East-coast Missions Project

December 2006

DAY OF REMEMBRANCE

In the 1971 film adaptation of “Fiddler on the Roof” Tevye, the film’s main character is walking having a conversation with his horse, God and himself about the changes taking place in his little Russian town of Anateveka. Tevye is arguing that things must not change and the reason he yells is because of – “Tradition!”

It appears that tradition in our country and society is rapidly losing a battle to those that do not value our heritage; to those that are a self-serving, self-centered tiny minority whose only values are self-gratification. Ever increasing the past few years has been the attacks by this minority upon the Christmas tradition, doing so all in the name of ‘political correctness.’ The pressure has been such that federal and local government agencies, major retailers, school boards and even some local real estate companies have caved and conceded to using “Happy Holiday’s” and “Holiday Season” and eliminating the use of “Merry Christmas.” This is all because of the love for money and fear of losing customers and offending people. (At least, as of the time of this writing, the ‘federal holiday’ was still called “Christmas” and not the ‘happy holiday season.’)

The problem is and what the majority of people are unaware of is that it is not about separation of church and state, the economic merchandising, the vacationing holiday partying masses, nor the Santa Claus gift giving swapping fairy tale tradition that this movement wants to eliminate. It is plain and simply an aggressive attack at the very heart of what Christmas stands for.

Please understand that December 25^th is not the date on which Jesus was born. The Bible gives no straight answer to the date of Jesus’ birth. Scholars of the Bible have concluded that the month of December would be highly unlikely due to weather conditions and being too cold; that in all likelihood the birth of Jesus took place in the fall, September – October. In the year 350, Pope Julius I, declared that Jesus’ birth would be celebrated on December 25^th with the intent of making it as painless as possible for pagan Romans to covert to Christianity, thus we get Christmas (Mass of Christ.) From that point on began the assimilation of pagan celebrations world wide to one concise religious holiday. Because Christmas has merged with pagan celebration there is much debate even amongst Christians as to whether it is proper to celebrate Christmas. However, this still does not explain why there is such a movement to eliminate Christmas.

Here is the reason – “Our battle is not with flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” The movement, the battle of this well voiced minority, is to remove anything and any mention of “Christ” from our society. Christmas at its very core, at its most fundamental roots is a Day of Remembrance. It is a day set aside to remember (celebrate) the birth of Jesus, and yet it is so much more. Still it is not even that Christmas is used to celebrate Jesus’ birth that this battle to eliminate Christmas is all about, it is an attempt to eliminate from the minds of society what Jesus DID!

Jesus was a gift, from God, to all human kind. For on this day a Savior is born. The gift of Jesus was that He was to become atonement for sin for all people of every nation.

God gave us a gift in His Son Jesus (for God so loved the world), because God loves us; at Christmas we give gifts to others out of our love and friendship. A parallel could be made between celebrating God’s love gift for us and in the words that Jesus spoke when He broke the bread at the last supper, “Do this in remembrance of Me.”

The battle is not the removal of the Christmas holiday, but rather the removal from society of what Christ completed on the cross. This battle is not just here in the US, but is subtlety taking place across the globe. Just as changes were forced upon the small town residents of Anatevka in “Fiddler on the Roof” we too will be slowly conditioned to except changes in our own ways of life. There is a dark undercurrent spreading its way across the surface of the earth in a form of global governance slowly inconspicuously eliminating our traditions and freedoms. The stage is being set.

So this Christmas while it is still legal to do so celebrate Christmas as a Day of Remembrance.