Thread: The meaning of Christmas

I nearly forgot...
I was in Israel for a business trip in January 2020 and we were in a small village west of Jerusalem when they brought us here:

Allegedly, this was the exact place where the angel told Mary that she’d get pregnant. As customary in these cases, they built this shrine to commemorate.
Thought I’d share this.

Meant in non blasphemous humour…. Smite me not..

Happy Winter Solstice 12-21-21






Very Merry Christmas also

Dec 25 is the day when the sun starts to rise in the sky in the northern hemisphere and was celebrated as the sun gods rebirth in Roman times. I am not an atheist BTW.

Originally Posted by Bill31521

Dec 25 is the day when the sun starts to rise in the sky in the northern hemisphere and was celebrated as the sun gods rebirth in Roman times. I am not an atheist BTW.

It's actually the birth of many ancient religions/mythologies son/sun gods. Times when people were much more respectful of the environment & in touch with the seasons.

As much as I enjoy the secular celebration of Christmas I wish that it were separate from the religious holiday. Quite frankly it matters little to me when Christmas which is a Christian holy day is celebrated but since the assertion always seems to arise that Christmas was copied from or intended to supercede another pagan holiday I thought it proper to give some evidence to the contrary. Here are some excerpts from "Treasury of Daily Prayer" Concordia Publishing House ISBN 978-0-7586-1515-2

The Annunciation of Our Lord

The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and announces that God has shown her favor and will use her as the means for the Messiah's birth. So Mary conceives Jesus when the angel says: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke 1:35). This same Spirit who hovered over the waters and brought forth creation (Genesis 1:2) will now "hover over" the waters of Mary's womb to conceive the creation's Redeemer. As the Holy Spirit comes upon Mary, she conceives Jesus "through her ear" (as Martin Luther says). The one who is conceived is called Holy, the Son of God. This is the moment of the incarnation of our Lord. The date of the Annunciation falls on March 25, because the Ancient Church believed the crucifixion occurred on that date. In antiquity, people linked the day of a person's conception with the day of his or her death. Thus, in the Annunciation, the Church joined together both the incarnation of Jesus and the atonement He accomplished.

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The Nativity of Our Lord- Christmas Eve

The exact date of the birth of Jesus is not known, and during the earliest centuries of the Church it seemed to have little significance. This followed the Early Church's tradition of honoring and celebrating a Christian's death as his or her birth date into eternity and the ongoing presence of Jesus. Likewise the life, work, death, and resurrection of Christ was of much greater importance to early Christians than the earthly details of His life. The earliest nativity feast, Epiphany (January 6), celebrated both the birth and Baptism of Christ. However, in the fourth century great Christological controversies that questioned Christ's divinity and humanity raced throughout Christianity. By AD 336, December 25 had been established in Rome as the celebration of Christ's birth, a festival welcomed particularly by orthodox Christians in the West. From Rome, Christ's natal festival spread throughout the Western Church. In Eastern traditions of the Church, Epiphany remains the principal celebration of the birth of Jesus.

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December 25th was picked as the celebration of Jesus' birth as it fell 9 months from March 25th which was recognized at least as early as 240 AD (over a century before the Roman recognition of that date being adopted in the Roman Church) as the date of The Feast of the Annunciation. This suggests that the date was not borrowed from Roman pagan holidays but was rather already established within the church calendar.

Here is some further reading from Wikipedia for those interested
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feas...e_Annunciation