, we (Christians) neither cover our doorposts with wreaths, nor intrude upon the day with lamps. At the call of public festivity, you consider it a proper thing to decorate your house like some new brothel. We are accused of a lower sacrifice because we do not celebrate along with you the holidays..." Today, the Saturnalia's Lord of Misrule has been exchanged by Santa Claus, god of modern materialism and self-indulgence. Only the name has changed.

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It’s that ghastly time of year again - which I have been putting out of my mind for as long as possible, all the while knowing that it was inevitably creeping up on me. A friend wrote me an e-mail recently and mentioned the Christmas tree in the context of the Tree in the Garden of Eden and it got me thinking.

Genesis 3: 6 describes the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as follows: it …‘was good for food, and … a delight to the eyes, and … desirable to make one wise.’ If Adam and Eve ate from this tree, in disobedience to the Lord’s warning not to do so, they would ‘surely die’, which is a Hebraism meaning ‘to die eternally’.
But the Tree of Knowledge was beautiful. It was full of tasty, delectable fruit (a rabbinical tradition says that the tree was a fig tree, from whose leaves Adam and Eve later made themselves aprons) and provided a short cut to wisdom if man would stretch out his hand to take it. What could be more reasonable and sensible than to do so? Wasn’t God being
mean to deprive man of such a wonderful source of provision?
The choice that Adam and Eve had before them was the choice between their reliance on Christ, the Tree of Life, (the God who walked in the garden in the cool of the day; the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world) to provide for their needs, for light, love, food, wisdom, right-standing with God - and the choice for self-reliance, which, instead of resulting in freedom, caused enslavement to the Tempter.
Eating from the Tree of Knowledge was man's deciding what was right for himself – to do good or evil, instead of simply and humbly obeying the word that God had spoken and remaining in peace, and pace, with his Maker.
It was common practice from the earliest days of disobedience to the word of God for pagans to cut down a tree, which to them symbolized the tree of life, (but was actually the opposite) decorate it, set it up and worship it, in rites of abandoned sexual immorality. They called it an Asherah pole and it symbolized male sexuality. Men and women would lie with priestesses and priests of the pagan cults of Canaan in order to ensure the fertility of the land. The result was widespread practice of child sacrifice.
Ever since that time, man has chosen his own way above the clear word of God. For example, God gave a calendar for the year to his people, in which seven feasts prophetically pointed towards the first and second coming of the Anointed One.  The tribes of Israel who were cut off from Judah in the days of King Rehoboam ended up under the rule of King Jeroboam, (1 Kings 12:28-32) who …‘said in his heart,
“Now the kingdom will return to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will return to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” So the king consulted, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt.” He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. Now this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan. And he made houses on high places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of Levi. Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. Then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel and went up to the altar to burn incense. Even the Jews of Judah did not keep the feasts as they should have done. 2 Chronicles 30:26 says of the Passover feast kept in the days of King Hezekiah that … ‘there was nothing like this in Jerusalem since the days of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel.’ So the Passover had not been kept as it should have been since Solomon’s days. In 2 Kings 23:22 it says that such a Passover had not been celebrated from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah.’ Even Hezekiah had not kept the Passover as King Josiah did.
As followers of the Way it is clear to us that the Anointed One, the Messiah Yeshua fulfilled the first four spring feasts (Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Pentecost) at His first coming and that He will, at His second, fulfil the last three; Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles. In Him, we are made righteous, so now, it isn’t the keeping or the not keeping the feasts which is important, but our being ‘in Him’, who perfectly kept and is the fulfilment of the Law.
For the first three hundred years after the church was born, no-one paid any attention to the keeping of birthdays of any kind. They were considered to be pagan and avoided by followers of the Way.
Someone has said that the church first became an institution in Rome. Certainly by AD 336, in an attempt to maintain power over what she considered to be her people, just as Jeroboam had nearly 1000 years before, this increasingly Babylonian travesty of a church had instituted a new feast, the celebration of the birth of Christ. This was to syncretise the pagan cult of Mithras, the Roman sun god, borrowed from Zoroastrianism, into the arms of the Roman church. Mithras, who was worshiped under other names like Tammuz, Osiris, Baal, Apollo and Baldur in other cultures in Asia and Europe, in keeping with the fertility cult, had his birthday at the time of the winter solstice, December 25^th. It seemed expedient to the Roman church to bring all pagans under her skirts by amalgamating the sun god’s birth and that of the Son of God. The feast was celebrated with the decorating of palm trees in the Mediterranean and eventually, pine trees in Northern Europe.
By the 16^th Century, Germany was celebrating Christmas by the decorating of fir trees and by the 19^th, Britain was doing the same, after the Christmas tree was introduced by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s German husband. Mithras Trees spread all over the world after that, thanks to the British Empire.
 Today, Christmas is still kept by the decorating of a fir tree. Presents are laid under it, garlands, lights and goodies hung from its branches; all because we insist on doing things our way. Children are told that it they are good, Santa /satan will bring them good things; if bad, they’ll get the stick - just more indoctrination into the teaching of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Where is the teaching about grace? It’s not about how good we are or how bad; all of that is useless to bring us to God.
The Tree of Life is Yeshua Himself – and if we choose Him, we need no other tree. Will we worship Him who is invisible to everyone but those who have faith, rather than taking our eyes off Him and gazing at the perishable tree which is good for physical, temporal food, a delight to the eyes and desirable to make wise? It’s only kept for two weeks, after all. After all the materialistic self-indulgence is over, it’s thrown away. Why do we set such store by rubbish? And for those who buy an artificial tree and put it away for the following year, the same principle applies; it’s still not the Tree of Life.

“The last act is the greatest treason. To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” T.S.Eliot

The above is a quotation from 'Murder in the Cathedral', which we had to study for 'A' Level English at school in England. Blessed with two inspired English teachers at school, I grew to love T.S. Eliot and this quotation has remained with me ever since.

