REASONS FOR CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS
A funny thing happens when I type Advent into my search engines on Google or my spell checker. They auto-fill the word and make it “adventure.”
I kind of like the way that happens because if you study the real meanings behind the truth of Advent; it does turn into quite a time of adventure, meditation and wonder.
As I have mentioned previously; I celebrate Christmas because I believe it to be the time of year when we first knew of The Incarnation of Christ. If you missed that explanation you can read it here: HOW GOD MAKES ALL THINGS NEW – PIECES OF THE PUZZLE – IN RELATION TO THE DATE OF CHRISTMAS .
I think that the CONCEPTION of Christ happened right around December 25th. Pondering the conditions in Mary’s life as she was suddenly pregnant with the Christ Child after the Conception happened, leads to my consideration of the glorious celebration of Advent. What was going on with this young virgin girl as she found her destiny in life and suddenly stepped into the purpose that God had created her to live out?
Maybe some of the same things that we encounter as we live out the things that God has destined for our own lives.
I wonder?
WAITING
There was a lot of waiting involved.
Mary was patiently waiting on this Christ Child to be born. She was anticipating all of the new things that God was about to do. How odd it is for us to know that she was anticipating her first child while she was anticipating her own salvation. She was thinking about the next nine months and beyond; yet in her soul she was pondering all of eternity. It was a very profound and amazing place and time for such a young girt to be living through.
PREPARING
Once Mary KNEW God’s destiny for her life; that she would be the Mother of the Messiah; there was a lot of preparing to do.
There were only nine months to get ready to meet The Savior of The World!
This fact must have brought Mary to the point of not just “waiting;” but also “doing” while she waited.
This baby would need clothes, a place to sleep, food. She might have wondered; “how am I supposed to prepare for the education of The Son of God?” She might have considered the environment that the child would be living in every day of His childhood. Would he be blessed with those who knew His Father? Surely that would make Him feel more at home on this earth.
MEDITATING
Such strange things for a young mother to be considering!
Most of all, Mary had to prepare her heart for the days that were coming.
The scriptures say she “pondered these things in her heart.” She must have been constantly meditating on the miracle of Christ coming into this world to be the savior of mankind; and Jesus being born as a child that would be the delight of her home.
I’m reminded of some lyrics of a song I heard recently. It was a song about Mary pondering the miracle of Christ’s birth and life. The words say “someday I’ll look back on this; the day that God became my baby boy….” What an amazing thing to ponder and the wonder of wonders must have been Mary’s heart when she knew this.
We all like to collect the pictures of our children in baby books and jot down the memories of the little things they do along the way; can you imagine what Jesus’s baby book that Mary kept would have been like?
BELIEVING
The act of pondering the journey of Mary during her nine months of pregnancy during the time of Advent helps us to understand the miracle that we like to call “born again.”
It is all about believing in the impossible; because that is what God did; He gave us a physically impossible gift in the form of Jesus; Emmanuel; God with us!
THE TRUE MEANING BEHIND ADVENT
Those are just little hints; little glimpses into what I think about when I think of Advent; but really; just what is Advent all about anyway?
I think it is all about the act of patiently waiting with anticipation for something awesome to happen.
It is about preparing your heart for the miracles of God; waiting and believing; meditating, participating and anticipating all the things that God has given us and all the things He still has in store for us.
It is about waiting to remember the facts of the Messiah appearing on earth for the first time as a child growing inside Mary’s womb, and then waiting on His growing into the destiny of God; then waiting on the act of this child, now a man actually BECOMING the Messiah.
Then it is all about waiting on Him to return again to earth and finally take that proven and long-established Kingship where He will rule and reign with His people for eternity. I suppose I could see pieces of all of this in the different holy days that we celebrate in all the feasts and festivals leading up to Tabernacles when I think Christ was born. Advent is like a small glimpse; a preview of all of these facts all rolled together, a small sample of what was to come.
It is about the King of Heaven coming down again to establish the throne of David on this earth and reign forever more.
The teachings of Advent incorporate past, present and future. They take the whole story of God into account.
HOW IS ADVENT TO BE OBSERVED?
Many churches observe a liturgical year in which the life of Jesus is portrayed throughout all the various stages in different time periods of the year. I like for the dates on my liturgical calendar to be as accurate as possible; so I observe the Annunciation and the Conception of Christ in this fashion, with each Sabbath being a time to light a candle for a different meditation on the subject.
Advent is a wonderful teaching tool that helps people understand the whole process that our Messiah endured in order to be our King. It all started with His Conception and I think that happened in the cold, dark days of December.
The waiting and the teaching and the remembering is all done during the time leading up to December 25th; the time that many of us believe to be the true date of the conception of Christ. This is the moment that the world had been waiting for from the time of Creation; a time that God could come and dwell with us. He came in the form of Emmanuel; God with us!
Many speak about how a tiny little baby grows in their Advent meditations; and some get a check here, because if you are observing the proper dates you are thinking about the conception; not the birth.
However; if you are thinking about a tiny little baby growing and developing and changing; then you have suddenly moved past the conception stage and moved on into celebrating the birth of Christ. I don’t think that is the case; or to put it differently; I don’t see that as a problem because a baby that hasn’t been born yet is still a life; it is a baby that is growing and becoming alive inside the mother’s womb.
I very strongly consider a baby growing in an embryo inside the mother’s womb when I’m thinking about Advent. This seems to be a time of birthing. It is waiting for the growth of a baby into new life and a time of considering and praying for the destiny of God’s purpose for that life.
Can you imagine the prayers of Mary as she carried The Savior of the World inside her womb for nine months?
ALL LIFE STARTS AT THE MOMENT OF CONCEPTION
My faith tells me that life starts at the moment of conception; and the next nine months are critical and extremely important in the life of the child inside the womb.
It is a growing time; just as the new “born-again” Christian grows inside the womb of the church (those who are filled with God’s Holy Spirit) where they are nurtured and cared for by those who love them and welcome them into their new family.
Becoming new in Christ is a lot like going back into the womb before birth. You need time to be nourished and protected, to be fed the right foods, to develop and mature into what you will be inside the body of Christ. You need to be blessed with the prayers of the faithful. You need people caring for you along the way; such as the way that Mary cared for and prepared for Jesus.
When I think of this; I instantly remember the words that Jesus said to Nicodemus; that you must be “born again.” I consider all of these things during the time that is called Advent. Following the lead of Mary; I ponder them in my heart.
To me; the whole Advent process relates to the act of being “born again.”
My new church year for my family begins with The Feast of Trumpets; which is the time that we believe God created the world. How nice it is to consider the next order after your creation; the time that you are growing safely inside the womb to be born. It just all fits! I love celebrating this fact with great joy.
So isn’t this a little bit like the ancient celebrations of fertility?
Are you kidding?
There was nothing REAL about those things. Those people were tragically mistaken. Those things have been overcome by the Incarnation, The Birth of Christ, His life, death and Resurrection and finally by the blood of Christ.
Fertility means LIFE.
Who created life?
God did!
I’m celebrating the fact that GOD CREATED LIFE AND GAVE IT TO US along with the ability to live it abundantly. There is absolutely nothing pagan about celebrating the fact that God gives life.
It is actually a very holy thing to do.
I see the life of Christ as the most holy thing that ever happened. Without it; we would simply be dust in the wind.
SO; SHOULD CHRISTIANS CELEBRATE ADVENT?
Even in light of the true date of the Conception of Christ; should Christians celebrate this time?
Is it not pagan in nature, and twisted and wrong?
I have two suggestions. Get the dates right and get your heart right. If you do these two things properly; you are not going to wonder into any pagan practices.
Paganism isn’t about the things that you do in worship; it is about the deity that you are worshiping when you do them.
There is only One God.
He doesn’t want us to worship any other; only Him.
The main reason which God gives for this act He demands of worshiping God and ONLY GOD alone is very logical and easy to explain; the others are fake! They do not exist. You would totally be wasting your time and energy to worship a god who isn’t there.
There is only One God and to worship any exist-less god; would be offending the True God who loved you enough to send His Only Begotten Son to save you.
Start out by getting the dates on the timeline right; so that your story is actually true; and then trust the One True God to show you how to approach the telling of His story into the pages of your life.
He desires that we become full of His wisdom.
God WANTS us to ponder His scriptures and the stories that they tell.
That is what Advent is for; it is a tool for telling the story of God.
GET THE DATES RIGHT; GET YOUR HEART RIGHT
God always sees the intentions of our hearts.
There is certainly nothing pagan about the Gospel. Keep the Gospel in truth and spirit; and you can’t go wrong.
So how do you do that?
For pondering Advent, most people meditate weekly by using the lighting of candles placed within and upon a wreath.
Ah ha!
Isn’t God opposed to that practice?
Isn’t it pagan in nature?
SHOULD WE USE A WREATH AND CANDLES?
It is true that many pagans used and still use candles in the practice of casting their spells. They even call it candle-magic. I’m sure that act IS pagan and a total abomination to God.
Also, and on the other hand; many people today use candles in their Christian religious practices as they worship The One True God.
Here again; it is who the person using the candles in worship is worshiping with the use of the tools of the candles that is right or wrong; not the practice of using the candles altogether.
A candle is a candle is a candle.
It holds no magic powers no matter what any pagan tells you.
The magic that they do with their candle ceremonies is an abomination; but it holds no true power. It can’t. If anything happens out of the ordinary; it will not be because of the power of the candles; but the power of the demons these pagan practices invoke.
