Kwanza

I received the suggestion that since I wrote about Chanukah I should also explain about Kwanza.  I thought that was a good idea and since Kwanza is from December 26 thru January 1 that is why I waited until this week to post this blog.  I will also warn you up front, that looking into Kwanza was very eye opening and this will be another controversial blog.  

Dr. Maulana Karenga, a Professor and Chair of African Studies at California State University, Long Beach, originated the holiday, Kwanza.  Kwanza is a Swahili phrase that means “first fruits of the harvest.”  Dr. Karenga started Kwanza in 1966 in order to, and I will quote, “give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and their history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society.” 

The last statement has upset many Christians because it is like saying that Black people cannot be Christian, and if they are, they are being Uncle Toms by following the white man’s religion.  In the book of Acts, chapter 8, Phillip tells an Ethiopian Eunuch about Jesus and leads him to Christ.  This Ethiopian would have been black. 

²⁶ And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.
²⁷ And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship,
²⁸ Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet.
²⁹ Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.
³⁰ And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
³¹ And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
³² The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:
³³ In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.
³⁴ And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?
³⁵ Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
³⁶ And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?
³⁷ And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
³⁸ And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.
³⁹ And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.
⁴⁰ But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea.

It was not until years later, in the book of Acts, that Paul takes the gospel to Europe in Acts 16.

⁶ Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia,
⁷ After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.
⁸ And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas.
⁹ And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.
¹⁰ And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.
¹¹ Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis;
¹² And from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony: and we were in that city abiding certain days.

Paul leaves Asia and goes to Europe, where the white men lived.  You see, black men first received Christianity; it was only later that white men received Christianity.  Therefore, when this professor claims that black people need an alternative to the Christian Holidays, he spoke out of ignorance because he failed to examine the history of Christianity, which explicitly states that black people received Christianity and the Christian Holidays before white men, and there is no need for an alternative holiday. 

Another thing Dr. Karenga said about this alternative holiday is that it is so the blacks do not imitate the dominate society.  However, Kwanza is by definition, a harvest festival, just like Thanksgiving.  Candle lighting occurs each night, just like Chanukah.  Furthermore, on the last night of Kwanza people exchange presents, just like Christmas.  In my opinion, Dr. Karenga took parts from all of the dominate societies’ celebrations and imitated them.

Christmas Eve

I have been explaining Christmas traditions for several years now, and I was struggling a little bit to find a subject I have not already talked about.  With a few suggestions from my wife, I have a found a few and learned some things myself. 

Christmas Eve is one tradition that most people take for granted, but I have learned that it started a long  time ago and held great importance to the church. In fact, Christmas Mass, held at midnight on Christmas Eve, was the most important church service of the year for the early Catholic Church.  The Christmas mass communion service is the only communion service the Catholic Church allowed to take place after sundown.  People would fast all day Christmas Eve and take the meal time to pray for the service that evening.  After mass and the communion service, they would break their fast with a huge meal.  As time passed, in some countries, people would exchange gifts after the meal.  Over time, other countries would hold the big meal just before the communion service and then go to Christmas Mass, and they would exchange their gifts then.  In fact, several European countries still do this today. 

Christmas Eve was also the day that they put up the Christmas tree and decorated it in several European countries in preparation for the Christmas Mass and the Christmas celebration.  Also, the other greens, as they are called, are put up on Christmas Eve. These greens would include Mistletoe and Holly. (I will include old blogs on the Christmas tree and greens)

Another tradition that is done on Christmas Eve is the lighting of the Yule log.  People would keep a piece of wood from the previous year’s Yule log fire. In England, the children would decorate it, it would be lit on Christmas Eve and they would not let the fire go out until the twelfth night, Jan 6. This date is traditionally celebrated as when the Wise man arrived to see the Christ child. 

