At first, it was shocking to find contradictions to my faith in the Bible. Like when I couldn’t find Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny in the text. I honestly did not know that the traditions that we followed for Christmas and Easter were not in there. I didn’t know that the words Christmas and Easter were not in there. It was one of those blank stare moments.

I think I was around 23 when I tried to find “Christmas” in the Bible (trying to win a bet with a Jehovah’s Witness at work.) I’d never read the book, but I assumed “the most wonderful time of the year” and the most celebrated event in every church I’d ever been in just *had* to be in there. Right?

I looked in the concordance in the back of the bible and “Christmas” wasn’t there. That was weird. I figured my pastor would have better resources, so I went to his study and he offered me his reference books. He asked me what I was looking for. I said, “I’m trying to find Christmas in the Bible.” He told me where I could find the story of Jesus’ birth in the Bible. I said “Thanks, but I’m looking for where it says Jesus was born December 25; where it tells how to do Santa Claus, Christmas trees, gift giving, turkey and ham for dinner… you know… Christmas.” He said, “Oh, that’s not in there.”

I was stunned! I asked, what about Easter, Halloween? He said, “those either.” (Blank stare.) I asked, “How can y’all do that? How can you tell people about these holidays and they aren’t even in the book?” He said, “Well, you have the book – why haven’t you read it?” … shut me up. I had no rebuttal.

As I “tucked tail” and headed home, I knew I had to know what else *they* had been less than forthcoming about. If the only way to know what was and was not from the book meant to study the book, then I had to study the book. Sigh…

To my dismay, not only were those holidays not in the Bible, they were relatively new inventions. There was no one source for the traditions, but they had evolved over time. Nobody in the whole Bible had celebrated any of them, so why did we? After all, Celebrating Christmas and Easter were part of what made a Christian a Christian. Right?

But, if God didn’t say to celebrate them, then who was I following by celebrating them? It wasn’t Jesus and it wasn’t God. Was it okay to celebrate them, even if it wasn’t in the book?

It didn’t take long for my Jehovah’s Witness friend to show me scripture saying not to follow pagan traditions and pointing out the origins of many of the Christmas traditions were pagan. It was another blank stare moment. It struck me that if God said *not* to do it, then Jesus wouldn’t do it; and, if I’m following Jesus then I shouldn’t do it either. Right?

People told me I was overthinking it, and that the traditions were harmless because Christian celebrations were not for the same reason as the pagan celebrations. However, “people” are not who I am supposed be following; right?

If I stopped celebrating them, because it’s not something God wanted me to do, and because it is actually something God instucted His followers not to do, then am I still a Christian?

end part 4