Which Feasts to Celebrate?
Sadly, most of us just “grew up” in Protestant churches—or in Catholicism—and basically took for granted all that we were taught about God, Christ and religion. Very few people usually bother—even after reaching adulthood—to actually study and genuinely prove WHY they believe what they believe. It just seems easier to “follow the crowd” and go along with whatever we have been taught. Have you carelessly ASSUMED that the Bible teaches us to observe Christmas and Easter? Have you assumed that Christ, our example, and the original inspired Apostolic Church observed Christmas and Easter?
For nearly all honest theologians and historians freely acknowledge that Christmas and Easter were injected into “Christianity” many years after the death of the original Apostles! Under the article “Christmas,” the Encyclopædia Britannica states: “in the Christian Church, the festival of the nativity of Jesus Christ. The history of this feast coheres so closely with that of Epiphany (q.v.), that what follows must be read in connection with the article under that heading…. The great church (Catholic) adopted Christmas much later than Epiphany; and before the 5th century there was no general consensus of opinion as to when it should come in the calendar, whether on the 6th of January, or the 25th of March, or the 25th of December…. In 1644 the English puritans forbade any merriment or religious services by act of Parliament, on the ground that it was a heathen festival, and ordered it to be kept as a fast. Charles II revived the feast, but the Scots adhered to the Puritan view” (vol. 6, 11th ed., pp. 293–294).
The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us: “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts; Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Natalitia, asserts (in Lev. Hom. viii in Migne, P.G., XII, 495) that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday…. In England, Christmas was forbidden by Act of Parliament in 1644; the day was to be a fast and a market day; shops were compelled to be open; plum puddings and mince pies condemned as heathen. The conservatives resisted; at Canterbury blood was shed; but after the Restoration Dissenters continued to call Yuletide ‘Fooltide’” (vol. 3, pp. 724, 728).
REJECTING the Example of Christ and the Apostles
A vital key to remember in trying to understand what happened is to realize that the vast majority of “Christian” priests and scholars have NOT seriously tried to follow the example of Christ and the original Apostles! As the professing Christian Church grew in the Roman Empire, they tried to make their religion more “convenient” to the pagans around them in an attempt to win them over, and also, at times, in an attempt to avoid persecution. As Dr. Rufus M. Jones points out: “If by any chance Christ Himself had been taken by His later followers as the model and pattern of the new way, and a serious attempt had been made to set up His life and teaching as the standard and norm for the Church, Christianity would have been something vastly different from what it became.
Then ‘heresy’ would have been, as it is not now, deviation from His way, His teaching, His spirit, His kingdom…. What we may properly call ‘Galilean Christianity’ had a short life, though there have been notable attempts to revive it and make it live again, and here and there spiritual prophets have insisted that anything else than this simple Galilean religion is ‘heresy’; but the main line of historic development has taken a different course and has marked the emphasis very differently” (The Church’s Debt to Heretics, pp. 15–16).
Protestant author, Jesse Lyman Hurlbut—writing about the period between 313ad and 476ad—acknowledges: “The forms and ceremonies of paganism gradually crept into the worship. Some of the old heathen feasts became church festivals with change of name and worship. About 405ad images of saints and martyrs began to appear in the churches, at first as memorials, then in succession revered, adored, and worshipped” (The Story of the Christian Church, p. 79).
So, although the early “Christian” leaders were accommodative to the pagans around them, God warned our spiritual forefathers against following the customs of the surrounding heathen nations saying: “Do NOT inquire after their gods, saying ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall NOT worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates have they done to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:30–31).
Jesus Christ warned the religious leaders of His day, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition” (Mark 7:9). Notice carefully Jesus’ comment about rejecting the commandment of God by keeping human tradition. This is very definitely the case when we consider which days God made holy. For virtually no one keeps the days introduced by the pagans and also observes the biblical Holy Days that God commands and which Christ and the Apostolic Church observed.