|By Rev. Christopher Gore
“But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the scroll until the end of time. Many will go back and forth and search anxiously [through the scroll], and knowledge [of the purpose of God as revealed by His prophets] will [greatly] increase.” Daniel 12: 4 (Amp)
At times it feels like the Body of Christ is in a war against itself. We are a denominationally divided group of people. This division does not make us stronger or better it keeps us from being able to enjoy the freedoms that we have in Christ. There are many traditions that have been passed down from the First Church to the Church of today. Some of those traditions are good and some of them are bad. Nonetheless we must look at the intent of the First Church and come to agreement that they sought the best for the Body of Christ with the “knowledge” that they had.
We have to be honest and admit that they were stronger in their faith than we are. They believed God with much less evidence, factual proof, and information then we have today. The difference between the First Church and the Church today is that they had to totally rely upon the Spirit. We should be doing this, but we do not. We have the Spirit and our “Head knowledge” and at times our “Head knowledge” over rules the Spirit. When this occurs, we all lose.
Whether you like it or not, the First Church celebrated holidays around what we “now” know today to be pagan festivals. The dirty little secret is the First Church knew they were pagan festivals, and this was done for various reasons on purpose, one of which was to help save the lives of the members of the Church who were being persecuted for their beliefs. Today’s Church with its “New knowledge” overlook the historical context and sacrifices of the First Church and what they did to keep the Gospel spreading to the entire world.
It's not at the front of our mind that the Gentile Church celebrates the Sabbath on Sunday. Nor is at the front of our mind that the Jews celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday. We often forget that the First Church faced persecution for their faith. The Early Church Fathers made decisions with all the other Churches to hide our traditional Christian holidays around the solstices or pagan festivals. It was done by agreement of the entire Gentile Church. The world that they lived in operated off of a solar calendar. The Gentile Church wanted to show a distinction between the Jewish Church and itself, so they used the Gregorian Calendar (Solar) and kept the Sabbath on Sunday.
Jesus was not born on December 25. We agree. However, the entire world has set the date and we cannot change it. The First Church used December 25 based upon the knowledge they had at the time. There was no evil intent or deception. For today the “New knowledge” that Jesus was not born on December 25th is an unnecessary source of contention. We have more knowledge available to us. This is what we have come to discover. “Based on the Bible text and knowledge of the priestly courses, we can estimate that Jesus was born around the time of Tishri, which falls in mid to late September. This approximation is reached by starting at the conception of John the Baptist, which occurred in Sivan (June). Then, we count forward six months to arrive at Gabriel's announcement of the conception of Jesus, which happened in Kislev (December).
Finally, we count forward nine more months, which is the average time it takes for human gestation, to reach Tishri (September) when Jesus was born.” (notes from https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/when-was-jesus-born.html)
The First Church would never dishonor God by committing idolatry with these pagan festivals. They took God and honoring Him very seriously. They believed in purity on every level of their walk and relationship with God. Often you find throughout history a very strict observance of the scriptures. With everything there are extremes that lead to stupidity and the religious spirit produced some rituals in the Church that made the Sadducees and Pharisees look like the perfect saints of God. These extremes have existed throughout Church history and will continue until God completely purifies His Church. This being said one of the Church controversies of our times is the “New knowledge” that has been found that Christmas, Easter & Halloween are pagan in nature.
This is partial truth and partial knowledge. The First Church did not celebrate or participate in these pagan festivals. Those with the “New knowledge“ would have you believe that they did. The religious observances that were tied to the Birth of Christ, the Resurrection of Christ, and honoring the old Saints like Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John were the observances that the First Church established. These observances were coordinated in conjunction with those festivals, but the First Church never did what the world did.
