YEA Lesson Library

The Lesson

Let’s be honest. Christmas is exciting. There is a spirit about Christmas that is enticing. The songs are pretty, the smell of spices and fir trees is heavenly. And even Jolly Ole St. Nick seems like a benevolent fellow as he asks kids sitting in his lap what they want for Christmas. Do you know where Santa Claus came from? Is December 25th really the birthday of our Savior? Do you really understand why you shouldn’t keep Christmas? Is the spirit of Christmas something Christ would want you to participate in? Christmas involves a lot of work, time and expense. It takes a long time to prepare special foods, buy presents, trim the tree, put lights on the house, and decorate the yard. A special service has been created to decorate the outside of homes just for the Christmas season. Using that service can run into the thousands of dollars.

You’ve been in the mall after Thanksgiving and have seen the elaborate decorations. Do those shop keepers go to all of that trouble because they love Christ so much? Or, do they have other motives? Friday after Thanksgiving is called “Black Friday.” But why? No, it’s not given that name because it is evil. It was given that name because it is the first day in the year when most retail businesses begin to operate in the black. Generally speaking, retail stores operate in the red every year until the day after Thanksgiving – the record day for Christmas shopping. Our economy has become dependent on people buying enough Christmas presents between Thanksgiving and December 24th to give the retail store a profit. Think about it. The birth of Christ is not the driving force behind Christmas – it’s commercial business – money!

An enormous amount of thought and planning have gone into duping the public into spending their money. A warm, joyful Christmas atmosphere is created to keep unsuspecting customers adding more to their credit cards. Some of the psychology behind this even includes making you feel guilty if you don’t give until you’re grossly in debt.

The Christian world keeps saying, “Put Christ back into Christmas.” But does Christ really want to be in Christmas? Contrary to popular belief, Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th. Bullinger’s Companion Bible establishes this. Dr. Bullinger concludes that Jesus was born on the night when the Feast of Tabernacles begins and was circumcised on the Last Great Day – the eighth day of the Feast (Luke 2:21). Putting Christ back into Christmas is a contradictory term since Jesus wasn’t born on Christmas day, nor was He ever in it. Why wasn’t Christ in Christmas?

A day was celebrated many years before Christ was ever born, in much the same way, and at the same time of the year as Christmas. But this day was not to celebrate the birth of the Son of God. Rather it was to celebrate the sun god named Sol Invictus. Jeremiah 10:2b - 4, shows that people decorated a tree much the same as they do today: “Do not learn the ways of the nations, or be terrified by signs in the sky, though the nations are terrified by them; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter” (TNAB). Since Jeremiah was written prior to 560 B.C., this tradition was being celebrated long before Christ. This celebration was so much fun and so popular that several centuries after Christ was born, Christian churches began including it as a part of their worship of God. That may sound like a perfectly harmless thing to do, but what does your Bible say about it?

“Don’t ask questions about their gods. Don’t say, ‘How do these nations serve their gods? We’ll do it in the same way.’ You must not worship the LORD your God the way they worship their gods. . . Be sure you do everything I’m commanding you to do. Don’t add anything to my commands. And don’t take anything away from them” (Deuteronomy 12:30-32 NIrV Kid’s Devotional Bible).

Our God is Holy, Righteous, True, Supreme, the Beginning and the End, and the “Giver of every good and perfect gift.” Children are led to believe that Santa is the giver of every good gift. This folklore expects us to believe that Santa rides through the air on a sleigh pulled by reindeer. He lands on the roof top and goes down the chimney bringing his bag full of gifts.

What does the Bible say about this folklore? “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations, of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:3-6 TNAB).

The consequences for substituting another god for the True God follows through to the third and fourth generation. But the flip side of the coin is that God will show “love to a thousand generations, of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Now that’s a real bargain!

God richly blesses you for not following pagan folklore. At the same time, He hasn’t left you without great days to celebrate. You’ve gone through seven holy days in this book that God commands you to celebrate. They keep you mindful of the True God and His plan. They contain no myths, no falsehoods, no folklore and no punishment, only blessings for keeping them. These days should become a joyful tradition in your family that you plan for, learn from, and enjoy to the full. God wants you to celebrate big with no regrets about not keeping a folklore that steers you off the path from truly understanding Him, His love and His plan. He wants to bless you!