Christmas Twist

For many years I was against Christmas. I believed that Christmas was really a glossed-over, Christianized pagan sun-worshipping festival, which was abducted by the Roman Catholic Church to keep the pagans happy while usurping control over their lives through religion.

I also believed that Jesus was not born on December 25th and that the Bible never mentions celebrating his birth.

All this stuff, and more, is true. A simple browse of the internet will provide you with all kinds of information about the non-Christian roots of Christmas. It's very interesting.

This used to bother me, but not any more. You see, Christmas is really a triumph of God over Satan. Since the beginning of time Satan has attempted to replace God's plan with his own. He is not a creator so he has become a counterfeiter. He takes things of God and twists them for his own use. He took the animal sacrifices instituted by God to cover man's sins and changed them to human sacrifices; he took music and changed it from a way of worshipping God into a way of worshipping Self.

Satan steals everything God instituted and tries to remake it in his own perverted image. But God turned the tables on him. God took the pagan ceremonies of Saturnalia and other winter solstice rituals and turned them into a celebration of the birth of the Savior who would ultimately destroy Satan and all his works and offer eternal salvation to all who are willing to trust in Him.

God pulled the old switcheroo on old Scratch and turned a pagan festival into a vehicle for spreading the Gospel. So now, instead of worshipping and serving the created thing, people are offering veneration to the Creator. Some don't even realize they're doing it.

Now Satan is trying to take Christ out of Christmas. Again, he will fail.

So, let's celebrate this Christmas with a renewed sense of awe for a God who has power over history and has compassion enough to humble himself and come to us in the form of a helpless baby, to be crucified thirty-three years later for the sins of the world.

O Come All Ye Faithful, Joyful and Triumphant!

Merry Christmas!
-Matt