Where this becomes totally stupid, the Church of today has learned this partial truth and instead of rejoicing in what was done by the First Church it is used to stir up offence, strife, and discord. This all comes from the celebration of the worldly tradition of Halloween. If the Church today shares a message about the evils of Halloween there is an instantaneous backlash that arises about the evils of Christmas and Easter. No one in the Church today who celebrates the Birth of Jesus Christ, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ believes in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. They may teach these aspects of our culture from a historical context and tradition but there is no real celebration in Church tied to traditions. Are these traditions that have been passed down from the world in every culture throughout history? Yes! Because the Church celebrates the Birth of Jesus Christ and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ at their appointed times on the Gregorian calendar, we have been condemned to Hell for celebrating Christmas and Easter. It's very sad but this is where the folks in the Church with the “New knowledge” Choose to take us every year.
““Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” Matthew 23: 23 – 24 (NKV).
The Body of Christ is good for straining out gnats and swallowing camels. We are quick to take the little bit of knowledge that we have and use it to bring confusion to our fellow brothers and sisters. We take partial truth and partial knowledge and use it to cause the weak to stumble and fall. We are good at doing this. One of the greatest dangers of our time is the misapplication of raw knowledge. While it is good that we have access to so much information, it is bad to not know how to properly use the knowledge that has been given to us.
In our religious settings we can take knowledge and use it to place an undue burden upon God's people. The Sadducees and the Pharisees in Jesus’s day were good for doing this. They took their knowledge and used it in such a way that caused God’s people to stumble. If you followed the Sadducees and Pharisees, you would never be able to get close to God at all. They were religious acting before God and the end result of this religious acting was a form of godliness that denied His true power.
Often the Church is so Heavenly minded that it is no Earthly good. Such is the case with our knowledge of the celebrations of Christmas, Easter & Halloween. Christians celebrated the Birth of Christ at Christmas, the Resurrection of Christ at Easter, and All SAINTS Day at Halloween. These pagan holidays were tied to major Christian observances. Would you tell a Christian not to celebrate the Birth of Christ, the Resurrection of Christ, or show honor Saints of the Bible? No! Are there extremes and stupidities that are tied to all three of these Christian observances? Yes. Does this mean that we shut all of it down because of the extremes? No! We need to help our brother and sisters see the whole truth and not partial truth. Instead of leading our brothers and sisters to make informed decisions about right and wrong we use the knowledge we have gained in a wrong manner.
Within our time period a significant amount of information has been gained from former witches and warlocks concerning the pagan holiday associated with Halloween. As the Church grew in its understanding of the child sacrifices and satanic rituals that occurred on Halloween the Church begin to educate, expose, and separate itself from the darkness that is Halloween. The hidden truth behind this is that the Church celebrated three days in this period. Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. Over time things changed and Halloween received the complete focus during this period. All Saints Day and All Souls Day lessened in their celebrations. The original intent has been lost.
Christmas is another celebration that was promoted by the Church. Early Christians did not initially celebrate Christmas as we know it today. The original celebrations were times of prayer and not gift giving. They eventually gave gifts not because of a “Jolly Old Elf named Santa Claus but because the Magi brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus when He was born. The observance of Christ’s birth as a distinct feast day emerged gradually over the first few centuries of Christianity.
The earliest Christmas observances were quite different from our modern celebrations. They were solemn and liturgical in nature, centered around the Eucharist (Holy Communion) and prayer rather than gift giving or decorations. The season of advent as a time of spiritual preparation became associated with Christmas by the 6th century. One of the earliest Christmas traditions was the procession of prophets a dramatic reading of Old Testament prophecies about the coming of Christ. This would often be performed in Churches on Christmas Eve.
It is a given that the First Church celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus. This occurred at the Jewish observance of Passover. There is conflict over it being A.D. 30 or A.D. 33 but Passover in both of those years was in April which fits with the pagan observance of Easter.
I hope this helps give you a better understanding of what has happened over the years. This has been a very Brief History of the Celebrations of Christmas, Easter & Halloween in the Church.
Originally Printed in the Lighthouse Inc., Church's weekly bulletin.
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