WHAT HAVE I DECIDED ABOUT CHRISTMAS? Josimar Salum

WHAT HAVE I DECIDED ABOUT CHRISTMAS?

Josimar Salum

There is a current among evangelicals to fight the celebration of Christmas. Someone wrote to me: “We are from Jerusalem and not Rome. We have to rescue everything that was stolen from us, that which comes from the Jews and not an imposed custom from Rome. This Christmas is not for Christians... This altar of lights in the city that our children learn to admire, is nothing more than an altar to a pagan god. Our culture and customs have tied many Christians to Rome when the revelation of the Word came by the Jews (from Jerusalem); we have to rescue the Biblical festivals, instituted by our God.”

According to this evangelical trend of not celebrating Christmas, I will no longer give presents to my family and friends because “exchanging gifts... on this date means we worship a pagan god, where the Nordic ritual required them to go to the mountains at dawn and there they wept in sacrifices. They waited for the first rays of morning sun and handed gifts to one another in adoration, saying, "May you never forget the gods about us."

“The presents are a means to eternalize the pact, to bring the blessing of the gods. Tertullian, a Catholic theologian, said that he could not condone this lie, the sun can never be a god, because the God of Christians was the One who created the sun.”

What disciple of Jesus in their right mind would give their son a gift as if he were worshiping the sun? What exaggeration is this embedded in a religious heart? What power has this myth in imposing a meaning on my gesture of giving a gift as if I were worshiping some deity? As if visiting a church would make me a devotee of the saint for which it was built, as if taking a bath in the Ganges River would make me a practitioner of Hindu purification, or if visiting Mecca, if I could, would make me a Muslim. Is it not the heart's intent that makes you a worshiper just as God said, “These people honor me with their lips, but in their heart they are far from me?"

What harm does it do, despite the mercantile “frenzy” of the stores, to enjoy the cultural nuances of Christmas, that is, its aspects and the subtle regional differences? As long as I don't participate in the fruitless works of darkness that are greed, idolatry, impurity and greed? (See Ephesians 5). What harm or what sin is there in admiring at Christmas time the creativity of streets decked with white, red and blue lights; in the midst of the heat of Brazilian December, imagine the snow, looking at the white cotton in the trees and on the ground, or giving and receiving gifts without worshiping some false god? And even knowing that Jesus was not born in December, in the winter of the United States?

For the truth is, parents, disciples of Jesus who give gifts to their children, have nothing to do with Nordic practice, nor do they even know what that means!

In my own house we never had Christmas trees, nor did we have pentagrams, balls, wreaths, elves and other creatures, however, I know hundreds of homes of Christian friends and family who decorate their homes with "Christmas trees" without any pagan symbols. “Ah! The tree is already a pagan symbol!” You are the pagan if you see everything in this world as impure! Why would I judge them and in a fit of fanaticism say that they shouldn't even have a tree because even the tree is already a pagan symbol? Was it not Jesus himself, the Creator, who made the tree? How would the rainbow now become a symbol of some human movement when in fact it is the symbol of the covenant that God made with man not to destroy with water what is on Earth?

Years ago I attended a Christmas concert at my nephew Filipe's school. All students, more than 700, practically filled the auditorium.

A beautiful orchestra of violins, cellos, and a piano played Christmas carols that announced the coming of the Savior Jesus into the world.

The orchestra, composed of the students of the school, sang musical pieces about the Joy of all men.

Then a choir of teenagers sang about the Word made flesh, the boy who filled the elders in the temple in Jerusalem with admiration for His responses to them.

The choir also sang about the man from Nazareth, the Son of God, who went to the Jordan River to be baptized by John.

The choir sang over the voice they heard that day: "Thou art My Beloved Son in Whom is all My pleasure."

The adolescent choir sang the garden prayer that Jesus prayed to the Father in Gethsemane and the response He gave Him that He would do His Will.

The choir sang of His crucifixion and death, of His burial and that he rose on the third day.

The choir with its songs proclaimed the Gospel.

I was amazed to think that here in the United States alone thousands and thousands of schools celebrated the same festival this week, a tradition celebrated since the first Christian settlers who arrived here, at a time when there were no malls or all the mercantile extravaganza that surrounds this date.

At the same time, I was terrified to think of everything related to Christmas, especially and exclusively regarding the birth of Jesus, the only thing that remains of mention of Jesus Christ, in the midst of what we know today as this corrupt and perverse culture, will disappear due to a movement of evangelicals to end, destroy and eliminate Christmas and its festivities.

I was terrified to seriously think that this is how it is in communist Russia, North Korea, Vietnam and China, in Muslim countries, in all of India and its neighboring countries with with their billions of people, in short, practically all of Asia and the Orient. There is no such thing as Christmas!

When millions and millions of children wake up in the morning on December 25th there is not the slightest mention or even the slightest possibility of anyone asking what is so special about the date that celebrates the name of Jesus.

Because half the world doesn't know about Christmas paganism, it's true, there is a lot of paganism; yet they do not know the joy of anticipated gifts that have nothing to do with the practice of pagans hundreds of years ago, but they also cannot hear the story of the Savior who came into the world, who was born in Bethlehem, whatever day it was. They do not hear about the God who became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his Glory as the Glory of the Only Begotten of the Father.

Only out of a fit of fanaticism would I ever decide to not celebrate with my family and millions and millions of Christians the Christmas of Yeshua, yes, the birth of Jesus.

Not even in a slight imagining would I ever stop singing His beautiful hymns of the Savior who came into the world.

Not even in a fleeting thought would I fail to miss the opportunity to proclaim the Message of the Cross and the meaning of the Name of Jesus, the Savior from the sins of His people, in the midst of all this greedy commercialization and all the pagan symbols that have been associated with the Birth of my Saviour.

I would never wipe for once and for all the only opportunity to proclaim and redeem the true message of the Gospel of the Kingdom that still remains in the midst of the culture.

He who was born in Bethlehem was not merely a boy. He who was born in Bethlehem is the King of all the Earth. And I adore Him with all my heart and I rejoice as a child with Christmas that for me and for millions of people continues and will continue to be about the Birth of Jesus.

Translated from Brazilian by: Filipe S.S. Gouvea 

#ASONE