Christmas tree

The tradition of the Christmas tree and lights was started by one of my heroes in the faith; Martin Luther.  Tradition says that Martin Luther was returning late one Christmas Eve after leading the Christmas service.  This was after Martin Luther had posted his 95 thesis on the door of the Wittenberg Church.  At this time most of Germany had become Lutheran, a church denomination that followed the teachings of Martin Luther.  The Lutheran church kept many of the traditions of the Catholic church, such as the “Christ Mass”  on Christmas Eve, which is still practiced today.

As Martin Luther was coming through the snow that Christmas Eve, the beauty of what he saw, a fir tree silhouetted against the star lit sky, struck him.  He thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen, and it was more so because he had seen it on Christmas Eve.  Later, as he was trying to describe this to his wife and children, words would not work.  So Martin Luther, being a very brash man, went out and cut down the nearest fir tree and brought it into the house.  He then decorated it with lighted candles trying to capture the same beauty he had seen.  When asked about this later in life, Luther explained that the lighted candles demonstrate the light given to the world through the birth of Jesus.  The evergreen tree represented the deathlessness of the living God. This is why this picture was so important to him.

Mistletoe

Mistletoe has green leaves and red berries which later turn white and have the traditional meaning of green being evergreen or everlasting life and the red representing the blood of Jesus, the white represents the washing away of our sins through the spilt blood of Jesus. Oh, but there is more to Mistletoe than just the colors, continue reading to find out the rest of the Mistletoe story. 

First, Mistletoe is found in trees in the winter, it is there during the summer, but it is only seen in the winter because it is the only thing living. Mistletoe comes from the old English word Misteltan where mistel mean dung and tan mean twig. They literally believed that the mistletoe sprang out of the bird droppings.  These ancient people  saw Mistletoe as a sign of God’s power to bring life out of death to make something beautiful out of something ugly. 

The tradition of mistletoe actual has two different origins from two different countries. The English version is “When Christ’s Message was beginning to shake the very core of the world, the leaders in power decided to hang Him to a tree. They believed this would end Christ’s influence and halt his message. However, like the mistletoe, the beauty and power of the Son of God sprang forth from the tree on which he was nailed, and the world took note. For Christians, the plant thus became a symbol of life after death, of faith that was so strong it could grow even in the midst of the darkness. Like mistletoe, God’s love and true faith could survive even the most barbarous time and the darkest days and believing in Jesus as Savior brought personal peace even in the midst of war.” (p128 The Stories behind the great traditions of Christmas)

Unfortunately, the idea of Mistletoe being the symbol of God’s love was missed, and it became a symbol of just love. This led to another tradition of Mistletoe; kissing beneath it. The saying was that if a young couple passed under the Mistletoe they must kiss and if they did, God would bless them with everlasting love.  

Nativity

Nativity is a Latin word that means birth.  Nativity scenes came about in 1223 when St. Francis of Assisi took wooden statues and told the common people in the little villages of Italy about the birth of Jesus. He would take each statue, explain who it was and set the whole scene for the people.  You see, back in that time, not everybody could read and even if they could read, only the priests had Bibles and the Bibles were only written in Latin.  Therefore,  people knew very little of the Bible.  These nativities become very popular and after a couple of years St. Francis would use his fellow monks instead of using the statues.  As time went on, St. Francis started using the common people in the scenes.  See my blog on caroling for the rest of the story.

Caroling

First of all, I know I told you a couple of years ago about where the word carol came from, but it bears repeating. Carol referred to a popular dance that had a certain cadence back in the 14th century. As time went on, the dancers were starting to sing to the different songs. Later, the word “Carol” became more associated with the music than the dance. Examples of songs that were from the original carols are “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” and “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”. 

Songs about the birth of Jesus have been around since the first century AD. The Bishop of Rome, or what we call the Pope, encouraged the priests to sing these songs around Christmas day. In fact, you may recognize one of the songs the Roman Bishop asked for personally, “Gloria in Excelsis Deo,” which means Glory to God in the Highest. The only problem with this was that only the priests were allowed to sing them and they were only sung in Latin, which most of the common people did not understand or get very excited about. 

