Friday, December 19, 2008

Well, it's that time of year again

Another year has come and gone (almost). It's time for me, once again, to ponder the meaning of Christmas.

I know I'm repeating myself, but I'm not sure what to make of Christmas. I was raised a mainstream Christian, and was raised to believe that we were celebrating Jesus' birthday, God's only son sent to earth to redeem us sinners. I believed that for many years, and never questioned it.

All that changed in a flash when I read a book that pointed out the list of demi-gods born to human mothers and divine fathers on December 25th. All the myths about these demigods predated Jesus. I was stunned. I'd never heard anything like that before. The list included: Mithra, Attis, Adonis to name a few. From that moment on, there was no way that I could justify that the Bible stories of the birth of Jesus were literally historically true and dismiss the rest of the stories as myths. There were too many similarities, and all of the stories were centuries older than the stories of Jesus. In that instant, my beliefs were destroyed, and I could never look at the world in the same way again. It was pretty scary.

Ever since then, I've really struggled with Christmas. I don't know what I'm celebrating. I'm not celebrating the religious side, so does that mean I'm not celebrating Christmas? Yet, I do put out a manger scene most years. I know I'm not alone in not celebrating the religious side. I'm happy to celebrate anything that tries to promote peace in the world and tries to make the world a nicer place - even if only for a day.

I'm also happy to celebrate the birth of the heir to King David's throne, if indeed, Jesus was of the house and lineage of David. We even sing of that, when we sing the Christmas carol, "The First Noel". The last line of the chorus says, "...born is the King of Israel."

Of course, presents are fun, and I look forward to the good feast. That's the fun side of Christmas. I don't like the fake sentimentality; it gets on my nerves after awhile. As much as I love the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life", as I've gotten older, I found "Bad(der) Santa" a bit more appealing. I know it can be rude and offensive, but if you get sick of the schmaltz, you might find it funny

Happy Holy Days, whatever the holy days of the season mean to you.