When a
society begins to observe a special day or follow a
certain custom, such observance becomes a tradition that
carries forward from one generation to the next. Within
a few generations, what began as the practice for a few
can become the norm for the majority. Once established,
such practices continue, without our questioning them,
from one generation to the next.
For example, a person sneezes and someone nearby says
bless you. Why do they say this? Why does sneezing
warrant a blessing? The answer lies in a custom that has
long since lost its original meaning for us. That is, we
don’t know why, we just do it. Every culture has
inherited such customs or traditions.
Many traditions are good and serve a worthy purpose
within our culture. However, not all traditions are
beneficial. It can be both interesting as well as
potentially life altering to stop and consider why we do
what we do.
Certain traditions are so much a part of a culture that
the thought to ask why seldom if ever arises. To ask
why, however, may shed some real light on what we have
received from our forebears, and may grant us some
understanding about what has been built into us without
our realizing it. Any tradition that surfaces as
irrelevant under the simple question, “Why do we do it?”
may not be worth continuing. As human beings, we have
the capacity to ask. By contrast, a lemming does not
have the capacity to ask “why” before it follows its
fellow lemmings in jumping off a cliff to its doom. We
too can be a bit lemming-like when we follow traditions
for no other reason than copying those who passed it on
to us.
Remember, behind each culture are generations of men and
women who held certain notions. Those ideas over time
developed into certain patterns of behavior. In time
those patterns became customs, some good, some bad. The
good customs will survive when we examine why we
practice them. Those that are not so good will be found
wanting, and we may decide to discontinue them. Over
time, the only authority for continuing with an
unprofitable tradition is nothing more than, “Because
we’ve always done it that way.”
The articles you read on the Wonderfulworldtomorrow.org
are written with the assumption that you care what God
thinks. After all, the fear of God is the beginning of
knowledge. And so when it comes to following customs we
want to ask you, What if a sin of the past has become
the custom of the day? Because it is a custom, does that
make it any less a sin?
Consider Christ’s example: Christ observed the customs
of His day that were founded upon the word of God. For
example, we read in Luke 4:16 and Mark 1:21 that Christ
observed the Sabbath day:
Luke 4:1:6: So he came to Nazareth, where He had been
brought up, And as His custom was, He went into the
synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
However, when asked by the religious leaders of His day
why His disciples did not walk according to the current,
nonbiblical traditions of the Jews’ religious leaders,
Christ answered that no tradition should supersede,
diminish, or be contrary to the word of God.
Mark 7:6-9: He answered and said to them, “Well did
Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart
is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as
doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the
commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the
washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things
you do.” And He said to them, “All too well you reject
the commandment of God, that you may keep your
tradition.
We recognize from these scriptures that Christ was not
one to follow tradition for tradition’s sake; and that
he was willing to suffer persecution to avoid such vain
pursuit. If we are to be followers of Christ, following
in his example, shouldn’t our approach be the same?
Shouldn’t we as Christians make sure the customs and
traditions we follow are founded on solid biblical
principle? Let’s ask ourselves what traditions we have
inherited that might be in the same vain as those Christ
encountered. Consider the following.
The tradition of Christmas has been handed down and
accepted as a celebration honoring Christ. This
tradition is not taught in scripture. In fact, it was
several hundred years after the death of Christ before
any who called themselves Christians celebrated
Christmas.
Why did it take Christians so long to get around to
celebrating Christmas? Largely, it was because they
understood that the festival we call Christmas pre-dates
the birth of Christ by centuries. The roots of Christmas
are not found in the Bible, but rather in ancient pagan
winter festivals. Today this is common knowledge; but if
you are not aware of this, you can easily research the
subject on the Internet. You will find many sites that
give the history of the customs that are involved in the
celebration of Christmas. Books and magazine articles
have also been written on this subject. For example:
In 1994, Reader’s Digest published a book entitled, “Why
in the World?” Beginning on page 190, the question is
asked, “Why do we celebrate Christmas?” The article
continues, “If the question offends or the answer seems
obvious, read on…A feast with the semblance of
Christmas, Sacaea, was celebrated thousands of years
before Christ’s birth. In 2000 BC, in what is now Iraq,
a five-day festival with exchanges of gifts, the
performance of plays, accompanied by processions and
merrymaking, marked the death of winter and heralded the
New Year…It is likely that those beliefs from the East
spread into central Europe…In the depths of winter, for
example, people lit bonfires in the hope of reviving
warmth to the ground. Also, they decorated their homes
with evergreens--holly and firs.
“Further north, along the Baltic and in Scandinavia, a
winter festival known as Yule honored the gods Odin and
Thor. Great logs blazed, minstrels sang, famous legends
were recounted, and villagers drank lustily from horns
of mead.
“In the Roman Empire, a weeklong orgy of feasting and
wild revelry called the Saturnalia was held in
mid-December, when the sun was approaching its lowest.
The winter solstice—the turning point of the year, when
the length of the day began to increase—was marked by a
sacred day called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis (Birthday
of the Unconquered Sun). During the Saturnalia, the
Romans decked their houses with laurels and greenery,
friends exchanged presents…It was a season of general
rejoicing, with good will to all men.”
As many sources reveal, the traditions surrounding
Christmas came to us from our pagan forbears. Handed
down to us over the centuries, they gained a rebirth in
our modern time through attempts to reinvent them as
Christmas customs, largely for commercial reasons. By
using the name of Christ, the churches of almost all
Christian faiths were able to incorporate the customs
into their religious life, opening the way for
“converted” celebrants to continue their winter festival
unabated.
The sad fact is, history tells us Christmas is connected
to the honoring of Jesus Christ only in the imaginations
of men. The Bible contains sixty-six books and was
written over multiple centuries by several dozen men. We
are told it is the inspired word of God, and yet not
once do we read a single word admonishing us to observe
the day of Christ’s birth. Quite the opposite, we are
admonished not to observe anything that stems from
paganism! Consider this scripture:
Jeremiah 10:2-5: Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way
of the heathen (pagans), and be not dismayed at the
signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3
For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth
a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the
workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and
with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers,
that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree,
but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they
cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do
evil, neither also is it in them to do good. KJV
This must bring us to ask why we observe Christmas. We
must either ask why, or take our place in the midst of
the crowd and allow custom and tradition to have the
real authority in our lives.
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