I was reminded of it recently, while taking part in a discussion about Abraham in a house church group on Facebook. (I have to admit it, I have rejoined - it has proven easier to keep in touch with the children).

It is sad how such discussions can turn out, particularly when experts with especially strong giftings, personality and sometimes uncrucified natures feel that they need to teach and correct others who might have a different viewpoint. It is sad to see how people are treated. The impressive response from these dear corrected ones has been humble and Christlike.

What strikes me, however, is the extent to which I find myself being tempted to portray an image of myself as better than I actually am. If I'm corrected, I don't want to defend myself or try to attack the other person, but I find myself tempted to write in such a way which will portray myself as similarly 'Christlike' to the others I admire. My fear is that I'm probably alone in this. Or perhaps it's the temptation of every writer to give people the impression that he's an expert in his field, because he knows that deep down, he isn't. He writes to make up for his insecurity.
Or maybe I'm being far too analytical.

Social Network discussions are amazing things, if only for the exchange of ideas, but, as I recently read, a recent U.S. university study has pointed out that only 7% of communication takes place via words. 38% takes place via tone of voice and 55% via body language. This puts FB posters at a severe disadvantage, or advantage, depending on how one looks at it.
No-one else can see my face while I write. No-one can see my gestures or hear my voice. I am at the mercy of my words. And if I can write at all well, then I can manipulate others by my words, to make them think that I'm a more mature follower of Yeshua than I really am. :/

I was tempted to write a post in that particular thread for the above reason. In the end, I didn't. It was too unreal.
Internet communication really seems to have a large element of unreality; after all, here I am, sitting at my laptop at this home-made, cobbled-together desk, a single lamp shining on a higgledy-piggledy collection of pens, papers and dust, in a small room where I have a growing pile of ironing waiting for me, a dead fly on the window sill, my sweatpants and sweatshirt hanging on a rail (waiting to be worn tomorrow morning when I'll go Nordic walking with my closest friend along the river), and bookcases groaning with files and books, and a writing desk on which all my English lessons are lying. This is my reality here. Yet I'm connecting with others over the world, whose lives I have no or little idea about. It is so easy to only show people what I want them to see; a cyber reality.

That's why I thought of this quotation.  Had I posted, it might have been a good post, but it would have been for the wrong reason. I want Yeshua to deal with all that first. How wonderful it is to remember that salvation has three tenses - to quote Chuck Missler - justification (simple past), sanctification, (present continuous) and glorification (future). He has dealt with all three and I am complete in Him. Praise God!

Lover or Prostitute? The Question that Changed My Life. By David Ryser

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of teaching at a school of ministry. My students were hungry for God, and I was constantly searching for ways to challenge them to fall more in love with Jesus and to become voices for revival in the Church. I came across a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this: Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise.

Some of the students were only 18 or 19 years old--barely out of diapers--and I wanted them to understand and appreciate the import of the last line, so I clarified it by adding, “An enterprise. That’s a business.” After a few moments Martha, the youngest student in the class, raised her hand. I could not imagine what her question might be. I thought the little vignette was self-explanatory, and that I had performed it brilliantly. Nevertheless, I acknowledged Martha’s raised hand, “Yes, Martha.” She asked such a simple question, “A business? But isn’t it supposed to be a body?” I could not envision where this line of questioning was going, and the only response I could think of was, “Yes.” She continued, “But when a body becomes a business, isn’t that a prostitute?”

The room went dead silent. For several seconds no one moved or spoke. We were stunned, afraid to make a sound because the presence of God had flooded into the room, and we knew we were on holy ground. All I could think in those sacred moments was, “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that.” I didn’t dare express that thought aloud. God had taken over the class.

Martha’s question changed my life. For six months, I thought about her question at least once every day. “When a body becomes a business, isn’t that a prostitute?” There is only one answer to her question. The answer is “Yes.” The American Church, tragically, is heavily populated by people who do not love God. How can we love Him? We don’t even know Him; and I mean really know Him.

What do I mean when I say “really know Him?” Our understanding of knowing and knowledge stems from our western culture (which is based in ancient Greek philosophical thought). We believe we have knowledge (and, by extension, wisdom) when we have collected information. A collection of information is not the same thing as knowledge, especially in the culture of the Bible (which is an eastern, non-Greek, culture). In the eastern culture, all knowledge is experiential. In western/Greek culture, we argue from premise to conclusion without regard for experience--or so we think. An example might be helpful here. Let us suppose a question based upon the following two premises: First, that wheat does not grow in a cold climate and second, that England has a cold climate. The question: Does wheat grow in England? The vast majority of people from the western/Greek culture would answer, “No. If wheat does not grow in a cold climate and if England has a cold climate, then it follows that wheat does not grow in England.” In the eastern culture, the answer to the same question, based on the same premises, most likely would be, “I don’t know. I’ve never been to England.” We laugh at this thinking, but when I posed the same question to my friends from England, their answer was, “Yes, of course wheat grows in England. We’re from there, and we know wheat grows there.” They overcame their cultural way of thinking because of their life experience.

Experience trumps information when it comes to knowledge.

A similar problem exists with our concept of belief. We say we believe something (or someone) apart from personal experience. This definition of belief is not extended to our stockbroker, however. Again, allow me to explain. Suppose my stockbroker phones me and says, “I have a hot tip on a stock that is going to triple in price within the next week. I want your permission to transfer $10,000 from your cash account and buy this stock.” That’s a lot of money for me, so I ask, “Do you really believe this stock will triple in price, and so quickly?” He/she answers, “I sure do.” I say, “That sounds great! How exciting! So how much of your own money have you invested in this stock?” He/she answers, “None.” Does my stockbroker believe? Truly believe? I don’t think so, and suddenly I don’t believe, either. How can we be so discerning in the things of this world, especially when they involve money, and so indiscriminate when it comes to spiritual things? The fact is, we do not know or believe apart from experience. The Bible was written to people who would not understand the concepts of knowledge, belief, and faith apart from experience.

