Twas the night before….

Those words are what many of us grew up hearing around this time of year. It begins a wonderful poem and I have always enjoyed it, but do we ever think about the person that is supposed to be celebrated at this time of year? It is true that the research shows that the Christ child, Jesus, was not born on or around December 25th, but what else are we supposed to celebrate at this time of year?

There are pagan holidays like Saturnalia (which does fall on the 25th I believe), which the church tried to use as the time of year to celebrate the birth of Jesus and it stuck. So what else are we co-opting that really doesn’t belong to our faith? Actually, I am not going to get into the entire holiday debunk mode but many of our “holidays” really don’t belong to the church.

In truth, we should be celebrating more of the Jewish holidays because that is where all of the Bible came from. If it wasn’t for the Jewish culture and their religion and the writings which go with it, Christians wouldn’t have a Bible or a religion. Jesus was Jewish, brought up in their culture with their holidays and Holy days, so why doesn’t the church cling to them more?

Because, we run after a higher calling I suppose. One which aspires to be more like Jesus and His disciples and their beliefs and their ways or at least that is what we are supposed to be doing. If the outside world cannot tell if you are a Christian or not, then you need to check and make sure if you REALLY are! This same advice goes for churches as well.

If your church seems to be more of a club or a social gathering place, then something needs to change, drastically! We are held responsible for the light and the knowledge that we have been given, so if you have been in church and have heard many sermons then you have at least heard about salvation and Jesus! If your church is not acting like a real church, then there needs to be some real soul searching done…SOON!!