The Berean Blogs

I recently “went public”, I guess you could say with the announcement that I will not be celebrating Christmas anymore. I didn’t come to this decision lightly but through much research and reflection. Although I will miss the traditions I have built with family and friends surrounding this day, what I am gaining is closeness with the Lord. I will find other ways to make and keep memories with my family.

First, I guess a brief reason why I won’t be celebrating Christmas (or Easter for similar reasoning). Christmas is a holiday that was first celebrated as Christmas in the 4th century AD but prior to that it was celebrated by pagans. These pagan celebrations were all fixated around the Winter Solstice. Prior to Christmas, Romans celebrated a festival called Saturnalia. This festival included gift giving, feasting, and drinking. Homes were decorated with greenery to help usher in spring. Does any of that sound familiar? When Constantine declared Christianity the state religion, he couldn’t get the people to stop celebrating this festival so he just incorporated it into Christianity and declared it a celebration of Christ’s birth. The  pagan deity that was worshipped prior to christianizing it was Sol Invictus which means “Unconquered Sun”. Not only is this traditionally a pagan holiday but it isn’t even Jesus’s birthday. I will get to His likely real birthday later on. There are a couple verses people point to, for scriptural references against celebrating Christmas. First is Deuteronomy 12:30-32 which talks about not using pagan worship to worship the Lord God. The second is Jeremiah 10:3-5 where God warns against cutting down a tree, decorating it with silver and gold, and putting it upright. Sounds a lot like a Christmas tree but it could also be talking about forming idols in general. I do not believe God wants us to honor Him through a refurbished holiday to a false god. These is one of the reasons I won’t be celebrating Christmas anymore, but the main reason is what is gained by replacing it with the Lords appointed feasts.

One thing that most people get wrong about the feasts of the Lord is that they are only for the Jews. In fact people call them the Jewish Feasts. But the Bible calls them the feasts of the Lord. They were first given to the Jewish people but as we are grafted into that inheritance I believe we also get to enjoy these feast days. Not only are the feast days rich in historical significance for the Jewish people but they line up with Jesus timeline prophetically. And as we are called to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, what better way then to celebrate the Holy days that He celebrated.

The first four Feasts line up to the exact day for Jesus’s first coming. They are: Passover, Unleavened bread, First Fruits, and Pentecost. The first three of these Feasts happen very close together and then Pentecost happens 50 days later (hence penta- meaning five). Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt on Passover. He was crucified and buried during Unleavened bread. Leaven in the Bible is often a metaphor for sin so what better description of Jesus then “unleavened bread” since He was sinless. Then on First Fruits He was the first to rise from the dead and stay alive, a true resurrection, and then, 50 days after His resurrection, He sent us the Holy Spirit to live in us, marking the Pentecost.

Since the first four feasts line up with Jesus’s first coming, many believe (me included) that the last three feasts will be literally fulfilled in His second coming. The three fall feasts are Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles. Trumpets is likely when Jesus comes back to earth for the second time. Some also believe this to be the day of the rapture of the church. I believe it could be, but this goes into the realm of speculation so I won’t get into that here. The feast of Atonement will be fulfilled when the Jewish remnant “look on Him who they pierced” and proclaim Him finally as their Messiah. Also many scholars believe Jesus likely birth was on this feast day due to the timing of Elizabeths conception of John The Baptist and John the apostle stating that the word became flesh and tabernacled among us. Finally the feast of Tabernacles is when Jesus dwells with us during the Millennium reign and into eternity! I can’t wait for this day!

Now, there is one more Feast that as far as I know is only mentioned once in the Bible. It is called the Feast of Dedication and it isn’t one of the original feasts. This feast came about during the inter-testament period during the Maccabean revolt. The story goes that when they were rededicating the temple (after Antiochus desecrated it with a pig sacrifice) they only had enough oil to burn for one day but they required eight days for the purification. According to this story, God miraculously caused the oil to last eight days. It is mentioned in the Bible when Jesus visits the temple during the feast of dedication. Now, Jews celebrate this eight day festival that they call Hanukkah. Another name for it is the Festival of Lights. In our home we will be celebrating this festival for eight days and incorporating Jesus as the Light of the world that God provided for us.

This is just a high level overview of the richness of the Feasts of the Lord. When these are celebrated, they remind us of the history of where the Lord has taken us, our current time where he leads us, guides us, and lives in us, and future prophecy of our ultimate reign with Christ in the Millennium kingdom and then, in the New Heaven and New Earth for all eternity. I will go into a deeper dive on each festival as they approach so we can all have a better understanding of God’s provision and timing and how it relates to us as Christians.