I suspect God thinks this way also.

So I stand by my statement that most American Christians do not know God--much less love Him. The root of this condition originates in how we came to God. Most of us came to Him because of what we were told He would do for us. We were promised that He would bless us in life and take us to heaven after death. We married Him for His money, and we don’t care if He lives or dies as long as we can get His stuff. We have made the Kingdom of God into a business, merchandising His anointing. This should not be. We are commanded to love God, and are called to be the Bride of Christ--that’s pretty intimate stuff. We are supposed to be His lovers. How can we love someone we don’t even know? And even if we do know someone, is that a guarantee that we truly love them?

Are we lovers or prostitutes?

I was pondering Martha’s question again one day, and considered the question, “What’s the difference between a lover and a prostitute?” I realized that both do many of the same things, but a lover does what she does because she loves. A prostitute pretends to love, but only as long as you pay. Then I asked the question, “What would happen if God stopped paying me?”

For the next several months, I allowed God to search me to uncover my motives for loving and serving Him. Was I really a true lover of God? What would happen if He stopped blessing me? What if He never did another thing for me? Would I still love Him? Please understand, I believe in the promises and blessings of God. The issue here is not whether God blesses His children; the issue is the condition of my heart. Why do I serve Him? Are His blessings in my life the gifts of a loving Father, or are they a wage that I have earned or a bribe/payment to love Him? Do I love God without any conditions? It took several months to work through these questions. Even now I wonder if my desire to love God is always matched by my attitude and behavior. I still catch myself being disappointed with God and angry that He has not met some perceived need in my life. I suspect this is something which is never fully resolved, but I want more than anything else to be a true lover of God.

So what is it going to be? Which are we, lover or prostitute? There are no prostitutes in heaven, or in the Kingdom of God for that matter, but there are plenty of former prostitutes in both places. Take it from a recovering prostitute when I say there is no substitute for unconditional, intimate relationship with God. And I mean there is no palatable substitute available to us (take another look at Matthew 7:21-23 sometime). We must choose.

Responses to this article are welcomed. You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

Who Rules?

Last night our son's small group meeting took place here, and after supper they asked us to join them. I wasn't feeling well so I joined later. They talked together for a while. At one point F. said that the only two places in the German translation of the New Testament where the word 'Gottesdienst' = religious service or worship can be found, are in Romans 12:1 and James 1:27 and neither of them are talking about a religious meeting. He said that Christians had perverted the meaning from its Hebraic significance to a Greek, pagan significance. This got quite a reaction from three of the young folk in the group. F. pointed out the strength of this emotional reaction and asked them what they were afraid of.
The important point is that all three have a significant amount to lose if the system of religious goods and services is pulled down.

It got me thinking. Seven years ago, I was confronted with the same truth.  My first reaction was to feel threatened and afraid. When I asked the Lord why I was afraid, He said, 'Because your security is in church and not in Me.' In praying and thinking about this over the next few months, we both came to realise that we didn't need religious services, we just needed Jesus to be King every day of our lives. I.e. we needed the Kingdom of God; not religion. So we left the system. We lost friends, position and reputation. "But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith." Philippians 3:7-9.

This is why people react to the truth about the Kingdom; because somewhere, they have built their own kingdom or security, their own strong tower, their own lie; set up their own idol to worship it instead of the liberating King and Saviour, Jesus.
There are so many examples of this in the Bible. Adam first sinned by putting his security and trust in the lie and therefore the Liar, who had deceived his wife, presumably because he valued peace with Eve more highly than he valued fellowship with his King and Creator. He didn't want to rock the boat. Subsequently, when God called him in the cool of the day and asked where he was, his fearful reaction was to feel threatened, to run away and hide. He no longer 'knew' the One who loved him.

Cain and Abel.
Abel brought a sacrifice from his flock; a lamb, presumably, because he believed in the promise of a coming Saviour who would Himself be sacrificed for him. Cain, not accepting that a Lamb would cover his sin, brought the fruit of his own works and sweat, which was not accepted, so in reaction, in anger, guilt and shame he killed his brother.

Laban and Jacob.
Laban's idols, which symbolised his security, were stolen by his daughter Rachel, presumably so that when Jacob had vanished with all his flocks and family, Laban wouldn't be able to curse Jacob or harm him by calling on his gods. Laban reacted by hounding Jacob until he found him and would probably have hurt him had not God intervened by appearing to Laban in a dream and forbidding him to harm Jacob.

Joseph and his brothers.
Joseph's brothers hated him because his divine dreams of his future prominence threatened their own superiority as his elders. Their position and the favour of their father, Jacob, was their idol. They were jealous of the love Jacob had for Joseph and saw him supplanting them in their father's affection. After all, he was the only son of their father's true love, Rachel. He was a threat to them. They must have been afraid that Jacob would perhaps disown them (he took the birthright of the firstborn from Reuben) and take Joseph as his only blessed son - evidenced by the multicoloured robe Jacob gave Joseph. Their reaction was to take Joseph captive and sell him to the Ishmaelites, who sold him in Egypt.

Pharoah and Moses/Israel
Pharoah's whole political/religious-idolatrous system, his own cult position as son of the sun god as the personification of Ra over Egypt, was his security. Moses' God threatened it. So, when challenged, he reacted by increasing the oppression of the Israelites even more.

Gideon and the people of Ophrah
The security of the population of Ophrah lay in their fertility worship of Baal and Asherah, demons -  because of which, God had told the Israelites as they came out of Egypt, He was using Israel to eliminate the Canaanites from the land Israel was to enter. Their worship consisted of infant sacifice, including drinking human blood, sodomy and bestiality, incest, and heterosexual immorality, all perversions and abominations which polluted the human spirit and the land. We see the results of such perversions in our own day all around us, in broken families, hearts and twisted lives which abuse and pervert others in their turn. Sooner or later, a culture which indulges in occult practices and sexual immorality will fall. The people of Ophrah reacted to Gideon's destruction of the altar of Baal and their Asherah by demanding his death.

