Our Co-opted Christmas – It’s a Good Thing

It is about 2009 years since the birth of the man we call Jesus.  No one really knows the exact year of his birth and as for the day of his birth, well there are a lot of theories, but the chance of it being December 25th is about 1 in 365. The selection of Dec 25 as the day to celebrate the birth of Jesus is really due to the desire of the Roman Church to co-opt the “Pagan” holidays that were associated with the winter solstice.  It turned out to be a pretty good strategy, although, over the years, it did bring a lot of the Pagan symbols – like the Christmas tree – into the whole Christmas package.

The various Christian churches have tried, over the past two thousand years, to keep “Christ in Christmas”, mainly by making sure their members attended church services on Christmas Day, but in recent years Christmas has been co-opted by the business community, particularly the retail industry. This industry has now become so dependent on an annual “Christmas bubble” that they now depend on good Christmas sales to finish their fiscal year with a profit.  This year could be a close call. I guess they might be learning another lesson about depending on bubbles to make money.

Nevertheless, if we look at all the buying and giving of presents during Christmas, it is all happening for one basic reason: people are showing that they care for each other, that they love each other.  So, in a strange way, the retail industry – with all its avarice and manipulation of customers, is essentially helping people to follow the only commandment that Jesus ever gave: “Love one another.”  Today, many people celebrate Christmas gift giving even though they are not Christian. In some ways, I suppose you might say it has almost become a secular holiday.  Yet, this gift-giving by so many people, regardless of their religious affiliations, is at the heart of Christianity. As Martha Stewart might say: it’s a good thing.

The traditional churches have had a long history of c0-opting the teaching of Jesus – even to the point of changing his name from Yehoshua or Yeshua (after all, he was Jewish) to the Romanized  and then Anglicized “Jesus”.  The Roman Empire seized upon Christianity, after hundreds of years of persecution, and co-opted it, turning it into a tool to control the populace – a common practice in the ancient world.  Most religions were associated with theocracies, including the Judaic religion, and they were a very important means of influencing and controlling people.  It was his opposition to the theocracy of Judea, and his teaching that “the Law and the Prophets were until John”, that led directly to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Today, it is the new “Evangelical Christian” Churches that have c0-0pted the true message of Jesus.  Teaching primarily from the Old Testament (i.e. the Law and the Prophets) in their mega churches, they ignore the true teaching of Jesus, because the true teaching of Jesus is directed at the individual person. This message is a message of freedom from theocratic rule – a message that established churches and governments find very difficult, if not impossible, to accept.

The long history of Christianity has been a tragic tale of powerful organizations co-opting the true teachings of a man named Yeshua who dared to oppose the rich and powerful. He taught that one can only enter the “Kingdom of Heaven” as an individual – no one else holds the key and no one else can do it for you.  It wasn’t a popular teaching then among the rich and powerful, and it isn’t now.

So, it is interesting to note, as we again celebrate the birth of Yeshua, that it is not our governments and not our rule-making churches but the rich and powerful merchants of today who, ironically, through their avarice during the Christmas season, are in fact encouraging all of us to follow Yeshua’s one and only commandment: “love one another”.

Merry Christmas