Sunday quote: “Astounding that the birth of a peasant boy 2,000 yrs ago has caused such commotion”
It’s the largest celebration around the world each year. Other holidays get a single day, but Christmas is emphasized for an entire month, one twelfth of every year. During the Christmas season, billions of people set aside their normal routines to decorate their homes, send out greeting cards, buy gifts, go to Christmas parties, attend church services, sing Christmas songs, watch Christmas TV specials, and travel long distances to be with their families. Christmas sights and sounds fill the air everywhere….
If you stop to think about it, is is astounding that the simple, unassuming birth of a peasant boy born 2,000 years ago in the Middle East has caused such commotion – his birthday even causes traffic james today in places like New York City, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro.
You may have never realized that every time you check your calendar or refer to a date or write one down, you are using Jesus Christ as your reference point. Because of Jesus, history is divided into BC (before Christ) and AD (anno Domini, in the year of the Lord). Every other event in history and every event on your calendar today is dated by how many datys and years it has been since Jesus Christ appeared on earth.
Even your birthday is dated by his birthday.
~ Pastor Rick Warren, The Purpose of Christmas
[Photo of Christmas in Moscow’s Red Square via The Guardian]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I appreciate and respect Pastor Warren. I also am a Christian and have a few things to say:
1. I agree the majority of the world is on this calendar but some places like Israel and China are not, which affects millions of people.
2. Some people who are on the “Jesus calendar” are way more into the commercialism, decorations and festivities of Christmas while neglecting to put at the center of their hearts the Christ child. I want to see more of the light of Jesus in people’s hearts every day before I see all of this external stuff. I have one little tree and do not exchange gifts because it’s about HIM, not us and what we can get. (This excludes children but I want to see Jesus emphasized a lot more than gifts – and a few – not a tree loaded that screams ME ME ME.)
LL
I dont know if Jesus and his family were peasants. I think that he would be considered more working class. But then again I am not a. Biblical scholar.
I agree laura. I am not that fond of Christmas. All the greed is kind of sickening. I see people getting into debt buying Christmas presents and thats not good. I am just getting my grandkids gifts and thats all. And technically its roots are very pagan.
Warren wasn’t making a point that Christmas revolves around Jesus in the minds of all people. He was making the point that even if people don’t know or acknowledge it, the most celebrated holiday in all the world as well as our calendar revolve around this one man.
Yeah, I think that most of what goes on in the Christmas season is a celebration of the culture, not a celebration of Christ. Honestly it more sickens and overwhelms me than warms my heart. Great – Christmas is such a big deal now that we start shopping for it on Thanksgiving. How lovely.
I’m not a total Scrooge – we do Christmas presents and advent calendars and angel chimes, all of that fun stuff. But I have lines. No toys in the advent calendars, for one – I know so many kids who get a Lego toy a day for the 24 DAYS LEADING UP TO Christmas. NO. We do toy-free advent calendars. And we do reasonable gifts in reasonable quantities. Legos? Sure. Lego Minecraft sets – tons of money for a tiny amount of bricks? Nope.
I get that all the stuff I’m whining about is not the “true” meaning of Christmas but I don’t think you can have it both ways – I don’t think that you can claim that the whole world takes a whole month out of its schedule to celebrate Christmas, and then also claim that this shopping gimme-gimme-gimme frenzy is “not the real” Christmas. Because I think that for the most part, the gimme-gimme-gimme version is the one people take a month to celebrate. And then everyone pats themselves on the back for getting into the “Christmas spirit.”
Maybe I am a Scrooge after all.
Hey phillymiss, Jesus’ family was indeed poor, at least at the time of his birth.
Luke 2:22-24 states, “When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord’), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping iwth what is said in the Lord of the Lord: ‘a pair of doves or two young pigeons.'”
The fact that Joseph and Mary offered doves indicates they were poor, as Leviticus 12 states a lamb was to be sacrificed as a burnt offering at birth, and a dove for a sin offering, but “if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons.”
Hmm . . . a poor pregnant girl from a minority group. I am glad there was no PP back then.
Thank you for this thread.
There are now “new” PC terms for BC and AD. They are known as
“CE: Common Era”
“BCE: Before Common Era”
**funny how they bend over backwards to remove the reference to Christ and come up with this stuff **
RSD, unfortunately the liberal-leaning will swallow this hook line and sinker. They have already manipulated Americans to call the Christmas Tree a holiday tree. Its fitting to call it that because you know, Hannukkah and Kwanzaa have these symbolisms too, right? Public schools can’t have a menorah and nguzo saba next to a Christmas Tree but have to change the name just to be sure its not “offensive” as is.
I refuse to fall into this PC trap and will protect any references to Christianity, Christ and Christmas. You won’t get a secular card from my family, that’s for sure.
I just think the BCE/CE thing is weird. I get why people would want to have more secular definitions for academia and everything, but it just seem rather petty. It was traditionally a Christian naming tradition, seems fine to leave it as a piece of history. It isn’t deniable many traditions and much language in the US comes from Christianity.
Thomas Christmas trees have a pagan origin like many Christmas traditions, I don’t think they are a good example of the secularization of Christmas away from Christianity.
I read a really good article talking about how many of our traditions were either adopted from pagan religions or came from cultural traditions from pre-Christian societies. And interestingly enough, many of western traditions were popularized by Charles Dickens in his “A Christmas Carol” novella, which was a secular book. Many early Americans refused to celebrate Christmas because of the secular and pagan roots to the modern holiday traditions. And the common image of Santa was mostly a result of marketing by Coca-Cola!
I come from a nation that has a history dating back to 966 Jack, the year it also converted to Christianity and has been Catholic ever since. My country of origin was ruled by many kings, the first of whom in 966 adopted the tree from pagan traditions. I am well versed in how pagan and cultural traditions were adopted by Christianity. But that is it – no other religion incorporated the tree and yet now they want to claim the Christmas Tree as a “holiday” tree? Too late for that in my opinion. The war on Christmas is at full force and its aim is to strip Christianity to the bone…