The Bible tells us that everyone sins, yet we are also told that those who faithfully accept Yeshua can be saved from sin.
In other words, those who were doomed by their sin have been changed to those who are saved from their sin.
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That makes me wonder about other things, not humans, but, oh, let’s say…holidays. Can what was a pagan holiday celebrated on a specific day be changed to a God-honoring holiday being celebrated on that same day?
For example: Saturnalia was celebrated to pagan gods on December 25th, but in 338 AD (give or take) a new holiday called Christmas was created within the Christian Church to celebrate the birth of Yeshua. Today, many claim it was “originally” a pagan event, even though now it is a God-fearing event, which just happens to be on the same day as the pagan one.
So, is Saturnalia changed to Christmas, or is Christmas a totally new and unique holiday?
It seems either way, Christmas is spiritually as changed from Saturnalia as we are when we accepted Yeshua from who we were, originally.
If you ask me, the use of the term “originally” isn’t even valid, since when the original is changed it doesn’t exist as the original anymore- you can’t have something that is changed to something else concurrently existing as what it was. DUH!
But Saturnalia never changed! It was still celebrated by many people for many years until that pagan religion faded away.
I have been talking about Christmas a lot lately because I feel as strongly about it being a totally legitimate way to honor God and his Messiah as those who are anti-Christmas.
I will even go into a psychological explanation:
(this in no way is meant to analyze anyone, but simply my opinion about a possible reason for the zealousness against what is a traditional way to give thanks to God for sending the Messiah)
people who had been indoctrinated into “church” lessons about the Torah being done away with but have come to realize that their prior church teachings have turned them away from proper worship, leading them to destruction instead of truly leading them to salvation feel betrayed.
Naturally, they feel a little peeved about that, and have gone from absolutely believing what they were told by the church, to now absolutely not believing anything the church ever told them. They heard how someone, sometime ago, decided to declare Christmas (and Easter, while we’re at it) as pagan, justifying that claim by the holidays occur on the same day as pagan holidays did, and by totally misinterpreting Jeremiah 10 and Isaiah 44, using that misunderstanding as justification for saying the Christmas tree is pagan.
I would agree IF a Christmas tree was completely denuded of branches and bark, then carved into the shape of some god or goddess, or animal, covered completely in gold or silver gilding, then placed somewhere where the people would bow and pray to it.
So far, every Christmas tree I have ever seen, anywhere, has branches, bark, and is not covered in any precious metal. No one ever bows and prays to it, and the ornaments that they hang on it are usually family heirlooms or mementos of past places they have been.
Sorry, not very pagan, and of course, there are no pagan gods anywhere. There is an old saying that you can’t make chicken salad without the chicken, and I believe you can’t have a pagan celebration without a pagan god.
So, I believe any holiday, whether God commanded or man-made, that celebrates God or Messiah cannot be labeled pagan just because somethings are similar to what was once a pagan event.
And I can say, absolutely, that God agrees with me because he said so through the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 18:21-24, where he tells us what we were isn’t important, only what we are now.
So, go ahead and call those Christian holidays to celebrate Messiah pagan if you really want to, but please consider that God accepts them as righteous because what they are NOW is all about Yeshua, and God only cares about what it is now, why go against him?
Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers, Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!