Getting "Christ" Out of Christmas

When I was a young man growing up in what was basically a Christian environment of the Protestant persuasion, I loved observing Christmas.  It was certainly my favorite holiday.  It was festive, everyone had warm spirits, and I loved getting presents and even giving them.  My sister, my brother, and I would wait eagerly throughout the season.  We would anticipate putting up the Christmas tree, decorating the house, going Christmas shopping, going to sing carols, and going to the local department store to sit on Santa Claus' lap.  I really saw no issue with Christmas observance in and of itself, though I did always have this nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right.

Every Sunday, I'd go to Sunday school and Children's Church, a version of the larger Sunday worship service held in its own building and catered specifically to the sensibilities of the children of the congregation, and I'd learn about "God" and "Jesus" and all of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles.  It was eventually there that I came to realize that things were a bit off.  This was because along with all of these odd traditions that I couldn't really correlate to any religious beliefs I was taught, there were also seemingly unrelated religious aspects to the same holiday.  My young mind couldn't correlate these things together.  I couldn't explain how a holiday that was about the birth of an important person that we called "Jesus" would instead give so much emphasis to a different character I couldn't identify within my religious instruction called "Santa Claus".  I could understand why we did the Christmas tree by itself, because it was certainly fun and pretty, but why did we throw in a manger scene and give it much less emphasis?  There were two seemingly distinct traditions within the holiday which were mixed up with each other, and I just didn't get why.  Now suffice it to say, Christmas wasn't the only religious holiday I had these questions about.  I also felt the same confusion around Easter, another holiday that seemed to have an almost schizophrenic devotion to two completely different streams of thought and tradition.  But certainly Christmas was the one that gave me the most pause because it was the one I enjoyed the most and to which I had the most personal devotion, and so it was the one that perplexed me the most.

But as many children that age do, I didn't allow myself to explore the root causes of my confusion. I had an implicit trust of my parents and my larger family at the time, and I could have happily forgotten about the subject for the rest of my life, never bringing it up again.  Much of my childhood attachment to this holiday grew as my earliest years passed by; however, as I began to emerge from childhood and into my teenage years, I grew more and more uneasy about these things. I attended Church services regularly, and happily really. I enjoyed learning about the faith I was being reared in, and I wanted to know more about it.  I had a hunger for deeper knowledge, and I strongly felt that "God" was leading me in a direction, that He was gripping my very being and slowly leading me to understand these deeper things as I was ready for them.  Around this time, I began to hear many adults, particularly religious adults like my grandparents, repeating what we would today refer to as a meme: "We must keep Christ in Christmas".

This meme struck a chord with me.  I felt there was much truth in it, and yet I also couldn't help but wonder what the implementation of such a meme would mean for this special holiday.  Just what would a holiday like Christmas be without these non-Christ-like traditions?  Would it be anything like Christmas at all?   And why were these individuals who were so oft repeating this meme about keeping "Christ" in Christmas the very ones who seemed most devoted to those traditions that had no obvious connection to "Jesus", those traditions that seemed more secular and fairy talish?  Over the years, I felt like I was constantly wrestling between my devotion to the customs that seemed to clearly revolve around "Jesus" and those customs that clearly revolved around some other mysterious thing that I could not identify.  It was as if "Jesus" and Santa Clause were fighting in my head for my loyalty.

By my late teens, I could no longer escape the need to look more directly into these things and gain a better understanding of just which part of Christmas was acceptable for someone who wanted to devote himself to the religion and not the tradition.  Because I really had no idea where to look, the information sort of trickled in over the forthcoming years.  After a number of years of looking into it when I could, and gathering tidbits of information here and there, all mostly retrieved on autopilot, sometimes without conscious participation, I had an epiphany of sorts in my latter teen years that put the conflict into a new perspective for me.  I came to a very sudden realization that the traditions related to the birth of an important divine emissary, the general timing of December 25 for his arrival, and the traditions that seemed to be so unrelated to those two elements, were in fact all in the same family, which is frankly something that up to that time I had never imagined they could be. All of those the traditions I hadn't been able to associate to a religious cause had in fact been built upon a religious foundation after all, one which was certainly much older than Christianity. It was in fact, the concept of "Jesus" which had been the insertion into this ancient observance, an observance which seemed to cross national and cultural boundaries all over the world within various mystery religions.  I realized to my increased surprise that my goal shouldn't be to put "Christ" back into Christmas, but more properly to remove both "Christ" and myself from Christmas altogether,  I made that difficult decision around the time I turned 18 years old, much to the chagrin of most of my family and friends.

A few weeks ago, before Christmas came upon us, I was reminded of just why I had to do this. I was Facebooking and saw an interesting image which showed a Teutonic deity, likely Odin, adorned with holly and mistletoe, along with a caption that said "Keep the Yule in Yuletide".  Shortly thereafter, I saw someone comment on a website article which said "Put the Sol Invictus back into Solstice".  The memes themselves were likely less intended to be instructive as they were intended to incite Christian sensibilities, but regardless of their intent, the actual point could easily be argued successfully as valid in both cases.

I want to present some of my reasons for looking at the holiday this way now, but unlike those memes and the people behind them, I am not trying to troll Christians. I was, after all, in their shoes for many years of my life, and I see no comedy in this kind of disillusionment, even the necessary sort.  I see some value in trying to help all who read this understand why this holiday isn't what they likely believe it to be, and why it isn't really a suitable holiday to celebrate anything related to the Elohim of Yisrael. I know this won't be news to everyone; many have known this information for a while and made peace with it in some way, either by rejecting the holiday as I have, or by embracing it anyway through a number of rationalizations. But there are also some who don't know this information, and I write this primarily for them.

Long before the birth of Yeshua ("Jesus"), what we know now as Christmas was being celebrated by various brands of polytheists all over the world.   Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a winter-solstice festival of candles, feasting, gift-giving and caroling. The festivities went on for several days, culminating in the final day December 23.  Likewise, December 25 was the birthday of the Persian sun god Mithras among many other deities related to the worship of the sun, and the day of the suicide/resurrection of the Greek deity Attis, both of these mythological events being well suited to a time when the sun slowly dies with shorter and shorter days, only to be reborn after the grand day with longer and longer days. Various other traditions also existed from differing sources which were also related to these days -- Celts, Saxons, and Germans put large significance on longevity symbols such as evergreen trees and shrubs, which stayed green in the Winter and symbolized their own ideas about rebirth and eternal life, and fertility symbols such as holly and mistletoe. The various pagan cultures added a variety of other traditions. Ancient Germanic Europeans added the Yule log, named specifically for the celebration of the pre-Christian Festival known as Yule and burnt on that holiday, and the name by which many Europeans still call "Christmas", and one which later Romanized Celtic cultures refashioned into a traditional Christmas dessert. Germans specifically began to adorn their evergreens and move them inside, and just about every ancient observer of these festivals had some "spirit" of the season who was jolly, gift-giving, and often a god of some sort who rewarded good behavior.  For many, it was the Teutonic deity Odin, mentioned in the first paragraph, which was one of the clear forerunners of what Americans call Santa Claus, and other cultures call by other names. Some European cultures had a conversely evil "spirit" (or god) who punished bad behavior, such as Krampus.

Yeshua's birth, of course, did not happen on these days, and none of these traditions had any relation to the accounts of his birth written by the dedicated Jews who worshipped only Elohim and strongly rejected the customs of the nations around them. Based on detail provided in the Scriptures, his birth seems to have taken place in the Fall, most likely around the Jewish Festivals of the time such as Yom Teruah or Sukkot, and so customs that would have been celebrated around his birth were the blowing of the shofar, fasting, and living in a sukkah for seven days. For certain, his birth could not have occurred in the Winter, given that many of the events that happened in tandem were simply out of season for the time.  For instance, shepherds would almost certainly have not been keeping their sheep in fields by night, as is described in the announcement from the messengers that is recorded in some of the accounts of the Besorah (Gospels).  By that time of the year, weather conditions forced shepherds to move their sheep into pens away from the cold, usually being completed in late October.  Besides this, early "Christian" writers who described their religion didn't include the Christmas celebration among their festivals at all at this time, nor were they particularly interested in celebrating birthdays, which they seemed to associate with Pagan cultures:

"Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts; Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Natalitia, asserts (in Lev. Hom. viii in Migne, P.G., XII, 495) that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday; Arnobius (VII, 32 in P.L., V, 1264) can still ridicule the "birthdays" of the gods." (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908, article on "Christmas")

Additionally, as Josephus points out, Jews in general did not seem to celebrate birthdays at this time.  This may have been a Pharisaic restriction rather than a general restriction among all sects of Jews at the time, but given that early believers in Yeshua (Jesus) were Jews and Jewish converts, it seems unlikely that the earliest among his followers would have picked up this sort of ritual:

"Nay, indeed, the law does not permit us to make festivals at the births of our children, and thereby afford occasion of drinking to excess; but it ordains that the very beginning of our education should be immediately directed to sobriety. It also commands us to bring those children up in learning, and to exercise them in the laws, and make them acquainted with the acts of their predecessors, in order to their imitation of them, and that they might be nourished up in the laws from their infancy, and might neither transgress them, nor have any pretense for their ignorance of them." ("Against Apion", Book 2, Section 26, "The Works of Flavius Josephus", translated by William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo John E. Beardsley, 1895)

The earliest references we have to the tradition of observing the birth of Yeshua come from around 200 C.E., observed by early Christians in Alexandria, Egypt.  However, there was no consensus on the date, and certainly December 25 was not the only date.  Additionally, we have no real resource that describes these celebrations with anything other than a passive relationship to the modern one we know.

"The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt. About A.D. 200, Clement of Alexandria (Stromata I.21) says that certain Egyptian theologians 'over curiously' assign, not the year alone, but the day of Christ's birth, placing it on 25 Pachon (20 May) in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus. [Ideler (Chron., II, 397, n.) thought they did this believing that the ninth month, in which Christ was born, was the ninth of their own calendar.] Others reached the date of 24 or 25 Pharmuthi (19 or 20 April). With Clement's evidence may be mentioned the 'De paschæ computus', written in 243 and falsely ascribed to Cyprian (P.L., IV, 963 sqq.), which places Christ's birth on 28 March, because on that day the material sun was created. But Lupi has shown (Zaccaria, Dissertazioni ecc. del p. A.M. Lupi, Faenza, 1785, p. 219) that there is no month in the year to which respectable authorities have not assigned Christ's birth. Clement, however, also tells us that the Basilidians celebrated the Epiphany, and with it, probably, the Nativity, on 15 or 11 Tybi (10 or 6 January)."  (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908, article on "Christmas")

So how did all of these disparate yet related traditions of polytheistic worship come together into the modern "Christmas"? The idea that Yeshua was born on December 25, and that these traditions were related to his birth, began as a tradition among the Pagans who were being assimilated into Christianity.  Very likely, their affinity to this day or time period came specifically from their former traditions built around their Pagan deities, deities which they were now being asked to give up:

"It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day." (Jacob Bar-Salibi, a 12th-century Syrian bishop, cited in Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, Ramsay MacMullen. Yale:1997, p. 155)

"Christianity" became the State religion in the fourth century, and by the efforts of the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. and succeeding definitive Councils, and eventually a mandate was issued for everyone living within the Roman Empire, excluding those Jews who did not believe in Yeshua, to embrace that new State religion. It was certainly not going to be easy to sell the idea to the various religious cultures living in the now reunited Roman Empire, and finding common ground to quell the inevitable rebellion of the inhabitants of Roman territory was a must. What we are reading in the previous quote is that early leaders in the Catholic Church seemed to have recognized that those who were now embracing the new religion were including their older celebrations in a new light, one that replaced their deities with the venerables recognized by the new State faith.

"When Constantine came to power in 306 AD, the prevailing religion was Mithraism, but Constantine gradually came to be converted to Christianity. As a result, Christianity became the state religion and public funds were used to build churches. It was Constantine who commissioned the building of the Church of the Nativity on a spot in Bethlehem assumed to be the exact birthplace of Christ. By the end of the fourth century, the old forms of worship had been banned, and Christianity began spreading across the land." (Christmas Day: December 25 Wasn't the First Choice)

The first official order which accepted this change and merged the two customs came by Papal pronouncement, that is, an order of the reigning Pope, in the year 350 C.E.   Merging these celebrations into a new "Christian" celebration around the birth of Yeshua, including the keeping of the pagan customs associated with them now branded with a new "Christian" spin, was a masterful move to assimilate pagans and polytheists into the now State-approved and State-mandated religion. December 25 was a particularly apt choice in bringing in the followers of Mithraism, a religion that was in direct successful competition with early forms of what most now call Christianity, along with a few other religions, and it was just close enough to those who missed the day by one or two before or after to be an acceptable alternative. Pope Julius, recognizing that they all centered on or near the Winter Solstice, merged customs and timing around these various solstice celebrations into a convenient religious connection for Christians, making the new religion all the more palatable to them, and all the more appealing to those non-Christians who now had no choice but to convert. His sales pitch was basically that nothing significant would change in their observances -- just the "god" they worshiped.

"In 350 AD Pope Julius I declared December 25 the official date and in 529 AD Emperor Justinian declared Christmas a civic holiday. Further legislation by the Council of Tours in 567 AD officially made Advent a period of fasting and preparation; the time from Christmas to Epiphany (the twelve days of Christmas) was also declared part of the festive season. 

"To some the December date may seem completely arbitrary, but in fact it was a calculated choice that reflected the importance of winter solstice festivals for the cultures of pre-Christian Europe and Asia. To abolish these festivals in favor of strictly Christian forms of celebration would have been extremely unpopular. Though many early Christian leaders such as Gregory of Nazainzus spoke out against combining pagan and Christian ways, it became clear early on that rather than trying to beat the pagans, Christians would be wiser to join them in their own game – to incorporate their most deep-rooted traditions into Christian worship and celebration." (ibid)

This ultimately meant that customs around solar cycles and sun worship, such as the birth, fertility, longevity, and renewal customs related to these pre-Christian festivals, also became part of the festivities around the celebration of the birth of this Yeshua.  Additionally, it seemed rather easy to stretch prophetic statements from the Tanakh (Old Testament) around Yeshua's arrival into the day's meaning as the end and new beginning of the solar cycle.  For instance, one of the last prophecies ever written in the Tanakh is the following:

"But to you who fear My Name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings." (Malaki / Malachi 4:2)

Here, the Mashiach (Messiah) seems to be referred to prophetically as the "Sun of Righteousness". For the speculative record, there is also the possibility that the term for the sun in this case is a noun-form of one of the late Hebrew verbs for "to serve", a verb that applies to willing service as opposed to other Hebrew terms that are more apt to imply indentured servitude.  Though this term for service is late in Hebrew and has its first certain occurance in the Mishna, Malachi is the last book to have been written chronologically speaking in the Tanach ("Old Testament").  The name for the sun and the noun-form of this verb for service would identical except for vowel markings to indicate vowel sounds to differentiate words, which is the fundamental mechanism for Hebrew morphology between various root words, and given that the earliest extant copies of the Hebrew text do not have vowel markings to distinguish these terms, that this term means "Servant" rather than "Sun" is indeed a possibility.  If true, this would turn this verse into something like this:

"But to you who fear My Name the Servant of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings." (Malaki / Malachi 4:2)

If this term indeed means "Sun" in this case, then this is a rare prophetic metaphor of HaMashiach (Messiah) as the Sun, and more likely relates to the coming of the "light", to which he is more commonly referred in both the Tanach and the Ketuvim Netzarim (New Testament). Regardless of whether it means "Sun" or "Servant", just this mere possible reference to Mashiach as "Sun" allowed the masses to relate this day in which the deity known as "Sol Invictus" ("Unconquerable Sun") was reborn every year,  to the birth of this unrelated "Sun of Righteousness".

"The earliest rapprochement of the births of Christ and the sun is in Cyprian, 'De pasch. Comp.', xix, 'O quam præclare providentia ut illo die quo natus est Sol . . . nasceretur Christus.' — 'O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born . . . Christ should be born.' 

"In the fourth century, Chrysostom, 'del Solst. Et Æquin.' (II, p. 118, ed. 1588), says: 'Sed et dominus noster nascitur mense decembris . . . VIII Kal. Ian. . . . Sed et Invicti Natalem appelant. Quis utique tam invictus nisi dominus noster? . . . Vel quod dicant Solis esse natalem, ipse est Sol iustitiæ.' — 'But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December . . . the eight before the calends of January [25 December] . . ., But they call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered'. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord . . .? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice.'" (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908, article on "Christmas")

Popes came and went, and while some of them such as Pope Leo I had objections to these revivals of customs surrounding Solar cycles, each of them preserved this assimilation, among others, while certainly knowing of their origins. This was likely seen as a valid compromise despite the obvious problem with incorporation of polytheistic customs into a (supposedly) monotheistic religion, because, after all, didn't the Pope have the keys to the Kingdom -- and thus, didn't he have the authority to merge whatever he felt necessary? Wasn't whatever he said bound in HaShamayim (Heaven) and on Earth? From that now dominating Catholic standpoint, he surely did hold that authority to every man who mattered and held power in the Western branch of the Roman Empire. So tied to Papal authority was this winter celebration, that when the Protestant Reformation first occurred, one of the first things rejected by many branches was Christmas and all its questionable festivities, especially those who immigrated to America. It took more marketing, this time in the form of secular consumerism, to break this hold and push Christmas into the nearly universal "Christian" festival that it is today. This was helped along by Queen Victoria, who began prominently participating in the German Christmas festivities, including the Christmas Tree, after marrying a son of German nobility, which helped promote the customs and consumerism behind the current holiday.

This should go without saying, but it apparently doesn't so I say this now: someone who follows the Torah and the Besorah (Gospel), who keeps the mitzvot (commandments) of Elohim and the testimony of Yeshua HaMashiach, doesn't recognize Papal authority to malign the pure worship of the one true Elohim by mixing it with the useless customs of polytheists, nor for that matter the authority of a dead Queen, nor the authority or needs of merchants, nor any other class of individual justifying for themselves the virtual need to participate in customs that have no place in the worship of the Creator YHWH Elohim. No number of theological contortions, or reverse-engineering, or wishful thinking, or warm Christmas hearts, will bless away the abhorrence that they clearly are to the Elohim to which they are mistakenly (and often malignantly) directed. They have nothing to do with the birth of Yeshua, and everything to do with the worship of the worthless deities of the nations.

And this association cannot be divorced from them by simply changing the names of the deities in question. Elohim openly states that He doesn't like them, EVEN when they are offered to Him instead. As YHWH told Yisrael before they entered into his Kodesh Land:

"When YHWH your Elohim will cut off the nations from before you, when you enter in to evict them, and you evict them and live in their land, be very careful that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed before you, and be sure that you do not inquire after their gods saying: 'How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.' You will not do this to YHWH your Elohim, for every abomination to YHWH, the things he hates, they have done to their gods; even going as far as to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods." (Debarim / Deuteronomy 12:29-31).

Thankfully, the older Yule traditions that involved human sacrifice are no longer part of the Festivals, but these warnings from the Mouth of Elohim Himself don't allow any of the rest either. No matter how minor we may think some custom of polytheistic worship which we enjoy is, Elohim describes them collectively as "abominations" and "the things he hates".

And we know that Yisrael did not obey this edict.  They sinned against YHWH by doing exactly what they were told never to do.  They did it individually and nationally, and YHWH did not fail to note that His people had crossed this covenant-breaking line in the sand.  He sent many Nabi'im over the centuries to warn them of their ways, warnings which were either ignored, or only purchased temporary results among the peoples.  The Nabi Eliyahu (Prophet Elijah), for instance, once called for Yisrael to choose between YHWH and the Pagan deity Ba'al, and to cease from wavering between two opinions:

"Eliyahu came to all the people, and said, 'How long would you keep hopping between two opinions? If YHWH is Elohim, follow Him; and if Ba'al, follow him.'" (1 Melakim / 1 Kings 18:21)

The Children of Yisrael were not simply worshiping Ba'al alone; they were mixing practices of that deity's worship into the worship of YHWH. In this statement, Eliyahu was calling for a complete rejection of Ba'al in and of itself, and also by inference a removal of those things that had no place in the worship of YHWH, because as we just saw in the Torah, YHWH declares that customs used in the worship of foreign deities cannot be circumcized or baptized or any other manner of polished for legitimate use in the worship of the One True Elohim. Keeping them alive in our lives and cultures is essentially wavering between two opinions.

"The customs of the peoples are useless" decries Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) in 10:3 of the account of the Word given to him. He goes on to record how the day will come when Elohim will bring an end to these things and call all the nations to His pure worship:

"YHWH, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the time of distress: the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth and say, 'Our parents have certainly inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no value. Can a man make gods for himself, when they are not gods?' Therefore I will teach them this once, I will teach them my power and might. Then they will know that my name is YHWH!" (Yirmeyahu / Jeremiah 16-19-21).

As we are additionally told by another great prophet of Elohim, He won't be just coming this time around with peace, but with war, and a judgement for all those who do not make teshuva (repent) and give up their worthless customs, He will abolish these worthless customs and restore His appointed times to the entire world so that all nations will observe them at the proper time and the proper place:

"And YHWH will move forward and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle... And in that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, ... And the Mount of Olives will be split in two, from east to west,... YHWH your Elohim will come, and all the Kodesh ones with him... and in that day it will be that Living Waters will flow from Yerushalayim, half of them to the Eastern Sea and half to the Western Sea, in Summer and in Winter alike, and YHWH will be Sovereign over all the Earth. In that day YHWH will be One, and His Name will be One.... And it will happen that all who are left from those nations which fought against Yerushalayim will go up from year to year to worship YHWH Tzva'ot (YHWH of Hosts), and to observe the Festival of Sukkot." (Zekaryah / Zechariah 14).

Part of cleansing the world to bring about the Olam Haba ("the new age" or "the world to come"), is necessarily to judge and remove all those things which can have no place in it. So before peace comes, judgement IS coming -- we will all stand naked before Him and have an account to make. I urge any of you that have circumcised ears, don't remain in Babel blindly and stubbornly. Take the stern but loving advice of our Elohim, which he communicated through both Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) and Yochanan (John):

"Flee from Babel! Run for your lives! Do not be destroyed because of her sins. It is time for YHWH's vengeance; He will repay her what she deserves...Come out of her, my people! Run for your lives! Run from the fierce anger of YHWH!... Listen! The days are coming when I will punish the idols of Babel, and her whole land will be put to shame" (Yirmeyahu / Jeremiah 51:45, 47). 

"Then I heard another voice from the Shamayim (Heaven) saying, 'Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues" (Hit'Galut / Revelation 18:4).

We all have choices to make in life, and sometimes they aren't easy ones. Sometimes they are even alienating. Most will continue to observe the polytheistic observances like Christmas, even those who basically know better, and will make every justification in their own minds for doing so. Part of this will be their love of their own traditions, but another part will also be a need to remain within a certain circle of acceptance. When you are in a culture steeped in these traditions, it can be extremely alienating to suddenly find that you should be avoiding them. And beyond just mere society, the situation is exacerbated greatly when family is involved. But it is worth it -- no amount of human companionship can really compare to the love and devotion of YHWH our Elohim, which will be magnified in your life when you rid yourself of things which are offensive to Him and dedicate yourself to Him completely. In the absence of this, we will find ourselves separated from Him, deemed unworthy to sit and learn at His feet.  As Yeshua himself said:

"If anyone comes to me and does not set aside father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters -- yes, even their own life -- such a person cannot be my talmid (disciple)." (Luqas / Luke 14:26).

The Greek, which I believe is not the original but a translation, uses a word that unquestionably means "hate", but the Aramaic Peshitta, which I believe is the original, uses terms that in Semitic thought more aptly mean "set aside" in these contexts.  So Yeshua is stating that we must set these other things aside in our lives, making them secondary, to our love of Elohim. Obviously Yeshua is not telling us to hate our parents (which itself would be a violation of the 5th mitzvah or commandment) or our families, or anyone for that matter (as he points out, the second greatest mitzvah or commandment of the Torah is to love your neighbor as yourself).  No, his point is that we must not, as his talmidim (disciples) place them or anyone else or anything else above our devotion to Elohim. He put the same point another way in the famous parable of the "Pearl of Great Price":

"Again, the kingdom of the Shamayim (Heaven) is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it." (Matityahu / Matthew 13:45-46).

Many of us are faced with a decision to give up several things we know and love to correct our relationship with Elohim.  For some of us, depending on our circumstances in life, that could be giving up everything we know and love.  Regardless of our circumstances though, we should all be ready to give up everything that is necessary to bring ourselves into covenant with the One who authored our existence.  The price is big, but I believe it will be well worth it.

For those of us who have ears to hear and hearts to comply, let's endeavor to get "Christ", or rather as I prefer, "Mashiach", firmly OUT of Christmas, a holiday in which he clearly does not belong. Let the Pagans have their circle meetings, and we can embrace YHWH without that incompatible baggage. There are much better things in store for those of us who love YHWH our Elohim, the One True Elohim, with all of our hearts, minds, and souls! If you prefer to stick with your golden calves, the latter praise simply cannot be said of you, neither in this age nor in the age to come.