If you are celebrating Christmas then u must be a Christian (that does
not really follow because these days everybody celebrates Christmas)
and you must also know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea.
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city located in the central West Bank,
neighboring south Jerusalem.
Bethlehem has a Mediterranean climate, with hot and dry summers and
cold winters.
Winter temperatures (mid-December to mid-March) can be cold and rainy.
From May through September, the weather is warm and sunny. August is
the hottest month
And we all know that when Jesus was born there were shepherds in the
field with their sheep. That night, some shepherds were in the fields
near Bethlehem, keeping watch over their flock of sheep.
An angel appeared to them and gave them the good news that a Saviour,
the Messiah, had been born.
So is it possible for shepherds to be in the field with their flock of
sheep with the climate (winter) of Bethlehem in December?? It would
have been too cold for them.
Israeli meteorologists tracked December weather patterns for many
years and concluded that the climate in Bethlehem has been essentially
constant for at least the last
2,000 years... "Broadly speaking, weather phenomena and climatic
conditions as pictured in the Bible correspond with conditions as
observed today"
Moving on
The word 'Christmas' does not exist in the Bible. The Bible has closed
lips on the entire feast of Christmas, with one exception, the
decoration of a tree.
The Bible itself criticizes the decoration of the (Christmas) trees:
"The customs of the people are worthless, they cut a tree out of the
forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel, they adore it with
silver and gold, they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not
totter" Jeremiah 10-3,4 (NIV).
Roman pagans celebrated Dec. 25th as the birth of their 'god' of light, Mithra.
In ancient pagan times, the last day of winter in the Northern
Hemisphere was celebrated as the night that the Great Mother Goddess
gives birth to the baby Sun God.
It is also called Yule, the day a huge log is added to a bonfire,
around which everyone would dance and sing to awaken the sun from its
long winter sleep.
In Roman times, it became the celebrations honouring Saturnus (the
harvest god) and Mithras (the ancient god of light), a form of sun
worship that had come to Rome from Syria a century before with the
cult of Sol Invictus.
It announced that winter is not forever, that life continues, and an
invitation to stay in good spirit.
The last day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere occurs between the
20th and 22 December.
The Roman celebrated Saturnalia between 17 and 24 December.
However,
To avoid persecution during the Roman pagan festival, early Christians
decked their homes with Saturnalia holly.
But the early church actually did not celebrate the birth of Christ in
December until Telesphorus, who was the second Bishop of Rome from 125
to 136AD, declared that Church services should be held during this
time to celebrate "The Nativity of our Lord and Saviour."
In the year 274AD, solstice fell on 25th December. Roman Emperor
Aurelian proclaimed the date as "Natalis Solis Invicti," the festival
of the birth of the invincible sun.
In 320 AD, Pope Julius I specified the 25th of December as the
official date of the birth of Jesus Christ.
In 325AD, Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor,
introduced Christmas as an immovable feast on 25 December. He also
introduced Sunday as a holy day in a new 7-day week, and introduced
movable feasts (Easter). In 354AD, Bishop Liberius of Rome officially
''ordered'' his members to celebrate the birth of Jesus on 25
December. So if you are celebrating the birth of Jesus on 25th
December you are following the orders of ''Bishop Liberius of Rome''
European Pre-Christian pagans superstitiously believed that the green
trees had special protective powers.
In fact the use of the Christmas tree began only in the 17th century
in Strasbourg, France and from there it spread to Germany, Britain and
then to the U.S and the rest of the world.
"Tree worship was a common feature of religion among the Teutonic and
Scandinavian peoples of northern Europe before their conversion to
Christianity…German settlers brought the Christmas tree custom to the
American colonies in the 17th century. By the 19th century its use was
quite widespread".
So think again before you say ''he is the reason for the season''