The gods they are serving are false, unless they have resorted to making Satan a god. Satan is very real; but he is definitely the opposite of God. He hasn’t any powers at all that The True God of the Universe has not allowed him. No one ever has ANY power unless it is allowed by Almighty God.
A candle is simply a way to show light. It is an object; a tool for lighting; nothing more. The powers are not from the candle; they are either from demons and Satan (and God would have to allow them these powers for some usually unknown reason) or they are from The One True God of the Universe.
The candles themselves are powerless, except as a tool for shedding light into the darkness.
ENLIGHTENING MINDS AND HEARTS TO FOLLOW ONE TRUE GOD
That is what the candles of advent are about; enlightening our minds and hearts to follow The One True God.
Jesus often used objects to teach. He used coins, rocks, fish, birds, trees, oil, fruit etc. in the telling of many stories; especially the parables. There is nothing pagan about using objects to teach; it is using objects to worship pagan deities that makes it a pagan practice. Christian worshipers are not doing that with the advent candles.
We are not worshiping the wreath; we are not worshiping the candles. We are worshiping God by using the wreath and the candles; just as we use our bibles and our offering plates in our worship services. These are tools of worship. They can be used for God; or they can be used for a pagan false god. What determines this? The intent and the heart of the one doing the worship.
So you light one candle a week on each Sabbath (for me that is on Saturday) leading up to the time which you are celebrating as the amazing solution to all that you are pondering, studying and meditating about; Christ coming to live with mankind and saving the world.
The difference in the way I celebrate Advent and how the typical celebration of Advent is handled is that I’m celebrating The Conception of Christ; and most of the world is celebrating The Birth of Christ. Both things are very holy; I simply like to have true dates for true stories. False dates contribute to the stories being false. True dates exclaim and contribute to the stories being true. God is all about truth!
I know that the birth of Christ occurred in late September/early October (according to the phases of the moon on the Hebrew calendar during that year that Christ was born.) I celebrate His birth at The Feast of Tabernacles every year because it coincides with this time; and I believe that Christ was born during those holy days.
This way I have a “sort-of” corrected and “more accurate” church calendar going on when I allow my mind and heart to follow the dates of the calendar for the timeline as accurately as possible during the whole year.
I doubt that any religious calendar on this earth is totally accurate. The abilities of mankind to tell time are not perfect. Only God can tell you about “perfect” time.
One day God will straighten that out for us; but for now I want to be as accurate as possible with the knowledge that I have been given.
I believe in keeping truth in all of our celebrations. You can’t always know the whole truth; but when you do; you should use it. Christ told us that we are to worship in truth and spirit.
So my Advent meditations might be slightly different; but not so much different; because in both instances we are considering the new life of Christ coming to mankind and the wonderful transformations that this brings to the people of planet earth.
My considerations simply start with conception instead of birth. I celebrate birth of Christ in the Fall of the year.
USING AN ADVENT WREATH
Well; what about the use of the wreath that holds the candles; isn’t this a pagan practice from way back?
To be honest; wreaths in general, WERE originally used by various different pagan cultures in ceremonies for fertility gods and other deities.
Here again; it isn’t what you are DOING in worship; but WHOM you are worshiping when you do it.
If you are worshiping a false pagan god; it is a false and pagan practice.
If you are worshiping The True God Almighty; The Great I AM, the One True God of Heaven and Earth; you are not being pagan. You are worshiping in spirit and truth.
LOOKING AT HOW THINGS TRANSPIRED IN HISTORY FROM THE SCRIPTURES
How can I say such a thing?
It is because I’ve considered the things that happened in the time of Moses as well as other times in the Old Testament.
We say that certain altars are pagan and God declared that those altars should be destroyed. (Unfortunately most of them never were destroyed.) Then we see God giving instructions for certain altars to be built for the worship of Him. These acts are the same in nature; yet they are different in intention.
Some altars were to worship pagan deities; and some altars were to worship God.
The ones to worship God were totally acceptable and okay; and they were even directed to be built by God.
KNOW THE DIFFERENCE
We hear of God telling the Israelites to destroy all the sacred stones that the pagans used in worship. Then we hear of God directing his holy priest to use stones in different ways in their worship and memorials. Consider the use of the Urim and Thummim. Think about the jeweled stones on the breastplate of the high priest. Ponder what the foundations of heaven are described as being in many passages of The Revelation. They were made of stones that we use in jewelry. These were all “stones” that God instructed the people to use in worship.
It wasn’t the stones; it was the intent of the people to either worship God or worship a false deity.
It isn’t the practice folks; it is the intent of the heart of the worshiper and whether or not they are worshiping in spirit and truth.
The scriptures that say to put away idolatry and pagan practices are as true today as they ever were; but we must understand the true meaning.
Pagan things are pagan because they are used in false worship.
