Of this, that and the hoidays

May I take the opportunity to wish for Christians a merry Christmas and a happy Hanukkah for those of the Jewish faith and also Happy Kwanzaa for those  African Americans who are celebrating their African Heritage and traditional values.

It is easy to assume that our religious beliefs makes us superior and this is reason enough to look down on the religious beliefs and traditions of other people. On the other hand it is obvious that there are many persons who does not observe the religious festivals that take place at this time of the year and so they classify the celebrants as being illiterate and ignorant.

The month of December is fascinating because the Jewish and Christian celebrations that take place in this month are determined by some people to be based on fairy tales and legends. It remain fascinating that the very stories that are being denied, these deniers cannot prove to be not true.

I only recently heard about Kwanzaa and I am not in a position to say anything about the desire by African Americans to celebrate their African heritage and traditional values. I am sure, however, that the heritage and traditional values of ancient Africa have been diluted because the traditions that existed in Africa 500 years ago have certainly been subjected to changes and modifications. Technology and modernization will have rendered many ancient traditions of Africa obsolete.

At the same time keeping the African heritage and traditional values alive may not be as silly an idea as it may appear to some. We who are of African descent and heritage could learn a lesson from the persons of Jewish descent. The Jews are celebrating, Hanukkah, the cleansing of the second temple after it had been desecrated. Historians and Jews maintained that a miracle happened then and remembering the miraculous events are a part of the celebrations. For centuries Jews anticipated a time when they would hold their religious  festivals in Palestine and finally their dreams have become realities. Those of us who are of African descent may one day have to face the reality that we may have to return to the motherland Africa. The motherland Africa may one day have to face the fact that one day she may have to welcome home and accommodate her children of the Diaspora. 

The Christians celebrations of Christmas presents sometimes interesting discussions. Many Protestants take pleasure in denouncing the Roman Catholic Church as being wrong in doctrine and teachings. I once asked a fellow Christian, "If the Roman Catholic Church is as bad as you claim, why do you celebrate Christmas? After all we did get Christmas from the Roman Catholic Church." His response, "Some things are for every Christian and not just the Roman Catholic Church." There are other Christian groups that are quick to point out that there are no commands in the New Testament to keep any day holy or the appointment of any festivals for Christians and so these groups reject every Christian religious festival?celebrations.

One of the things that have generated much debate over the years is the fact that December 25th is celebrated as the birthday of Jesus Christ. Christians continue to take a lot of bashing because they cannot explain this date. There are many critics who are quick to point out that shepherds would not be in the fields in winter and others understanding is of such that they do not comprehend that the weather is not the same everywhere at the same time around the globe.  In years gone by knowledge was limited and many persons who possessed the faith but not the knowledge proclaimed the Christmas message. The information about Christmas can be easily accessed by those who oppose celebrating Christmas and those who celebrate Christmas. 

The first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on December 25th was in 336, during the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine (he was the first Christian Roman Emperor). A few years later, Pope Julius I officially declared that the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on the 25th December (Copied)

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and Western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated. (Copied)

One of the dangers in our modern world is to deliberately dismiss the Jewish festival of Hanukkah and the Christian celebration of Christmas as just myths and legends. The reality is that there was a temple in Jerusalem and the fact that the time of his birth was unsure does not any less make Jesus Christ real. 

As a person of African descent Kwanzaa is celebrated in the US and we in Jamaica had our ways of keeping our African heritage and traditional values alive. My ignorance of Kwanzaa is of relatively little value. Keeping the African heritage and cultural values alive in the US may or may not be of lasting value

The celebration of the re-dedication of the second temple in Jerusalem and the attending miracle speak to the fact that God is real and provides the proof also that he is concerned about his holiness. Christianity hinges on the fact of the reality of the God of the Jews. The fact that the God of the Jews is alive and real exposes the world to the dangers of ignoring this God.

The celebration of Christmas is about God intervening in the affairs of mankind. It is celebrating the fact that God cares so much about man that he became a man and experienced what it is to be a man. It is being cognizant of the reality that man is so valuable to God that God voluntarily for a time gave up being God in order to bring man back to himself. It becomes scary for man to mock and ridicule God for doing so by insulting and maligning this God.

It is a common concept that no one knows what happens at death so it is okay to ignore, mock and ridicule the Christmas story when in reality the Christmas story is actually preparation for what happens at death. It is the Christmas story which gives life a sense of meaning and which makes life worth living.

"Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come if you gamble on its truth and it prove false? i you gain , you gain all; If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then ....."
                                                                                                                             Blaise Pascal

Have a Merry Christmas.