Why you need Christmas to understand Easter/Memorial

by Anony Mous 24 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Anony Mous
    Anony Mous

    So I went to a Christmas evening candlelight service tonight and it hit me. I was primarily doing Christmas since leaving the JW for the children.

    Lots of people do it for family without really thinking of the relevance. During the service I was thinking of why JW does celebrate the Passover/Easter/Memorial whatever you want to call it, and listening to the story, the story of his death does not make sense without the Christmas story.

    Jesus is born from human being, he is born in the most humble/poorest conditions at the time, he is immediately placed in severe danger from King Herod. As an infant he is purely dependent on humans despite the fact that he will eventually redeem the world, for pretty much the first half of his life he does not have the capacity to defend himself. That promise is not yet fulfilled at birth and his death cannot be fulfilled without his birth. You cannot think about someone dying without celebrating where they come from and their life and birth.

    What the JW do however, is skip that entire first part, something that is part of every single Christian religion and reject it as false, thereby rejecting that Christianity does not come from high borne political or religious leaders or wise men, Christianity can be started and understood from the most basic principles, the parallels of Bethlehem and Nazareth being nothing towns born in the lowest place of that town and the story of his path to Jerusalem is the exact opposite of JW doctrine or various other religions that starts from a big city and self-declared wise men down.

    You cannot think of a fulfilled life without celebrating the mother, and the father, and the environment that raised that person. Even if you believe Jesus was just a good person, Mary and Joseph is the one that made him that way, that is why Christmas is important to understanding the Passion.

    And in this sense I am now also thinking why Catholics venerate the mother (Mary), it just makes sense deep down… although I am not sure yet of the significance.

    These are my ramblings for the night, Merry Christmas!

  • Sea Breeze
    Sea Breeze

    I agree. He was born for one purpose: to die. Better for one man to die than for everyone to perish.

    49But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. 50Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” 51He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, 52and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. - John 11

    P.S. The 6 hr. mini series "Jesus of Nazereth" (1978?) is the best of the Jesus movies. VERY well done and pretty accurate. It's available for free on YouTube.

  • MeanMrMustard
    MeanMrMustard

    I would like to offer some ramblings too. As most Christians are Trinitarians, even some on this forum, and although I am not a theist, I always liked to imagine the Word of God, with all the fullness of God, contained within this shell, offering Himself as the ultimate sacrifice; And yet, being fully God, Jesus was also fully man. And since he was fully man, it's completely conceivable, nay probable, that within his short 33 years, at least once He didn't boil his water throughly, or perhaps had some undercooked passover lamb. Someone's innocent mistake sent the God of the universe into the privy for a night of painful diarrhea. Imagine looking up at the night sky at all the stars you created, simultaneously doubling down into uncontrolled bowel contractions.

    The moral of the story : cook your food well.

  • Vanderhoven7
    Vanderhoven7

    I also agree AM.

    The shadow of the cross rested over the manger. "To this end I was born", He said.

    Here is an interesting parable that was floating around in the early 70s.

    God leads a pretty sheltered life.”

    At the end of time, billions of people were scattered on a great plain before God’s throne of judgment. Some of the groups near the front were angry and bitter

    "How can God judge us? How can He know anything about suffering?” snarled a woman, with a tattooed number on her arm from a Nazi concentration camp.

    In another group, a black man lowered his collar. “What about this?” he demanded, showing the rope burns. “Lynched for no crime but being black!

    Each group seemed to have some complaint against God for the evil and suffering they experienced in life. How lucky God was, to be able to live in heaven where all is sweetness and light, without sorrow, fear, loss or pain. Indeed, what does God know about man and about what we had to face? After all, they agreed, God leads a pretty sheltered life.

    So the leaders of each group got together and decided: Before God would be qualified to be their judge; He must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth as a man.

    • Let Him be born in poverty...said the leader of one group

    • Let the legitimacy of His birth be questioned....said another

    • Let him experience sorrow and grief, others shouted.

    • Let Him be the object of hate and condemnation

    • Let Him be accused and convicted on false charges

    • Let Him be tortured and die the death of a criminal, alone and abandoned

    As each leader announced his portion of God's sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the great throng.

    Then after the last one had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered another word. No one moved. For suddenly, all recognized the stark reality;

    God had already served his sentence.