Saul and David.
Saul's security and idol lay in his position as king over Israel. David threatened it. Saul had a lot to lose, so he reacted by trying to kill David.

Jezebel and Elijah.
Jezebel's security and idols were also Baal and Asherah. Her position as queen was bound up in her belief that hers were the true gods. She had grown up as the daughter of the King of Tyre, the High Priest of Baal and King Eth-Baal, (who had murdered his predecessor). She saw YHWH's challenge to her through Elijah as a threat to her position and religious system, so she reacted by murdering YHWH's prophets and trying to murder Elijah.

The Prophets.
Subsequently, these were a constant threat to the corrupt political and religious status quo of the state system of Israel. State-sanctioned idolatry couldn't allow threats to its dominance, so in reaction, it persecuted, imprisoned and murdered the bearers of the message of truth. Isaiah, for example, is believed to have been sawn in half, by the orders of King Manasseh.

Jesus and the religious-political system of His day.
Jesus said that in Him, something greater than both the Temple and the Sabbath (in which the religious authorities had put their security) was now here. The religious authorities, Pharisees and Sadducees, reacted by handing Him over to the ruling Roman authority, saying that as Jesus claimed to be a king, He was 'threatening the rule of Caesar'. Very clever.
Rome's security and position was threatened and reacted by having Him crucified.

Who Rules? Who is King? God, or the idols of man; i.e.; his power, position, security, etc?
It's all about the place of the Kingdom of God; the rule and authority of God alone in our lives, rather than that of either the world or the religious spirit.

The Mithras Tree

It’s that ghastly time of year again - which I have been putting out of my mind for as long as possible, all the while knowing that it was inevitably creeping up on me. A friend wrote me an e-mail recently and mentioned the Christmas tree in the context of the Tree in the Garden of Eden and it got me thinking.

Genesis 3: 6 describes the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as follows: it …‘was good for food, and … a delight to the eyes, and … desirable to make one wise.’ If Adam and Eve ate from this tree, in disobedience to the Lord’s warning not to do so, they would ‘surely die’, which is a Hebraism meaning ‘to die eternally’.
But the Tree of Knowledge was beautiful. It was full of tasty, delectable fruit (a rabbinical tradition says that the tree was a fig tree, from whose leaves Adam and Eve later made themselves aprons) and provided a short cut to wisdom if man would stretch out his hand to take it. What could be more reasonable and sensible than to do so? Wasn’t God being
mean to deprive man of such a wonderful source of provision?
The choice that Adam and Eve had before them was the choice between their reliance on Christ, the Tree of Life, (the God who walked in the garden in the cool of the day; the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world) to provide for their needs, for light, love, food, wisdom, right-standing with God - and the choice for self-reliance, which, instead of resulting in freedom, caused enslavement to the Tempter.
Eating from the Tree of Knowledge was man's deciding what was right for himself – to do good or evil, instead of simply and humbly obeying the word that God had spoken and remaining in peace, and pace, with his Maker.
It was common practice from the earliest days of disobedience to the word of God for pagans to cut down a tree, which to them symbolized the tree of life, (but was actually the opposite) decorate it, set it up and worship it, in rites of abandoned sexual immorality. They called it an Asherah pole and it symbolized male sexuality. Men and women would lie with priestesses and priests of the pagan cults of Canaan in order to ensure the fertility of the land. The result was widespread practice of child sacrifice.
Ever since that time, man has chosen his own way above the clear word of God. For example, God gave a calendar for the year to his people, in which seven feasts prophetically pointed towards the first and second coming of the Anointed One.  The tribes of Israel who were cut off from Judah in the days of King Rehoboam ended up under the rule of King Jeroboam, (1 Kings 12:28-32) who …‘said in his heart,
“Now the kingdom will return to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will return to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” So the king consulted, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt.” He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. Now this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan. And he made houses on high places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of Levi. Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. Then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel and went up to the altar to burn incense. Even the Jews of Judah did not keep the feasts as they should have done. 2 Chronicles 30:26 says of the Passover feast kept in the days of King Hezekiah that … ‘there was nothing like this in Jerusalem since the days of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel.’ So the Passover had not been kept as it should have been since Solomon’s days. In 2 Kings 23:22 it says that such a Passover had not been celebrated from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah.’ Even Hezekiah had not kept the Passover as King Josiah did.
As followers of the Way it is clear to us that the Anointed One, the Messiah Yeshua fulfilled the first four spring feasts (Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Pentecost) at His first coming and that He will, at His second, fulfil the last three; Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles. In Him, we are made righteous, so now, it isn’t the keeping or the not keeping the feasts which is important, but our being ‘in Him’, who perfectly kept and is the fulfilment of the Law.
For the first three hundred years after the church was born, no-one paid any attention to the keeping of birthdays of any kind. They were considered to be pagan and avoided by followers of the Way.
Someone has said that the church first became an institution in Rome. Certainly by AD 336, in an attempt to maintain power over what she considered to be her people, just as Jeroboam had nearly 1000 years before, this increasingly Babylonian travesty of a church had instituted a new feast, the celebration of the birth of Christ. This was to syncretise the pagan cult of Mithras, the Roman sun god, borrowed from Zoroastrianism, into the arms of the Roman church. Mithras, who was worshiped under other names like Tammuz, Osiris, Baal, Apollo and Baldur in other cultures in Asia and Europe, in keeping with the fertility cult, had his birthday at the time of the winter solstice, December 25^th. It seemed expedient to the Roman church to bring all pagans under her skirts by amalgamating the sun god’s birth and that of the Son of God. The feast was celebrated with the decorating of palm trees in the Mediterranean and eventually, pine trees in Northern Europe.
By the 16^th Century, Germany was celebrating Christmas by the decorating of fir trees and by the 19^th, Britain was doing the same, after the Christmas tree was introduced by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s German husband. Mithras Trees spread all over the world after that, thanks to the British Empire.
 Today, Christmas is still kept by the decorating of a fir tree. Presents are laid under it, garlands, lights and goodies hung from its branches; all because we insist on doing things our way. Children are told that it they are good, Santa /satan will bring them good things; if bad, they’ll get the stick - just more indoctrination into the teaching of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Where is the teaching about grace? It’s not about how good we are or how bad; all of that is useless to bring us to God.
The Tree of Life is Yeshua Himself – and if we choose Him, we need no other tree. Will we worship Him who is invisible to everyone but those who have faith, rather than taking our eyes off Him and gazing at the perishable tree which is good for physical, temporal food, a delight to the eyes and desirable to make wise? It’s only kept for two weeks, after all. After all the materialistic self-indulgence is over, it’s thrown away. Why do we set such store by rubbish? And for those who buy an artificial tree and put it away for the following year, the same principle applies; it’s still not the Tree of Life.