Godly things are things that are consecrated to God for use in the holy worship of God alone.
I do not feel that God is displeased with an Advent Wreath that has been concentrated to Him as an offering for teaching His stories in my home. There is nothing about the use of my wreath that teaches paganism; because I am not worshiping pagan deities.
In my home this wreath and its candles give glory to God through the stories of God that they tell.
They open doors for me to be a witness to the love of my Savior; Jesus Christ.
A PEEK INTO HISTORY
The Advent Wreath was first used to worship the REAL God by Lutherans in Germany in the 16th century. These were people who had FINALLY found God among a culture of total paganism; and they were doing everything in their power to TURN from paganism.
One thing that had been sorely missing from their culture that had promoted so much ungodliness in the people was the lack of the teaching of the stories of God to the children of the nation. They designed the Advent Wreath to educate little children about God. It was a refreshing turn of hearts from the previous pagan practices.
I’ll tell you a secret if you don’t already know. What works for little children often works for grown adults.
That very reason; the act of teaching the gospel, is my only intent in using an Advent wreath in my own home. I think it is an excellent teaching tool and an opportunity to declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ where there might not be the opportunity without the use of the wreath.
THINKING OF THE MODERN DAY SOCIETY WE LIVE IN
Our culture too is sorely lacking in the teaching skills to tell the stories of God to children.
How will things ever transform in our nation if we do not teach our children?
Yes, we can sit down and just tell them the stories without using these objects as tools, and hopefully we all do that anyway. But the use of the teaching tools of the Advent Wreath seems to help them to remember and to relate. I try to use all things in my home to show the glory of God whenever possible. I think it is good for both adults and children together.
This isn’t just with the advent wreath; or just this time of the year; it is with the use of many every day things; such as the table where we dine together, the food that we share, the decor of the rooms where we live in everyday life. None of these things work if your heart isn’t in the right place; but give a person totally committed to the service of Christ as LORD in their home the proper tools for discussion and all types of doors open up to be a better witness.
Jesus used everyday things too; like bread and cups and water and wine.
FOLLOW YOUR HEART TO THE PLACE THAT GOD IS LEADING YOU
For many years I listened to others instead of studying out the facts for myself. I only saw the worldly side to these practices of Advent. I did not understand the God in them. Back then I had discovered how the pagans had used such things in their worship routines; and I refused to use anything like this in my home ever.
As the years went by God matured my heart. He opened up my eyes to more of His truth and less of my intellect. I began to see the things I’ve shared with you so far.
No man taught me these things; only God showed me these things in my heart.
WE ARE ALL IN DIFFERENT PLACES IN THIS JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE
Now I’m in a good place with a Christian, true practice of Advent; but those years in-between; where I went from the ways of the world to being over-zealous about how I served God were also good years for me. I don’t think I would have the concepts that are in my heart today; if God had not been patiently leading me from precept to precept; a little here and a little there; until I came to the place of freedom from which I speak today.
I think God used those years in-between to get the Egypt out of my heart. I DID have many rote, pagan practices that I did not recognize until that time.
Now God is using my years of study and prayer and meditation upon The Word to put more of Christ into those places that were left empty and waiting.
GOD WILL CLARIFY ANYTHING FOR YOU; IF YOU ASK HIM
I never question how God leads people; if you are convicted that these things are wrong; they ARE wrong for you. Follow the convictions that God puts on your heart. When it is all said and done and we all stand before Him; He will only be looking at our willingness to be obedient. That was the very way that Mary pleased Him with her answer; “let it be to me as you have said!”
I have reached the time in my life when God has given me the gift of celebrating Advent; in a pure and holy way that only honors Him in my home.
If you are a fellow believer who feels different; I am happy for you and am trusting God for the completion of your journey however He sees fit; please trust that He is also leading me on my own journey. We might be in different locations of the journey; but we share the same destination. A very long time ago I learned to give witness; then let God do the rest. It isn’t up to me to convince you; but it is up to me to be a witness of the truth and to live out that truth to the best of my ability before God.
JUST FOLLOW GOD WHERE EVER HE LEADS YOU TO GO
So I hope I haven’t lost too many faithful readers here.
I do not condemn you if you prefer to leave out these practices in your own homes.
If God shows you that something is wrong; please don’t do it.
He hasn’t shown me that the use of the Advent Wreath in my home is wrong.
Because my take on Advent isn’t so typical; and because I’m a stickler for presenting pure truth in all of the teachings of the gospel; I have written some new Advent meditations.
If you choose to celebrate in this slightly different concept of Advent this year; you are welcomed to share them. These meditations may be found here:THE FIRST SABBATH OF ADVENT – A MEDITATION ON WAITING – SEASONS
My hope is that everyone’s holidays will be filled with God’s true stories and God’s blessings as we celebrate the coming of The Light of the World – Jesus Christ!