#21 Celebration as Tradition
Today I was thinking. Why on earth does the entire world celebrate Christmas? Granted, there are some cultures that don’t. Like Jewish cultures celebrate Chanukkah, and African cultures celebrate Kwanza and I’m sure there are many more that I don’t know about. But for some reason the world stops on December 25th (or the day for Eastern Orthodox Christmas which I believe is Jan 7). Everyone celebrates it differently, but it is one in the same… I would say the majority of the world celebrates Christmas.
Was Pope Julius in the 4th century that popular? His decision to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th has impacted the entire globe. Think about the effect Christianity has had on the world. Even those that don’t believe still celebrate the holiday. December 25th is a national holiday here in the USA and in many places
Why on earth is this time of year celebrated by those who don’t believe? Even before Christmas was established some cultures celebrated the winter solstice and had festivals.
Look through out history, through out all of the different cultures. What is one thing that we all have in common? 1. The tendency to believe in a higher power and 2. The tendency to commemorate special occasions and set up traditions.
It is our nature to celebrate.
Even God told the Israelites to do so! Jewish people celebrate different things all year round! From Passover to Purim, there is never a holiday that doesn’t have something to remember.
I have digressed. The impact of the Christian church (specifically the Catholic Church) has gone so far as that non-believing people celebrate with us. I guess they liked the part of giving gifts to one another so they do that and just ignore the best part, them receiving a gift from God. I don’t really know. But celebration has always been a part of history. Celebration is tradition!
It seems to me that since this transcends culture that God created us to do things in such a way. God created us to celebrate the victorious events, to mourn the catastrophic ones, and to commemorate the people involved in both. But the most important thing that has left our celebration is the source… God.
God should be our purpose of celebration, no matter what it is we are celebrating. If it is victory in war, we can celebrate God’s provision. (Thought that is another topic for another blog entry). If it is establishment of a country, place, idea, or invention we can celebrate God’s design and creation. If it is commemoration of a person we can celebrate God inspiring that person!
Everything can be pointed back to God when we celebrate.
We can celebrate about anything we want. We can celebrate that it’s 10:59 PM right now. We can celebrate that the Arizona Cardinals won the game. Or we can celebrate that Jesus was born. Or (even as non-Jewish Christians) we can celebrate the rededication of the people of Israel to God and the rededication of the temple and the miraculous provision of oil. We can celebrate that we have a country that is established on freedom and liberties that were unknown to the common people before. We can celebrate all of the people that have gone to war for us so that we didn’t have to. We can celebrate Christopher Columbus for sort of finding America. We can celebrate St Patrick evangelizing the country of Ireland. We can celebrate St Valentine facilitating marriage when the emperor would not allow it. We can celebrate our mothers and our fathers. We can celebrate the day our Lord rose from the dead and defeated sin once for all. We can celebrate a day of birth of a friend or family member or even the dude that perfected the filament in the light bulb (Thomas Edison of course, which my town celebrates every year in the Festival of Lights).
We can celebrate anything we want. It is a tradition. It is our nature. It is my opinion that God created us to celebrate.
So celebrate, celebrate. Join the celebration. We’ve got so much to celebrate. Join the celebration!
Celebrate and know that it’s okay to do so. It’s part of God’s design. It is human tradition to celebrate.
Just sayin’
