Still a Party Pooper

In case you've been here for awhile, Yes, this does sound familiar. I posted it in 2013, and with a few revisions am posting it again. Because it is still what I believe.

I am resigned that I am not normal, and I am fine with that. What I am not fine with is people acting shocked or scandalized when they learn I do not do life the same as everyone else.

I am not rude about it: when people say, "Merry Christmas!", I smile and say, "Thank you, same to you!" or “Enjoy your holiday!” When people ask if I am ready for Christmas, I smile and say, "Ready as I'll ever be!"

I do not even bother explaining that I do not celebrate Christmas (unless they ask “what plans do you have for Christmas?" In which case I will usually tell them we haven’t decided if we will go skiing or go to the movies.) 

I do not give them a lecture about dubious traditions and the commercialization of quasi-religious practices, nor do I rant about the use of phrases such as "It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas" or "Let's keep Christ in Christmas" being a façade of man-made practices taking the place of what was originally intended to be the celebration of Emmanuel, God with us. (The fact that the date is wrong is not even worth arguing about. People honestly don’t want to hear about the early church’s co-opting of pagan practices.)

Really, what is the point? They would not appreciate my bashing of their cherished traditions any more than I do when they do the same to me. Besides, as I have long said, you do not change people's minds by winning an argument. And I am not so sure I would win any here, because people are comfortable with what is familiar.

I found it to be enough of a challenge to reconcile my own thinking with the revelations about many of our beloved “Christmas traditions”, and I have no reason to expect that anyone else would feel otherwise. And anyway, it has been my observation over the years that tradition so often trumps the truth.

Pre-COVID and the resulting paranoia surrounding being in close proximity with other humans (family, or not), I did my best to compromise and keep peace in my family when it came to celebrating family times. I just asked that we keep the commercial separate from their so-called sacred. In that vein, it was our tradition to exchange gifts and have a family get-together on a day other than 12/25. We started that practice that many years ago (pre-in-laws and pre-grandkids), and we found it to be the least offensive to everyone involved. These days, I am just happy to find a day when we can meet in a parking lot and exchange gifts to be taken home and opened alone. (Talk about "party pooper.”)

But I can still have a little fun with a friend who persists in texting me every year first thing in the morning on 12/25 with "A Merry Christmas to you!" by texting back: "Enjoy your Saturnalia Celebration!" 

So, What's About Sabbath?

Even though my first question upon reading the Bible for myself (lo, these many 60+ years ago) was "why don't we observe the Sabbath on Saturday?", the truth was mis-represented to me for years. (Not on purpose, I'm sure. It was simply a matter of believing what we are told and repeating that misconception.)

It's easy enough to blame it on the Catholic church or the Emperor Constantine, and while there is truth in that, the reality is that we each have a brain and a conscience, and we should be coming to our own conclusions, based on scripture and not on any one else's tradition or interpretation.

Yes, it is historically true that Constantine mandated a "Day of Rest" based on his personal practice of sun-worship. To debate that would be less than honest. Call it what you may, but the very definition of the Hebrew word "sabbath" means "rest." Even good old WikiPedia has that information readily available:

On March 7, 321, Roman Emperor Constantine I issued a civil decree making Sunday a day of rest from labor, stating:
All judges and city people and the craftsmen shall rest upon the venerable day of the sun. Country people, however, may freely attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it frequently happens that no other days are better adapted for planting the grain in the furrows or the vines in trenches. So that the advantage given by heavenly providence may not for the occasion of a short time perish.

As the "church" became less Jewish and more gentile, followers began (for various political reasons) to distance themselves from the Jewish tradition of observance on the 7th day. By the second century, some church fathers were already admonishing their followers to abandon certain practices such as circumcision and Sabbath observance, lest they appear to be "too Jewish" and bring down the wrath of the government upon the church.

Some may claim that the Catholic church had no hand in this, but the historical documents speak for themselves:

The Sunday law was officially confirmed by the Roman Papacy. The Council of Laodicea in A.D. 364 decreed, “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day..."

The Catholic church itself has confirmed this in their own publications: “The Catholic Church, … by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday” (The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893).

And, that begs the question: Why - at the Protestant Reformation - did the Protestant faction not return to sabbath worship on the 7th day? The Catholic church goes so far as to reference this fact, claiming that by so doing:

“Protestants do not realize that by observing Sunday, they accept the authority of the spokesperson of the Church, the Pope” (Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950).

It does make one wonder, does it not?

I have even heard it said, by way of excusing oneself from Sabbath observance, "Well, Jesus is my sabbath rest so I can rest any day I want." Sounds good, doesn't it? Yes, scripture does say that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. You will hear no argument from me on that point. (To deny that would be to deny the truth of scripture in Matthew 12:3-8.) But to say Jesus Himself has somehow replaced the gift of Sabbath observance is to completely miss the point of Sabbath! Not the very least is the fact that scripture cannot contradict itself, and it has already said in Deuteronomy 13 - You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.

Read the whole chapter and you will see that the premise is that anyone saying anything different is a false prophet. If Jesus is the Son of God and Messiah, he can't also be a false prophet. So that argument does not fly with me, for obvious reasons.

The BibleProject gets it mostly right when they say:

As followers of Jesus, we aren't required to follow the laws given to Israel by God exactly. These were given at a specific time to a specific people group for a specific purpose. Yet the wisdom of those laws is enduring, and the law of the Sabbath is pure gold. It is not a commandment we are bound to; it’s a promise we’re invited to.

I would disagree with "we aren't called to follow the "laws" given to Israel," because if we claim to be a follower of God, then we are also called to be "set-apart", and "a light to nations", just as Israel was back at Sinai. After all, it is 1 John 5:3 that we show our love for Him by our obedience, and goes on to state that His laws are not a burden... 

And that's in the New Testament, folks.