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Christmas

Merry Christmas 2012–Bringing Back the Best Christmas Light Display Ever

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MY HAT IS DEFINITELY OFF to Richard Holdman and this Christmas Lights extravaganza from 2010.

What’s he doing this year? Well, according to the Holdman Facebook page, the Maestro of Music and Mirth is in Russia, setting up a Christmas display in Moscow. Now, it’s hard to beat that.

Why does he do it? Well … he loves lights, music and computers–but the real reason, says Richard Holdman, is The real is “because it celebrates the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is another way to express our love for Him and what He has done for us and mankind. We hope that those who watch our display draw a little closer to God.”

Wow.

One more thing: This display is wind-powered.

I’m in awe. God bless you, Mr. Holdman. May the Holy Spirit cover Moscow this season (and the rest of us too).

Keeping Christmas

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Santa on Roadturn

“There is a better thing,” said Henry Van Dyke, “than the observance of Christmas Day, and that is, keeping Christmas.”

ARE YOU WILLING to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you?

To ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world?

To put your rights in the background, your duties in the middle distance and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground?

To see that others are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy?

To acknowledge that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life?

To close your book of complaints against the management of the universe and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness?

Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children?

To remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old?

To stop asking how much your friends love you and ask yourself whether you love them enough?

To bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts?

To make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open?

Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world — stronger than hate, stronger than death — and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love?

And if you keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.

By Henry Van Dyke

Happy Birthday Jesus! (No, not Christmas)

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Today is the first day of Sukkot–and (very possibly) the very day Jesus the Christ (Yeshua) was born.

I know … it’s not December 25th today. And, I know, no one (on Earth) really knows the exact day of Jesus’ birth.

Yet, there is much more evidence pointing towards Sukkot (Festival of Booths) for the birth of the Christ than there is to support Christmas.

What is the point?

Tradition become embedded and ends up morphing into something different. Christmas elicits thoughts of Santa Klaus and presents. Easter is about bunny rabbits and finding hidden eggs. The Jews turned the Sabbath into a burden and a work-your-way-to-God ordeal.

But the festivals, as given in the Bible, all point to the life, burial and resurrection of the Lord.

  • Work out the references to the birth of John the Baptist and it is probable John was born right after Passover. Consider Luke 1:26, count ahead six months to find the conception date for Jesus (December, or late November), then count back three months to late September/early October… you got it, Sukkot.
  • The Roman census would not have been ordered during the dead of winter. Furthermore, on December 25th there would have been no “shepherds in the field.” They would have been sheltering over in the sheepfold–beginning about November 1.
  • During Sukkot, the inns would certainly have been full–leaving the little Lord Jesus to be born in a rustic shelter … a Sukkot.

Maybe the Lord of lords and King of kings wasn’t born on the first day of Sukkot–the Gospel certainly does not depend on it. Scholars are fairly unanimous, however, in rejecting December 25th as the birthday of Jesus. Constantine decreed the 25th in deference to sun worshipers (just as he mandated Sunday to be the new Sabbath.)

The really important thing is that the Christ was born, he did die, and he did rise again–and he did it all so that you and I might live. What really matters is this: Is the Christ born today in our hearts and in our minds?

Happy birthday, Jesus. Happy birthday, Yeshua. Your entrance into this world is the most important birthday of all!

(Illustration courtesy of Gebhard Fugel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)