Receiving and Giving

"As we stand now at the entrance to the third millennium since Jesus, we can look back over the horrors of Christian history, never doubting for an instant that if Christians had put kindness ahead of devotion to good order, theological correctness, and our own justifications – if we had followed in the humble footsteps of the heretical Samaritan who was willing to wash someone else’s wounds, rather than in the self-regarding steps of the priest and the immaculate steps of the Levite – the world we inhabit would be a very different one". (Thomas Cahill)
One can only receive something which has been revealed to him by God. If this has not happened, then we are commanded to love the person anyway. My natural ability to love regards what I will get in return. God's love doesn't look at the returns but gives anyway, as it it more blessed to give than receive. Coincidentally, the more I give, the more I will receive. Therefore, the more I love like God, the more I will receive revelation from Him. Perhaps we would be theologically more correct if we loved more - for God would then give us more revelation of truth. But like the priest and the Levite, we try to be holy and correct in our own eyes, instead of trusting in God's righteousness and holiness, which are in us through faith in Messiah.... Talking to myself here...

Last Saturday we went to a series of fascinating lectures about archaeological discoveries in Israel; giving an answer to the book by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman , 'The Bible Unearthed' ( Deutsch - 'Keine Posaunen vor Jericho'), in which they say that "the historical saga contained in the Bible . . . was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of human imagination" (p. 1). The lectures showed that the lecturers had scientific integrity as well as a sincere faith, and that accepted biblical chronology has been about 150 years out for the last couple of hundred years, which means that archaeologists have been looking for evidence in the wrong layers, and of course haven't found any.
During the afternoon coffee or tea break, we congregated downstairs around tables and chatted. We'd  brought some banana cake and fruit with us, which we put on the table. It was interesting how reluctant people were to take the cake we offered to them, once they realised that it hadn't been provided by the organisation giving the seminars. I suppose they hadn't wanted to impose or take 'private' victuals. It was jolly nice when people did take it though.
Today I picked sloes, and made sloe gin, which I hope will be ready in a couple of months.

Recent Thoughts

The extent to which I find other people difficult to get along with, is the extent to which I have decided not to love them with the love of God.

The extent to which I submit myself to what God has willed or ordained for me today, is the extent to which I will live in His joy, peace and love.

'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.' (Phil. 4:13)

Billy Graham saw it happening...

 Billy Graham wrote the following in 1965. It appears to have been prophetic of what has been happening over the last 30 years.

'Multitudes of Christians within the church are moving toward the point where they may reject the institution that we call the church. They are beginning to turn to more simplified forms of worship. They are hungry for a personal and vital experience with Jesus Christ. They want a heartwarming personal faith. Unless the church quickly recovers its authoritative Biblical message, we may witness the spectacle of millions of Christians going outside the institutional church to find spiritual food.'

Quoted in “World Aflame,” pp. 79-80.

He also said this:

'I think one of the first things I would do would be to get a small group of eight or ten or twelve men around me that would meet a few hours a week and pay the price. It would cost them something in time and effort. I would share with them everything I have, over a period of years. Then I would actually have twelve ministers among the laymen who in turn could take eight or ten or twelve more and teach them. I know one or two churches that are doing that, and it is revolutionizing the church. Christ, I think, set the pattern. He spent most of his time with twelve men. He didn’t spend it with a great crowd. In fact, every time he had a great crowd it seems to me that there weren’t too many results. The great results, it seems to me, came in his personal interview and in the time he spent with the twelve.'

Quoted in “Billy Graham Speaks: The Evangelical World Prospect,” Christianity Today, vol.3, no.1, p.5, Oct.13, 1958.

First seen on Frank Viola's blog, 'Beyond Evangelical'

Whoever humbles himself

I was reading in Matthew this morning:'Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.'
That's an awesome statement, don't you think?

I realised that in spite of all the de-tox I've been going through, there was still this thing in me deep down which thinks that because I'm not 'doing much' for God - (at least, not in my eyes, compared with others I see every day - people we live in the same house with - our ex-pastor and family, for example) - I'm not somehow acceptable. It's an incredible thing that what makes us acceptable isn't what or how much we do at all. What a HUGE relief. All He wants is for me to humble myself. WOW. I have to take this medicine every day for the rest of my life.
Seems like there are no levels in heaven as far as other people are concerned, with which we can compare ourselves. Seems like it's only on earth in this fallen world that we make comparisons. In heaven it's always and only about HIS grace and mindblowing generosity and mercy. I think of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard...
PRAISE GOD!!!

STRAIGHT TALK ON PASTORS

From "The Church in the Wilderness"
by Chip Brogden

I had a ministry to burned out pastors when I was still working for a denomination. What a great ministry; there's never any lack of burned out pastors. I would take over their pulpit for one or two Sundays and give them a break so they could take some time off, spend time with their families, go get counseling, or do whatever they needed to do but couldn't take time to do because they were so consumed with running their church. That opened my eyes to a lot of things.

