"The Truth About Christmas"

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This was the title of an article by Ed Briggs, in the “Times-Dispatch” newspaper. He had some interesting things to say, so I thought I would share, since Christmas is now over and most people are thinking about other things by now. One thing he wrote was this: “Each Christmas is usually treated as though it has been an annual event since the birth of Jesus, which is estimated sometime between 7 and 4 B.C. However, the holiday wasn’t really adopted until the middle part of the 4th century, when the anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ had begun to wane.” He also wrote: “In the earliest period of the church, it was not the birth and childhood of Jesus that were of theological interest, but Jesus’ words, works, death and resurrection.” He also wrote: “According to a Roman almanac, the festival of Christ’s Mass, or Christmas, was celebrated (for the first time) in Rome in 336 A.D. If you think about it and read the Bible account of Jesus life and ministry, you will find that the early Christians did NOT celebrate Christ’s birth at all, not during the time he was alive, nor for many years following his death. Christmas was “rooted in a pagan rite that dealt with the winter solstice.” “In the Roman world, the Saturnalia, “(a pagan holiday celebrating the birth of the SUN) was adopted by the Roman church and renamed Christmas, but the “merrymaking and the exchange of gifts” was to honor “the Iranian mystery god Mithra, the Sun of Righteousness.” “Houses were decorated and gifts were given to the children and the poor.” He went on to say: “To these observances were added the German and Celtic Yule rites when the Teutonic tribes penetrated into Gaul, Britain and central Europe. Food and good fellowship, the Yule log and greenery and fir trees, gifts and greetings all commemorated different aspects of that group’s festive season.” In other words, Christmas really has nothing to do with Christ. Even the date was adopted from a pagan celebration, because Jesus was NOT born on December 25th. The Bible clearly indicates that he was born, when “shepherds were living out of doors and keeping watches in the night over their flocks.” Luke 2:8, 9 This would not be the case in late December. It would be much too cold for that. I decided to do more research and found all of this to be correct. Any encyclopedia will give you this same information. The Roman Catholic Church adopted a pagan festival and claimed that December 25th was the day the Christ was born. I decided long ago that I would not celebrate this holiday. Of course, everyone has the right to celebrate whatever he wishes to celebrate, but I thought this article was very interesting and that this particular writer did his research. What do you think?