Yesterday evening (Sunday) one of my people asked what to do with the charge that Christmas has pagan roots. This has come up many times before and my advise to him was, "Ignore it!" The plain truth is no one knows exactly when Christ was born but I'm certainly not losing sleep over whether we have the date right.
As for those pagan roots we can say the same thing about Easter which was a pagan festival near the same time as our Lord's resurrection (Acts 12:4). I won't get into that too deeply here and now because I want to point out that, if we carry this fear of honoring a pagan day it will affect every day of our lives! Do you know for instance that Sunday is named after a pagan god? In fact, so is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Look it up! Not only so but every month is named after a pagan god or holiday!
The point is that the same people who are reminding YOU of the pagan roots of Christmas are honoring pagan gods everyday of their lives! That does not mean that paganism has not entered into Christmas. Evidence of that can be seen at your local mall!
For Christians, paganism's roots couldn't be further removed from our minds. We are joyously honoring the Birth of our Savior. It is a time when the Word became flesh and was recieved by those who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of man, but of God! He, the Word, is the incarnation, the expression, the revelation, the illumination, and the visititation of God to lighten each of those chosen of Him before the foundation of the world,written in the Lamb's Book of Life, regenerated, blessed with the gift of faith, and by grace through faith, made children of God. So while the "world" did not seize upon this truth, by grace we did! Let's not worry about pagan roots, let's celebrate that occasion when the "WORD WAS MADE FLESH"!
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