I remember getting a call from a pastor of a medium-sized church, and he wanted to take me to dinner. I agreed to meet him because I was flattered, and I was really looking forward to it because he was someone I considered "successful." His church was growing, they had a nice building, he drove a nice car and had nice clothes. I was struggling with all those things so this man was someone I kind of looked up to. I was hoping I could get some words of wisdom or some ideas that would help me become as successful as he was.
So we met for dinner and things are going well. He seems friendly and I am just on the verge of asking him, "What is the secret to your success?" The words were on the tip of my tongue, and then this pastor broke down right in front me. His personal life was a mess, his church was a mess, and he wanted me to take over his services for a couple of weeks so he and his wife could take some time off and put their marriage back together. I nodded and listened but inside I was thinking, "My God! Here I am looking to this man as an example of success, and he is a nervous wreck." And that meeting taught me something. I learned not to judge success by the outward appearance of things. I saw that pastors are just as clueless as anyone else, but they have to convince themselves and everyone around them that they really have it all together. Most of the time they do not, and you can only be a hypocrite for so long before the whole things takes its toll on you.
I like to teach, and I have a heart for pastors. If it were up to me I would probably be working with burned out pastors. But God had something else in mind. "Leave them alone, Chip - they are blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead the blind, they will both fall in the ditch." And God showed me that until a blind leader falls into a ditch, they cannot be healed. He can't have his eyes opened until he realizes he is blind and has no business trying to lead others. My efforts to help them by taking over their pulpit for a week or two was like treating cancer with a band-aid.
Pastors aren't bad people. Pastors, for the most part, are good people who become trapped in a bad system. It's the religious system that is at fault. Yet this religious system was created by people - well-intentioned, good-hearted people who thought they were doing something for God. And now this thing called "Churchianity" has become a monster, a grotesque creation of our own hands, and now we can't control it; IT controls us. It masters us, all the while tricking us into thinking that when we serve IT then we are serving God. The work of the Lord becomes more important than the Lord of the Work.
How far we have fallen from the days when people could look at disciples of Jesus and would notice that they had been with Him. They had been with Jesus. Now we look at religious folk dressed up and going out to eat lunch on Sunday and all we can say of them is that they have been to church.

'...that you may be healed.'

'Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.' James 5:16.

The Lord gave me this yesterday. I don't think there is a limit to the depravity in our hearts - and only He can see it all. But if I hold on to the least shred of self which He reveals, then I'm choosing me and not Him. He'll give me what I want. That's the scary thing.

Discipleship

After my recent wade through a slough of despond, and crying out to the Lord for help and direction, something has changed. Somehow, while calling for help, a little voice inside told me that light was going to break before long.

We have been meeting up for two and a half years now with a few friends - some have moved on - and two or three have stayed, and one of these, N, who has become a dear friend, is now meeting up with me on Monday nights to share what the Lord has been doing in us, confess sin and pray for others.
We started meeting about 5 weeks ago, and recently we decided to read through the letter of James every day until we felt it was time to change to another book - and see what the Lord said to us. Already, I am sensing a change in me. He is making me stronger in my spirit, able to withstand temptation better, I get my work done more efficiently and I am getting nourished from the Word more. I was reading the Bible regularly and a lot before, but upping the amount that I read daily has been doing so much inside me. I'm seeing even more connections than I did before, and marvelling increasingly at how multilayered and multifaceted the Bible is.
This, when my husband is going through the usual colossal stress with his work, annoyance and frequent pain with his back problems, struggling to believe that God is for him, is enabling me to stand firm under what otherwise would be too much of a heavy burden. My heart is secure in the presence of Jesus.
N and I began to get up early recently, to do Nordic walking for an hour outside before the day begins. We go out Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It has given my week a framework for me to move in, and already I can feel the physical benefits. My balance and sleep are better.

Reading through James is doing something else as well. I realise more than ever what 'renewing the mind' is all about. I've always known that fighting the battle of the bulge wasn't just about disciplining my flesh - I knew that it began in the mind. But I couldn't get my mind to do what it ought to have done, so I was becoming used to an attitude of failure and thinking that I would have to struggle with this for the rest of my life. Reading masses of scripture makes me far more alert and awake to hearing the Lord - recently He showed me that no area of sin shall have domination over me. Halleluyah!

For the first time in my life I think, when I fast, I actually find it easy to do so - the temptation to eat then, or to eat unwisely at other times - is hardly there at all. My mind is the closed door, and repetitve reading of scripture is the key. Repetitively reading James (which is so practical!) is helping me meditate on the scripture, which brings it to mind during the day and focuses me on the Lord, rather than on myself. I don't feel interested in watching DVDs (however good they are) or reading anything which would take my attention from what the Lord wants to do in me.  Housework and other work is much easier. We've been learning modern Greek for several months - I actually did my homework this morning, and enjoyed it, instead of waiting 'til the last moment before the next lesson.

Some might see this as legalistic religion - I believe that it is a simple and easy way of making sure that my whole day is submitted to the Lord. Discipleship seemed hard before; now it isn't. I am ashamed to say it, but I have never been really disciplined with anything for very long, I am by nature, lazy, greedy and self- indulgent. Self-control was a fruit of the Spirit which I never saw much of. But I had been praying about it for several weeks prior to this, and am at last beginning to see a change. Obedience is becoming a joy.

Connections

Lots of rhetorical questions:


How much of church 'life' and my connection with others is orchestrated by my good intentions?

How often have I run to connect with those that God 'allowed' me to be connected with, rather than actually willing it as the best thing for me?

How do I know who is really of God's connecting and who isn't?

