Hanukkah!

Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, and as Christians we believe in Him and worship Him.

Many people forget that Christianity is Jewish. We believe in the Jewish Messiah, we believe the entire Bible is the inspired word of God, from Genesis to Revelation. We see and know the prophesies Jesus fulfilled and the ones He is coming back to fulfill.

Check out this lens for more info:
http://www.squidoo.com/messianicprophecy

There are many holidays celebrated in America that are seen by the majority as Christian. Let's take a closer look and see what we find. I will go over the main holidays seen as Christian: Easter and Christmas.

Easter (the modern English term) developed from the Old English word Eastre or Eostre, which itself developed prior to 899. The name refers to the Eostur-monath, a month of the Germanic calendar which may have been named for the goddess Eostre in Anglo-Saxon paganism, attested by Bede. Bede describes the pagan worship of Eostre among the Anglo-Saxons as having died out before the time he was writing. In 1835, Jacob Grimm proposed an equivalent Old High German name, Ostara, in his work Deutsche Mythologie. An amount of scholarly theory and speculation surrounds the figure.



Easter (Greek: Pascha) is the most important religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. Christians believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead two days after his crucifixion, and celebrate this resurrection on Easter Day, or Easter Sunday, two days after Good Friday. The year of his death and resurrection is variously estimated between the years 26 and 36 AD.

The New Testament links the Last Supper and Jesus' crucifixion with Passover and the Exodus from Egypt. As Jesus prepared himself and his disciples for his death in the upper room during the Last Supper, he gave the Passover meal a new meaning. He identified the loaf of bread and cup of wine as symbolizing his body soon to be sacrificed and his blood soon to be shed. 1 Corinthians 5:7 states, "Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast-as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed," referring to the Passover requirement to have no yeast in the house and to Christ's identification as the Paschal lamb.



Easter is termed a moveable feast because it is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar. Easter falls at some point between late March and late April each year (early April to early May in Eastern Christianity), following the cycle of the moon. After several centuries of disagreement, all churches accepted the computation of the Alexandrian Church (now the Coptic Church) that Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon, which is the first moon whose 14th day (the ecclesiastic "full moon") is on or after March 21 (the ecclesiastic "vernal equinox").



Easter is tied into the pagan holiday Ostara (also called Eostre) because it is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal or spring equinox.

So, I am sure you can tell that Easter itself has little to do with Jesus, now take a look at the symbols of Easter that we commonly embrace, and the meanings behind them:

Rabbits are symbols of fertility. According to Stephanie and Philip Carr-Gomm, rabbit also signifies intuition, rebirth, promise, fulfillment, and balance. It is known as the goddess' creature and represents the moon, night and dawn. It is also associated with abundance, rebirth and release.



Eggs symbolize fertility. In the mid 1900s, children would get rabbits and chicks as gifts for Easter. The cock, in Celtic tradition, has connections to the Underworld. The bird drove off the evil night spirits and ghosts by crowing at dawn.



Each flower has special meanings. March's flowers are the jonquil and violet. Jonquils symbolize affection is being returned. White violets symbolize candor and violet, modesty. April's flowers are daisies and sweet peas. Daisies are symbolic of innocence and sweet peas, thinking of the person.



Easter itself was once more pagan rather than Christian, and as you can see, it has clearly switched; however pagan symbolism remains in the holiday. I honestly see no reason to celebrate Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection on Easter rather than Passover. Passover seems to be far better, since it is attached to God's original chosen people.



Now lets talk about Christmas.

Jesus was not born in the winter. Shepherds were not outside tending their flocks on the middle of WINTER! Jesus was born in the Jewish month of Nissan (March/April), this is the Spring. So why do we celebrate His birth in December?

What part did emperor Constantine have in Christmas?



How could a Roman emperor have anything to do with an event that occurred three hundred years before he sat on the throne? Needless to say, Constantine had no part in the birth of Jesus. But he did play an important part in deciding when Jesus' birth would be celebrated through the centuries. To this day, no one knows for sure when Jesus was born, and there is no historical record of anyone celebrating the nativity until the fourth century.

Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, better known as Constantine I or Constantine the Great, was born around the year A.D. 275 - almost three centuries after Jesus. He worshipped the pantheon of Roman gods as all his predecessors had done and especially the Roman sun god, Sol. However, as he was traveling to battle his most powerful rival in Italy, Maxentius, at the Tiber River in A.D. 312, he had a vision. In that vision, he reported seeing the cross of Christ superimposed on the sun with the words, in hoc signo vinces - "in this sign you shall conquer." After winning the battle, he became a strong champion of Christianity. The very next year, he met with Emperor Licinius, the ruler of the eastern provinces, to sign the Edict of Milan giving equal rights to all religious groups within the Roman Empire. He returned property seized from Christians, built a great number of churches, donated land, and convened the first Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 to deal with false teaching within the church. Although he didn't completely leave his pagan roots and wasn't baptized until A.D. 337 on this deathbed, he did much to further the growth of the church.

Either as a means to unify his empire, or to make converting to Christianity easier, Constantine sought to blend Christian and pagan traditions. At that time, two prominent pagan winter festivals were celebrated. The first, starting on December 17 and lasting seven days, honored Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture.



The second, starting on December 25 and lasting through January 1, commemorated the birth of Mithras, the Persian god of light.



Constantine merged many of the traditions from these festivals with the Nativity story in the Bible and Christmas was born. From its beginning, Christmas was a holiday (or holy day), gifts were exchanged, families and friends gathered to feast, and a birth was celebrated; just like in the Roman and Persian festivities.

The first mention of December 25 as the date of Jesus' birth is found in an early Roman calendar from A.D. 336.

Although the accounts of Jesus' birth (Matthew 1:18-2:23, Luke 1:26-38, 2:1-20) give us no hints about the date, they do provide a wealth of information about its significance. The Baby born in Bethlehem is the Son of God (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:32, 35), the Savior (Matthew 1:21; Luke 2:11), God with us (Matthew 1:23), and the King who is worthy of worship (Matthew 2:2; Luke 1:33).

(source: Learn More About Christmas Origin: Emperor Constantine)

As you can see, Christ's birthday celebration was changed over to Christmastime by Constantine to be synced with the celebrations of Pagans. This is not originally a Christian holiday. I am not saying that we should not celebrate Christ's birth on Christmas, but just showing that things aren't always as they seem.

Nowadays, Christmas is SO MUCH about Christ, non-Christians are starting to get offended and want to change it back to pagan-worship (not their words, but mine).

Every night after you light the candles, your children get a gift. Nothing BIG, but just something. This year my daughter Willow was really into Hanukkah! Every night she would ask, "Can we light the Hanukkah candles?" And she would bow her head and pray with us too, and then run and open her present! Our entire family contributed to her Hanukkah gifts as well. Great-Grandma came by and dropped off Willow's gift on Christmas Eve, furthermore Grandpa gave her her gift before Christmas. So instead of letting her open them right away, and instead of making her wait until Christmas, I just turned those gifts into Hanukkah gifts.

When those ran out we still had two days of Hanukkah to go! So this is where the $1 Store came in! Boy do I love that place! She got glow sticks and a new coloring book for $2, and she was happy.

Most families give a little gift to their children every night of Hanukkah, and on the last night the children get a big gift, or many more gifts. This year we ordered her gifts off ebay. They came after Christmas sadly, but they turned into Hanukkah gifts! And instead of saving her best present for last, I gave it to her in the middle of Hanukkah. It was Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie.