I was thinking of holidays, and how the celebration of them is a prime opportunity to pass the culture to the next generation. The Lord established monuments in Israel to remind the people of something important He had done, which they were not to forget, and instructed them to instruct their children about them also. A holiday is like a monument: it reminds of an important event.
The Lord established eight holidays for Israel, one weekly (the Sabbath) and seven annually, and they were to be reminders of what the Lord had done or was going to do. Which brings me to Christmas.
Christmas is not a commanded observation (nor is it forbidden), and it does remind of something important the Lord has done. We have many things we do at Christmas time, let us let each one be fraught with meaning so as to pass the culture — the biblical worldview — to the next generation.
My dh and I have put up and decorated our Christmas tree. Decorating the tree, which children love to do far into their teens, is a prime opportunity to use the history and symbolism of the custom to tell the Gospel to children. This year my dh and I shopped for a new star to put on top of the tree. I wanted one which better matched our style of ornaments (vintage American and German glass).
Since the 15th century, the star on top of a Christmas tree represented the Star of Bethlehem, which led the wise men to the baby Jesus, so they could worship Him. What a great opportunity to reinforce to the next generation that the wise of heart seek Jesus until they find Him, not to deluge Him with requests, but to worship Him!
Dialectic and rhetoric stage children will enjoy the research at What Was the Star?, an excellent site which logically destroys one objection of the skeptics, that the Star of Bethlehem was a myth with no correlation to an observed astronomical event. In the process, the authors beautifully weave in the Gospel throughout.
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