Should I always disconnect from those I don't sense a 'oneness with and only stay with those who I 'feel' knitted to in the Spirit? I'd probably have very few relationships if I did that. Love covers a multitude of sins, after all. We are not all able to take truth in deep doses. It seems that God has made us all of different types and depths and I suppose God uses those who see things differently to grate and rub and polish me; teach me more about Himself.

'I hate, I despise your religious feasts' - Amos 5:21

In the last few days I've had the words, 'I hate, I despise your religious feasts...' in my heart.

I am sickened when I see the waste and excess going on here; the way people bury their heads in the sand (or snow) and get all sentimental and nostalgic as well as stressed out about Christmas; the Weihnachtskonzerte, the tree decorations, the radio bulletins announcing how people only have a few days left to get this or that before Mithrasmas begins.

I met a man last year who had had a meeting with various fairly well-known Christian ministers, including Archbishop Suenens of Belgium some years ago. They were praying together and were led to ask the Lord what He hated. They all wrote down what they heard. When they compared notes, they discovered that each one had written 'Christmas.'
Makes you think.
But woe betide us if we touch the idol. It brings down the wrath like little else. It scares me when I think how it offends people, because the last thing I want to do is offend or hurt, but I think that the Lord is not above hurting or offending us when it boils down to the truth, which is that He longs to set us free from enslavement to something which cannot bring us closer to Him.

The West has Gone Soft.

THE EXAMPLE OF LADY JANE GRAY

In 1553, England had a queen who reigned only nine days. Her rule was overthrown by "Bloody" Mary, Queen of Scots who was her half sister, and became the next queen of England. Lady Jane Gray was only 17 years old at the time of her nine-day reign. Six months later, "Bloody" Mary had her executed—her head was chopped off.

Lady Jane Gray was a most devout follower of Jesus Christ, and she humbly submitted to her martyrdom. Her behaviour and speech at the execution site are an example of a level of faith and devotion that is extremely rare in this world. Jane Gray did not go to the place of execution screaming and fighting. She walked there with dignity, serenity and victory—considering martyrdom a privilege for which few people in this world had been chosen. Following are some excerpts from her letters and speeches during the last six months of her life which she spent in prison (the tower of London).

During her six months imprisonment, Jane Gray wrote a letter to a man who was also condemned to die, but who was wavering in his faith. Jane Gray wrote: (paraphrased into modern English)

Dear Mr. Harding,

I often think about what God meant when he said that, He who puts his hand on the plough and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of heaven, and his instruction to: ...forsake our own way to follow God's way. You, Mr. Harding, were once such a devout follower of Jesus Christ, and now you seem more of an imp or a devil. I can’t help crying out to you. Why have you preached God’s law and will to others, and you yourself shamefully shrink when your time comes? Your body and soul are choosing to live miserably in this world, rather than to die and gloriously honour and reign with Christ—in whom even death is life. [This letter had many more words of encouragement.]

The night before her execution, Jane Gray wrote to her sister:

As touching my death, rejoice as I do, dear sister, that I will be set free from this corruptible body and take on an incorruptible body. I am assured that I will, in losing a mortal life, gain an immortal life...

On the scaffold, she was permitted to speak to the people before her head was chopped off. In her speech, she said:

"I pray you all to bear me witness that I die a true Christian lady, and that I do not look to be saved by any means other than by the mercy of God through the blood of his only Son Jesus Christ.

"I confess that when I knew God’s word, I neglected it, but loved myself and the world, Therefore this plague and punishment have come on me appropriately and deservingly because of my sins. And yet I thank God that in his goodness he has given me a time of respite to repent. And now, good people, while I am still alive, I pray you, assist me with your prayers.

After this, she knelt and asked permission to sing a psalm. Permission was granted. On her knees, with her eyes up to heaven, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, she sang a psalm of love to God.

Then she stood up, gave her gloves and handkerchief to her maid, her book to a bystander. She untied her royal gown and removed it and her frowes, paaft, and neckerchief. She gave an exquisite handkerchief to her attendant to tie around her eyes.

The executioner knelt down and asked her forgiveness. She gladly gave it. She said to him, "Please dispatch me quickly."

With her eyes blindfolded, she reached out with her hands, felt for the chopping block, and laid her neck on it saying, "Lord, into your hands I commend my spirit!" This was February 12, 1554.

About five years later, "Bloody" Mary, her half sister and Queen of England, was also dead. The judge who sentenced Lady Jane Gray went mad and thought that she was following him for the rest of his life.

The executioner’s request for forgiveness before chopping off her head was not unusual in England in those days. Many devout believers in Jesus Christ were burned to death or had their heads chopped off by the religious and political powers of the day.

Another account of a man who forgave his executioner comes from the same book, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: About ten years before Lady Jane Gray’s head was chopped off, a man named George Wishart had a similar experience. This well-educated servant of God was accused by the political and religious powers of the day of heresy, and sentenced to be hung and burned. At the execution site, the hangman walked up to him, kneeled before him, and said, "Please forgive me, sir. I am not guilty of your death."

Wishart said, "Come here." When the hangman approached, Wishart kissed him on the cheek and said, "That’s a token of my forgiveness. Do your job."

Wishart was hung and his body burned. The crowd of people who watched this execution were mourning and they complained that an innocent lamb had been slaughtered.

The above was copied from: Foxe's Book of Martyrs, editor: Marie G. King, Spire Books, Old Tappan, New Jersey, 1968, pages 182-183.

Why I don't celebrate Christmas

Don't get me wrong - I love the fact that Jesus was born - and thank Him every day for it. Just as I thank Him every day that He died and rose again - I just don't like the commercialism of Christmas - probably any more than any other follower of Jesus - (so prefer to keep away from it all) and since He wasn't born at this time of year anyway, but more likely in the middle of our September, depending on the Jewish lunar/solar calendar, I prefer to think of His birth around that time - which corresponds to Sukkoth - when God's people spend a week in tabernacles. Doesn't John say that the Word came and tabernacled among us? It is possible, at least to my mind, that He was laid in a manger in a makeshift 'Sukkah', as the Roman census could very well have coincided with Sukkoth.