  • SydBarrett
    SydBarrett

    "I agree. He was born for one purpose: to die. Better for one man to die than for everyone to perish"


    Yes. He had to sacrifice himself to himself to save microbes living on a mote of dust from himself.

    Makes perfect sense.

  • MeanMrMustard
    MeanMrMustard

    Also - all that dry ancient middle eastern air. The God of the universe, after a hard day of being perfect, surely picked his nose a bit... I mean He must have cleaned house from time to time...

  • jhine
    jhine

    Absolutely Anony Mous

    Jan from Tam

  • Journeyman
    Journeyman

    The title of this thread is clearly nonsense - there wasn't even any "Christmas" or "Easter" as we know them today for the early Christians.

    However, I take the point that the entirety of Christ's life on earth should be considered important to Christians.

    Just as many churchgoers (and their clergy) tend to dwell at length on just three occasions - his birth, his death and his resurrection - yet overlook what the Bible says about his life now as enthroned King, so too the JWs tend to not to focus on his early life, perhaps in an attempt to distance themselves from the later trappings of "the Christmas story".

    The point about Jesus being "purely dependent on humans" is true up to a point in that he grew up as a "normal" boy, but God was observing his growing up and ensuring he was not killed by the Devil before his time (note John 2:4, John 7:6, John 7:30, etc, which show there was a series of events he had to fulfill first). So his childhood was not completely normal in that significant sense.

    He still had that major "mission" lying ahead of him, and although he wasn't fully aware of everything, he must have known something about being "different" since his parents would no doubt have told him he was special, and the comment he made at Luke 2:49 suggests by then at least, he realised it.

    We do not know if Satan attempted to kill Jesus while he was still a youth, although the fact that Herod sought to kill all the young boys to ensure his death while a toddler makes it possible that was not the only attempt that would've been made on his life when he was young, unless God specifically blocked any.

    You cannot think about someone dying without celebrating where they come from and their life and birth

    That may be so from our mortal human viewpoint, but that is contradicted by two things in the Bible.

    Firstly, Ecclesiastes 7:1-4 which says "A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth". This is because at death you have done all you can, made your mark and achievements and built memories with others, whereas at birth you are a blank slate who has achieved nothing and not established what sort of person you are yet. Of course, you can't have death without birth first, but the fact is that one's achievements in life and eventually one's death overshadow their birth. If they do well and end their life in a good position (morally, not materially) then their life is seen as "good" and that reflects well on their birth looking back. But if they turn out to be someone 'evil', then that has the opposite effect and means their birth is looked back on as a 'bad' thing even if, perhaps, their birth was neutral and life could've gone either way from there.

    Secondly, Jesus made no reference to commemorating his birth or even when it truly was, but his death, in contrast, is to be remembered and marked forever because of its universal significance. In part, this makes sense because Jesus 'birth', unlike that of any human, was not really the beginning of his existence. Also, though he was raised a Jew in Palestine, he did not adopt the views and attitudes of the people because ultimately, he was not of their origin and was looking to a higher calling and future, not limited to a specific nation or culture.

    Your comment IS true of us ordinary humans though, because our place of birth and upbringing really is our "roots" (since we did not exist before), and it often rubs off on us, providing us with lifelong habits, memories and even accent and speech patterns. But this would not have been the same for Jesus.

    TLDR: Although there is little about "the Christmas story" of these days that is necessary to understand Jesus, I do agree there is one aspect that is key: the fact that he grew up in the culture of the time with an otherwise normal family life of lowly standing helps us to understand how he - despite being the Son of God and having such an awe-inspiring 'mission' ahead of him - could also be truly 'human' in the sense of showing love, feeling and emotion for the suffering of those around him, and an understanding of the humble, ordinary "common" person.

    Twice, he had observed all aspects of human behaviour and suffering: once from heaven alongside his Father, and now, "up close and personal" in the flesh alongside other human beings. No wonder he has deep love and feeling for the pain of humanity.

  • jhine
    jhine

    Journeyman , may l ask how you think 'churchgoers ( and their clergy ) ' miss out on what the Bible says about Jesus's life now as an enthroned King ?

    Jan from Tam

  • Vanderhoven7
    Vanderhoven7

    Good question Jan, because Jesus was enthroned as king subsequent to His ascension. Neither 1878, no 1914 have anything to do with Christ’s enthronement.

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