Jesus The Gift Of Life Everlasting Mrr Ebook With Video

Ebook Sample Content Preview:

When was Christmas first celebrated? In an old list of Roman bishops, compiled in A. D. 354 these words appear for A.D. 336: "25 Dec.: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae." December 25, Christ born in Bethlehem, Judea. This day, December 25, 336, is the first recorded celebration of Christmas.

For the first three hundred years of the church's existence, birthdays were not given much emphasis - not even the birth of Christ. The day on which a saint died was considered more significant than his or her birth, as it ushered him or her into the kingdom of heaven. Christ's baptism received more attention than his birthday in the January 6 feast of Epiphany.

No one knows for sure on what day Christ was born. Dionysus Exiguus, a sixth century monk, who was the first to date all of history from December 25, the year of our Lord 1. Other traditions gave dates as early as mid-November or as late as March. How did Christmas come to be celebrated on December 25? Cultures around the Mediterranean and across Europe observed feasts on or around December 25, marking the winter solstice. The Jews had a festival of lights. Germans had a yule festival. Celtic legends connected the solstice with Balder, the Scandinavian sun god who was struck down by a mistletoe arrow. At the pagan festival of Saturnalia, Romans feasted and gave gifts to the poor. Drinking was closely connected with these pagan feasts. At some point, a Christian bishop may have adopted the day to keep his people from indulging in the old pagan festival.

Historian William J. Tighe offers a different view, however. When a consensus arose in the church to celebrate Christ's conception on March 25, it was reasonable to celebrate His birth nine months later.

Other scholars place December 25 as the day of conception, and Jesus was born in late September.

You can see clearly that a combination of the celebrations has been combined to the Christmas that we know today. The Festival of Lights, is of course, the decorating we do to our trees, houses, etc. The Yule Festival was originally “The 12 Days of Yule” (does that sound like some annoying song you may have heard?) and the Romans with their feasting and giving of gifts. There are religions that shun Christmas because it was set around these pagan rituals. But in fact, was placed there in spite of those rituals!

Although I don't recall Santa Claus being amongst the Wise Men, or anywhere for that matter, he has come to be the face of Christmas. Christmas, for many, has retreated back to the pagan rituals of old...to see how much we can gorge ourselves with the goodies of the season, and give presents to one another. The commercial aspect of Christmas is all about money...and I'm pretty sure that God is not happy about that. The face of Christmas should be the one of Jesus, and ONLY Jesus.

Now it is not my intention to knock all of what the Christmas season has to offer. I enjoy it as much as anyone else does, and then some. It's just a reminder to hold the season dear, and to remember what it is really about...the birth of our Savior!

• File Size:126,772 KB
• License: Master Resell Rights
• Category:Ebooks
• Tags:2011 Ebooks With Videos Master Resale Rights