In 1223, St. Francis of Assisi, sometimes called the Father of Caroling, would go around to the different towns and villages during Christmas time, and set up dramas about the birth of Jesus and use the common people as the actors. In these plays, he would use simple songs to help teach the Christmas story and he taught the people in the play the songs. After the play was over, the actors would teach the songs to their friends and then they would wander through the neighborhoods knocking on doors and singing the songs they had just learned. People were so excited because they could now sing songs about Jesus their Savior that they traveled from house to house singing about their Lord Jesus Christ. 

By the 16th century, they had wandering minstrels who traveled from town to town accompanying themselves with bagpipes, drums, and fiddles, playing and dancing to the different Carols. They would repeat the concert nightly from Christmas Eve to the feast of Epiphany (Jan 6). This shows that Caroling became popular very quickly.  The problem with this is the common man did not have a Bible. It was not until the 16^th century, when Martin Luther wrote a German language Bible, that the common man could even read the Bible, because up until then the Bible was in Latin and only priests had access to it. Therefore, non-Biblically literate people were writing songs that were not telling the true story of Jesus. The other problem was the church did not like the idea that people were taking common tunes, usually tavern drinking songs, and putting lyrics to them. Because of these reasons, the church worked very hard to stop all caroling. In fact, in England and early America, it was illegal to sing carols, you could be placed in jail or the stocks for singing them. 

The one real hold out was Martin Luther, he supported carols and hymns. He also used the idea of taking the drinking songs and changing the words. In fact, he wrote many hymns like this one you might know, “The Church is one Foundation.” He wrote it using an old drinking song. Several carols come from this era from Germany and from the influence of Martin Luther, the most memorable is “Silent Night” (check out my blog from two years ago on “Silent Night”). It was not until 1840 and Queen Victoria, did carols become acceptable. Queen Victoria was the cousin of Prince Albert of Germany, (where all the wonderful carols at Christmas time originated) and Victoria loved the sound of the carols at Christmas time. The fact that Victoria loved the Christmas carols was published in the London newspapers. The people of England responded to this by coming to Windsor Castle and serenading the queen.  Just a few years after this, caroling was wide spread in England again. These carolers were more sedate compared to the mid-century carolers. The pictures on Christmas cards with the Victorian carolers are more like what carols and caroling had become.

Caroling has lost its popularity in the last fifty years in large part to our busy lives and recorded music. I would love to encourage your family or your church choir to go do some caroling this year.

Chanukah

I have been doing this blog for several years and have done all kinds of Christmas traditions over the years and have just about run out of traditions to write about. I have been racking my brain and have asked my family to help and we have come up with a few new traditions.  I would also ask if someone thinks of something I have not discussed please forward it to me and I will save it up for next year.

The first blog is not exactly a Christmas tradition, but with all the hype made about Chanukah and Thanksgiving starting on the same day this year, and the fact that Chanukah is always around Christmas time, I thought it would be a good subject to cover.

Now, what is interesting is that the Jewish holiday of Chanukah originates with a revolt. You see, when Alexander the Great died, his four Generals divvied up his territory, one being Syria and another Egypt. When the second generation of Generals had taken over, the Syrian General (Seleuces) got greedy and tried to take over Egypt. He was stopped when the Romans stepped in. This started the good relations between Rome and Egypt, which leads to Anthony and Cleopatra, which is another story. Nevertheless, I digress, Seleuces, on his way back home, takes his frustration out on Jerusalem. He knocks down the walls, kills a lot of Jews, loots the Temple and has the Hellenistic (Greek) Jews sacrifice at least one pig on the alter in the Temple (the number varies depending on where you read). The Hellenistic Jews do this in hopes of winning favor with Seleuces and stopping the destruction. This infuriates the Orthodox Jews. This also explains why the Hellenistic Jews are looked down upon and their widows are ignored in the distribution of food in the book of Acts chapter 6.

