Celebrate! Redeem history!

The Homeschool Review Crew does word prompts for Instagram fun, I think it's great to have these words prompts for doing quick posts.  :)   I find them fun as sometimes it surprises me where my brain goes.  :)

The word for today is Celebrate.  Let's follow my thoughts along the way eh?

 

Celebrate: 

 This morning as I was browsing facebook I came across a post that was telling Christians to not celebrate Easter.  That to so was very pagan of us based on the roots of the word Easter.   You get the same thing for other holidays in the year, some Christian some pagan, and I have to wonder what draws people to do that.  For Christmas and Easter particularly... it bothers me greatly.   I feel like they are trying to suck the joy our of celebration of the good things of the Lord.

Christ redeems the WORLD.  He does that.

Do people not understand that?

Christmas and Easter in the CHRISTIAN tradition (redeemed, made right)  are celebrations of important events in our history.    The origins of the time of year were attempts by the Christian church to change events held at that time of the year for something better.   They wanted to change events to turn peoples minds to Christ and the things of God.   WHY is that a bad thing???  They were redeeming a pagan festival or a pagan notion for the things of God.   Think about that for a moment.

Changing a non-christian tradition and turning it into one the sees the truth.   Is that not a good thing?   Sure the origins were not good...but its been redeemed for something good.

Kinda like what Christ does in us.
Taking filthy rags and turning them into bridal white.  That's what Christ's action (dying on the cross) predicated by his actual birth into the world... DOES FOR US.

So we celebrate those two historic events.
Christmas... Christ's birth...if he was never born he couldn't die for us.
Good Friday... Christ took the punishment for our sin.  He took it, bore it, suffered the indignity.
Easter... WOOT WOOT!!!!   Sin and death CANNOT beat God's work.  THEY CAN'T

So let us Celebrate this

Kick up our heels

Rejoice

Tell of his great deals

Memorialize

Glorify

Beat the drum

Proclaim

Praise

Laud

Honour

Dedicate

Exalt

Commend

Extol

Have a time of Jubilation 

and

Raise a hand in acknowledgement of

the great work 

that

the Lord has done.

Seriously.
Can we not do what the Lord has done?
Do whatever we can to redeem this broken, fallen world that we live in?
Can we not celebrate all that the Lord God has done for us?
Shall we not tell his stories?
Must we not change what was wrong into a time when we remember what is right?

Don't let anyone tell you that we cannot do this.
That we must only look at the roots of early festivals to tell us that it is wrong to celebrate them.
GOD has redeemed us. 
We are called to make a difference.
So celebrate what the Lord has done.
Rejoice in what he has done in your life.
Talk to your neighbours and families about what this time of the year NOW means...and don't wallow in the past.
Today is a new day, a time of redemption and change.
Should we not live like it?

PS...this is not only for the days of Easter and Christmas.   We are called to make God known everyday we are alive.   This is simply my reaction to the "but the origins are evil therefore celebrating it is wrong" thought patterns that float seasonally.    I just wish people could see God's redemption at work.
 
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