The Christmas Story is a Lie

Jeremiah 16:19  “O Lord my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.  Shall a man make Gods unto himself, and they are no gods?”

Coming back to America from NZ, I get to re-see all the fallacy of Christmas.  From the lights on all the houses, to the Christmas trees in every home, to the endless commercial aspect of the holiday, it has all been a familiar sound, sight and experience.  However, this time I realize the big lie it all is.  Firstly, Christ was not born during this season.  Secondly, the Messiah’s name was not Jesus Christ.  The word Christ is a greek word meaning “ the anointed”.  It is not a name in itself, only an adjective describing someone who is anointed.  The name Jesus is the translation from the Hebrew name Yeshua, which was translated from this Hebrew, into Greek, and then Latin, and finally to English.  To call a holiday Christmas is really no honor to the Messiah.  Anyone believer or person can be anointed.  Most believe the name of the Messiah is Jesus Christ, similar to how we all have first and last names.  However, in the Hebrew culture of Yeshua’s day, a son was given only one first name followed by the fathers first name.  So Yeshua was called Yeshua, son of Yoseph.  Again, Jesus Christ is not the real name of Yeshua, son of Yoseph.  So there is one lie we were sold as Jeremiah above foretold.  Sorta messes up the Christmas season, doesn't it?  However, the real lie is the timing of Yeshua, son of Yoseph’s birth.

Jewish law from Torah commanded all Hebrews to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem twice a year.  The first was the first Jewish festival of Passover.  Every year each family went up to the City of God for the festival of Pesach.  There are actually seven festivals yearly commanded to observe, but only two required families to go up to the capital city.  The other is the festival of Sukkot and coincides with the season of fall, usually around october in the Gregorian calendar.  This is the last yearly festival and also requires each family to live outside in a booth or sukka for seven days.  December would not be so user friendly for Sukka living.  The timing for Joseph and Mary couldn't have been worse as she was obviously very heavy pregnant with baby Yeshua.  Yet they were commanded by God to observe Sukkot in Jerusalem.  Now the rich folk all got rooms inside Jerusalem, but the common folk usually chose the cheaper option of Bethlehem, a poor town just south of Jerusalem.  However, even the rooms there were all taken, so they set up their sukka (booth) in the barnyard.  But again, Yeshua was not born under a Christmas tree in a house decorated with lights with Santa the main character.  These are all lies and vanity we inherited.  Nevertheless, I want to agree with the angels at Yeshua's birth on Sukkot and proclaim joy to the world via the birth of Yeshua, the anointed son of Yoseph.