6 And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecian against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.

But this little fight brought around Deacons.

With destruction of Jerusalem, the Hasmonean family moves to the mountain outside of Jerusalem where they gather others. Their leader’s name was Judah, whom they nicknamed the Hammer, which in Hebrew is Maccabeus, thus the name of the revolt was The Maccabean revolt. The Maccabees were able to kick Seleuces out of Jerusalem. Upon taking over the temple, they had to cleanse it. They only found one vase of kosher oil for the golden lamp stand in the temple, and it was only enough to last one day. It takes seven days for the oil to be made Kosher for the golden lamp stand. Once the lamp is lit, it is not to go out. They lit the lamp and it burned for eight days until the new oil was ready. The miracle of God providing the lamp light is what the Jewish people celebrate during Chanukah.

Today, Jewish people celebrate by lighting eight candles placed in a Menorah, one new candle is lit each night to represent the days that the candle burnt on the one day of oil.  The children are usually given a small present every night, after the candle is lit.  They also have a lot of food traditions that are quite wonderful, that I do not have time and space to go into here. 

Chanukah is called the festival of light because of the oil lamp that miraculously kept burning, but it is also fitting that the celebration of Chanukah illustrates the miracle of God, that Jesus is the Light of World.

A Christmas Carol

Next to the Bible, A Christmas Carol is my favorite book.  Ever since I was a young man, I have read the book at Christmas time.  In fact, as my children got older, I read it to them and this year,  my youngest wants to help read it as part of his reading assignments in school (we home school).  Many people do not know the story behind the story and how A Christmas Carol has affected the manner Christmas is celebrated today.

In the fall of 1843, Charles Dickens, a very famous novelist of the time, was facing a financial crisis.  His latest books had only sold moderately well.  Family bills were adding up and the mortgage was coming due.  So one night he decided to take a walk along the river Thames.  He happened to wonder into a rundown neighborhood of London.  The streets were covered in garbage, the gutter had raw flowing sewage, and there were pickpockets and streetwalkers everywhere. 

 This brought back memories of his own childhood.  When Dickens was 12 his father was thrown in debtor’s prison and he had to go to work at a shoe polish factory where he placed labels on tins of shoe polish 12 hours a day 6 days a week for just pennies. 

Upon coming home, he came up with the idea of writing A Christmas Carol.  He wanted to give the people hope again at Christmas time. He thought if he wrote about good cheer and goodwill for the people he loved, the people suffering in poverty as he had, that He could give them hope.  I have told you in my caroling blog that in England and America celebrating Christmas was punishable by prison and fines.  With the Victorian year starting, these laws were repealed because of Queen Victoria and her love of Christmas carols (please read that blog for more details).  A Christmas Carol is credited as one of the biggest influences as to why the changes were made.  If fact, the way we celebrate Christmas has a lot to do with what Charles Dickens writes in the book. 

The problem with the idea is that he only had three months to write and publish this story.  Therefore, he realized it could not be a full-length novel; it had to be a short little book.  He began writing immediately.  He also got very involved with the publishing and he even designed the cover.  He insisted upon the gold stamp on the cover and a red and green title page.  He also insisted that the book be cheap so the common man could afford it.  These all proved to be great ideas because it was published on December 17, 1843, and all 6000 copies were sold out before Christmas Eve. 

Dickens, in a newspaper article, said that little book changed his life.  I will go on to say I believe A Christmas Carol has changed many lives.  Dickens did not make much money on the book because it was sold so cheaply, but his later novels, such as David Copperfield, and Tale of Two Cities saw great success because of his newfound fan base the common person. 

Most historians will tell you that this little book changed the way England and America has celebrated Christmas.  Because of this book, the holiday changed from no one celebrating it because of fear of prison, to becoming the number one celebrated holiday in America.   

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas this year and as Tiny Tim says, God Bless us, everyone.