 Have a look at the duties of priests in 1 Chronicles 24 :10 and you'll see that the 8th lot fell to Abijah, to whose order Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, belonged. The religious year beginning in Nisan, and each order being on Temple duty for two weeks, (there were 24 orders in all) meant that Z. would have been on duty for the last two weeks of Tammuz, so Gabriel appeared to him during that time. Give him enough time to get home to a village in Judea somewhere afterwards, Elizabeth would have conceived at some point at the end of Tammuz/beginning of Ab. John would have been born the following Passover, which fits perfectly with the Jewish tradition that Elijah would show up at Passover.
 6 months after Z. is visited, when Gabriel appears to Mary, is the end of Kislev. The 24th of Kislev and the next 8 days are the celebration of Hannukah. I believe Jesus was conceived at this time. Approximately nine months later falls the Feast of Trumpets, and shortly afterwards Tabernacles. So either could have been the time of His birth. Give or take a few days.
 Shepherds weren't on the fields in November/December/Kislev anyway - much too cold. Ploughing was past - it was the time for sowing - when the Son of God, the seed of Mary, the Word of God, was 'sown' into the world. So I like to celebrate the Incarnation at this time. The several Magi came later, possibly even two years later, when Jesus, Mary and Joseph were already in a house.
 It seems to me that the Biblical feasts are perfectly fulfilled in Jesus - and just as Passover and First Fruits perfectly fulfil His death and resurrection - so the other feasts foreshadow the fulfilment of some other part of His Mystery.
 Hannukah is mentioned in John, as the Feast of Dedication, but apart from that it's hidden - just as the Incarnation was hidden from the eyes of men. It celebrates the rededication of the Temple in 164 BC after its descecration by Antiochus Epiphanes, the sanctification of the people of God from the world, and is the perfect symbolic foreshadowing of Mary offering herself to God as the 'temple' through which the Glory of God would come into the world.
 Nowhere in the New Testament are we told to celebrate His birth - that came in with Constantine, who legalised what was already a pagan feast and christianized it.

 Some church leaders… opposed the idea of a birth celebration. Origen (c.185-c.254) preached that it would be wrong to honor Christ in the same way Pharaoh and Herod were honored. Birthdays were for pagan gods.
 Not all of Origen’s contemporaries agreed that Christ’s birthday shouldn’t be celebrated, and some began to speculate on the date (actual records were apparently long lost). Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215) favored May 20 but noted that others had argued for April 18, April 19, and May 28. Hippolytus (c.170-c.236) championed January 2. November 17, November 20, and March 25 all had backers as well. A Latin treatise written around 243 pegged March 21, because that was believed to be the date on which God created the sun. Polycarp (c.69-c.155) had followed the same line of reasoning to conclude that Christ’s birth and baptism most likely occurred on Wednesday, because the sun was created on the fourth day.
 The eventual choice of December 25, made perhaps as early as 273, reflects a convergence of Origen’s concern about pagan gods and the church’s identification of God’s son with the celestial sun. December 25 already hosted two other related festivals: natalis solis invicti (the Roman “birth of the unconquered sun”), and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian “Sun of Righteousness” whose worship was popular with Roman soldiers. The winter solstice, another celebration of the sun, fell just a few days earlier. Seeing that pagans were already exalting deities with some parallels to the true deity, church leaders decided to commandeer the date and introduce a new festival.
 Western Christians first celebrated Christmas on December 25 in 336, after Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the empire’s favored religion. Eastern churches, however, held on to January 6 as the date for Christ’s birth and his baptism.
 Most easterners eventually adopted December 25, celebrating Christ’s birth on the earlier date and his baptism on the latter, but the Armenian church celebrates his birth on January 6.
http://www.christianresourceslinks.com/christmas_and_constantine1.htm
 The beginning of the celebration of Christmas occurred because of the church's reaction as a whole, to the way the Jews had persecuted the followers of Jesus. As the church increased in Gentile numbers, they threw out every connection to Hebrew thinking, sadly throwing the baby out with the bath-water, in many cases.
 In the end though, it doesn't bother me if people want to celebrate His birth at this time - we're not under Law but under grace - so if it doesn't offend you that I prefer to remember His birth in September, if not every day, that's fine. I still think that if by any means people can be brought to think about all that He has done for us, then let His birth be remembered now. Better than not at all.
 I personally hate the pressure and stress which comes on mothers particularly, at this time of year. I refuse to try to keep up with my German neighbours who are in competition with each other to see who can bake the greatest variety and number of 'Plätzchen' and since my husband and I had very different Christmas traditions growing up as children, we decided to find our own way.
 I won't be dictated to by the Catholic Church. It horrified me to learn that satanists see Christmas as the high point in their year, and that children often disappear then and are used in human sacrifice. It also shocked me to learn about the numbers of divorces, family violence and murders which take place at Christmas, not to mention drunkenness, gluttony and pure selfishness. Saturnalia/Misrule indeed. It seems to me that the pagan roots are still there, just with a different name. If anything, we need to be using the time over Mithrasmas to intercede for children, and pray for God's protection over them, rather than indulging ourselves.
 I always thought that this time of year ought to be particularly significant, spiritually, and always felt bad that I felt further away from God at this time, than any other time of year. I won't have my walk with my Lord affected by a ruling of the church calendar, however well meant. So, in obedience to Him, I gave it all up. I don't believe that everyone else should, unless the Lord tells them to. He told us to. So we did. So for the last 5 years, I have been in peace about it.

We'll still visit my husband's parents on the 24th and 25th - he's their only child and they'd be alone otherwise. Showing love to his parents, who don't know the Lord, is more important to me than sticking dogmatically to something for its own sake, and rejecting them and what is meaningful to them. But I won't sing, 'Oh, Tannenbaum!'