While it will be protested that observing the season and day of Christmass is not obligatory, the reality is that Christmas is basically overall treated and defended by even Protestants as such.
A pastor may pray about what ot preach 11 months out the year, but come December it is a given that he must preach Christmas, else the people will stone him. Well, not quite, however, hardly any member of any church can expect to go anywhere in ministry if he does not join in the yearly observance of Christmas, and will be suspiciously looked upon and often maligned as a fringe Christian if he does not, and as likely being some sort of legalist and or a Scrooge.
Yet it is actually those who basically make the yearly observance of Christ obligatory that are engaging in legalism, as this yearly observance certainly is not seen or commanded in Scripture, and which even censures the ritualistic religious observance of "days, months, times and years," (Gal. 4:10) as concomitant with religion under the Old covenant.
And rather than an anti-celebratory Scrooge, not celebrating Christmas means one is set free from basically having to observe this Roman holyday in order to worship God as the Spirit leads, which can include celebrating the birth of Christ anything, such as in the Fall or Spring when He likely was born. But how radical that would be!
It simply is not the nature of the New Covenant to fall into annual feast days, nor fall into religious syncretism.
We wonder why the world loves Christmas, and how hard it is put Christ back into it, but the answer is that He did not belong in it in the first place, but while this yearly winter feast was not seen in Scripture, a distinctly pagan feast was partly "Christianized" as part of the religious syncretism of Rome.
While we (sadly) do recognize pagan deities as marks of references as in the days of the week (and which i am sure will not be used during the Millennium), this is not that of Christianizing uniquely pagan celebrations. And in making worship in spirit and in truth, God does not need help from distinctively pagan celebrations, and thus does not engage in reforming paganism but in making new creations. And in which that which is religiously of the world is to be crucified.
And if it is not, then it was reemerge even if in religious form. And which was was occurred with Christmas. Rather than being left to die, it was Christianized, like as the high places of the OT were, and thus they were perpetuated to more easily revert back to their pagan forms.
Instead, make we seek to be led of the Lord in our worship, not in annual days and set liturgical feasts, the 1st day of the week being the only specific day the NT church worshiped one (not there's a debate). Even how often the commemoration of the Lord's death is to take place is not commanded, but is "as often as you do this." Want to celebrate the Lord's birth, do it as the Lord leads anytime, but do not try to convince me it is on the same day every year as a pagan feast you are Christianizing.
But this extends into other areas. Is your liturgy the same predictable ritual every week, fostering perfunctory professions? Or so the clock is the supreme authority? Did you ever take part in a Christian service (outside of the business meeting) in which every one could have something edifying to share from the Lord, as in 1Cor. 14?
Would your evangelical church (the only kind that is a church) even consider changing the place or time of meeting in order to outreach at a parade or event? Or is it so sacrosanct that hardly anything could change it?
The Winter Solstice for we that reside in the Northern Hemisphere is the shortest day of ‘sun’ light every year. This is the appointed time wherein Emmanuel = God with us was Divinely conceived.
It was at the Spring Equinox that marks His sacrifice for us.
The Autumn Equinox marks the time wherein the birthday as flesh baby of Christ.
So Christmas is the celebration of that appointed time of the conception not the literal birth.
Wonder if there is an appointed event yet to take place at the Summer Solstice?
I believe there is no way any person will ever remove Christ from Christmas. However, I will say that some people really go out on a limb every year attempting to relive childhood memories. OR to make up for lack of good childhood memories and they spend not one second in memory of what this date actually represents.
For me it is an attempt to not allow the personal emotions of any one individual to draw my attention from that remembrance. For God so loved the world .....
Well done!
As to your last question, my church does not hold a traditional Christmas Service. What we do is ask our attendees to go out in serve those in need and organize opportunities for them to do so.
I enjoyed your post and thought it was dead on concerning how Christianity have imposed worship days despite the belief that they were done away with.
However a careful reading of scripture will show that the Holy Days of the Lord Jesus Christ were not done away with in scripture. There is an obligation and benefit that comes from observing them.
These holy days are listed in detail in Leviticus 23. However it's important to recognize that they were given to those who worship God BEFORE the establishment of the old covenant. Biblically there's a very strong case that they were established at the creation of the earth. For example:
Gen 1:14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years
The term translated "seasons" is actually the same hebrew word that is used for the holy days of the Lord. Some translations render the verse:
(GW) Then God said, "Let there be lights in the sky to separate the day from the night. They will be signs and will mark religious festivals, days, and years.
The notion that Galatian 4:10 "did away" with these flies in the face of future prophecies of people keeping these feasts of Christ as well as the early church's observance of them in the books of the new testament. In addition there are specific greek words used to denote Gods' feast in new testament scripture and these words are not used in Galatians 4:10.
The real story of why Christianity doesn't observe them is simple: Traditional Christianity "evolved" away from them mainly due to Antisemitism. The people in Judea revolted against the Roman empire in a series of revolts in the early first and 2nd centuries. (Jewish-Roman Wars
As a result anything that "looked" Jewish was spat upon, criticized and discouraged by Rome, the most powerful military power on the planet. This hatred of anything that looked jewish was incorporated throughout culture and society and still explains the antisemitism we have today.
In other words, and this is hard for most to hear, the traditional church today was founded by those who abandoned the ways of God when it comes to worship because they couldn't stand the heat. The day of worship was changed from the sabbath to Sunday. Scriptures were cherry picked and mistranslated to support this change and is still done today to justify abandoning the holy days (and other things) of Christ.
Beautifully stated. Thank you.