I recently had a conversation with a gentleman who was a having a real issue with the tradition of celebrating Christmas and Easter. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Jesus was born or that He was raised from the dead. This man just struggled with the tradition of celebrating them on particular dates of the year.
He said, “We don’t know the exact dates– so it’s wrong to have Christmas on December 25th or Easter on a random Sunday in the Spring.”
I just looked at him a little baffled. I understood what he was saying, but everything else I know about the Word of God was overriding anything he was trying to explain.
You see, it’s not about a date.
Our celebrations are because:
- He was sent from Heaven to save us (period).
- His death is our life (period).
- And His victory is OUR victory (period).
So for me, it doesn’t matter what day on the calendar we celebrate these truths. The point is we MUST celebrate them! I love the Apostle Paul’s encouragement to us in the Book of Colossians:
“For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross” (2:12-15).
All of our days should be spent celebrating what Jesus has done for us. But because we are human and often distracted by the mundane cares of this life, we need times set apart for nothing else than to put ourselves in remembrance that we have been made alive by the power of Christ!
“So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:16-17).
“Such [things] are only the shadow of things that are to come, and they have only a symbolic value. But the reality (the substance, the solid fact of what is foreshadowed, the body of it) belongs to Christ” (Amplified).
In other words, CELEBRATE! His victory is YOUR VICTORY!
“[God] disarmed the principalities and powers that were ranged against us and made a bold display and public example of them, in triumphing over them in Him and in it [the cross]” (Colossians 2:15, Amplified).
“Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets” (Message).
The reality is, we should celebrate every day! But the warning is that anything we do over and over becomes tradition and loses its significance. So this is why it’s good to have certain times set apart for no other reason than to put ourselves in remembrance of what we have been given in Christ Jesus.
As you celebrate Christian festivities and holidays this season, I hope I have stirred you to focus less on the “date” and more on the LIFE we have in Christ.
