Christmas
...Good Tidings of Great Joy Which Shall Be to All People...
Luke 2:10
A Christian Perspective on Christmas
By Pastor Billy Ball
It never ceases to amaze me how that every year we seem to have another preacher come around and go to great lengths to try to discourage God's people from committing the awful sin of celebrating the birth of our blessed Lord, a time otherwise known as Christmas. Yes, I knew it was about time for another message pronouncing woe upon those who would be so wicked as to get excited about what the Word of God said would be "good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people."
What these preachers need to realize is that Christians are not necessarily celebrating Christ's birthday so much as we are celebrating His birth! And they cannot deny that His birth was celebrated, as we shall see a little later in this message.
The funny thing it that most of the time the ones who get upset are probably those same preachers who had just finished celebrating Thanksgiving, another national holiday not found in the Bible. You see, that seems to be one of their main reasons for not celebrating Christmas - "the early church didn't do it, so we shouldn't either."
I should probably remind them that there are several things which we celebrate today that are not found to be observed by N.T. Christians, things that are surely less significant than the incarnation or human birth of the Son of God. For instance, I don't read anything about early Christians celebrating their own birthdays or their children's birthdays. Have you ever done that, preacher? What about celebrating your parents' 50th wedding anniversary? What about sending a $25.00 flower arrangement to lay on a dead person's grave? Or maybe saluting a flag with your hand over your heart? What about that evil high school graduation? Oh, and I almost forgot about fireworks on the 4th of July and New Year's Day!
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