The Bible doesn't say to celebrate Jesus's birth and resurrection but so what? God gives us free choice to celebrate or not, and JW's have chosen not to, so calling Christmas and Easter "pagan" makes them candidates for the naughty step.
Anyway there's a raft of other things that JW's avoid such as crosses and crucifixes, tut-tut..
"The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18)
It would be good to actually find out the reason why JW's refuse to be drawn into features of pagan worship. Have you never wondered why Christendom never invents its own celebrations? It always borrows elements from pagan religions and forces them to fit "Christianity" somehow....but what did Paul tell us about trying to blend paganism with true worship? Israel tried to do that a few times and God punished them most severely.
This scripture says it all for me....how could the apostle be clearer...? Especially in view of Israel's past excursions into false worship...?
He said....
"Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Christ with Belial [the devil]? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? 16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will dwell in them
And walk among them.
I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.”
17 Therefore
“Come out from among them
And be separate, says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean,
And I will receive you.”
18 “I will be a Father to you,
And you shall be My sons and daughters,
Says the Lord Almighty.”
Can you see any license whatsoever for adopting pagan religious practices and simply imagining a thin veneer of Christianity draped over them?
This is serious...."unclean" (or tainted) worship is unacceptable to the Holy God. We are instructed to "
come out from among them and be separate" by God himself as Paul is quoting the Hebrew scriptures here. (Isaiah 52:11) In order to be accepted as "sons and daughters" of the Almighty, we must separate ourselves from these things....not justify them.(1 Corinthians 10:21)
The two most important celebrations in Christendom are nothing but disguised pagan worship. The dates and the customs remain the same as their pagan ancestors practiced. It is clearly NOT OK with God. But the church will not ditch these things as it is the only times in the year that people are likely to attend church and along with that goes the contributions into the coffers.....it is nothing more than a cash cow. They know exactly where their celebrations originated.....and so does Yahweh.
As for the cross...? There is no "cross" in the Bible. The words translated "cross" in many Bibles are either "stauros" or "xylon" which means "an upright stake or tree". (Matthew 10:38; Acts 5:30)
Under Jewish law the bodies of executed criminals were hung on a stake as a warning to others not to engage in their practices. Jesus had to die on a stake to fulfill prophesy....
"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree [xylon]”" (Deuteronomy 21:23).
If you do some research, you will see that the cross as a religious symbol pre-dates Christianity by centuries, and its origins are anything but holy.
Regardless of its configuration, when God gave his people the Ten Commandments, he told them NOT to even "
make" an "image of
anything" to use in worship. (Exodus 20:4)
But Christendom has made an idol of the cross as it is displayed on churches and even worn as jewellery. Regardless of how Jesus was executed, we are left to wonder why the instrument of his torture is so cherished......if Jesus had been hung, would there be images made of the gallows and a figure of Jesus swinging from the rope...? Can you imagine if it was in later times and he was executed by firing squad....would people have replicas of a rifle hanging around their necks? Can you not see how bizarre that would be....and yet they wear their crosses with pride.
It is Christ's death that released mankind from the curse of sin and death, not the instrument used to kill him.
The Romans had a variety of configurations for their instruments of torture.....the cross is just one of them, and there is no indication in the Bible what shape it took, except what is described...."stauros" or "xylon"....
The cross also has a connection to the false god Tammuz, whom the Israelites were influenced to worship in Ezekiel's day. The sacred tau was the letter "
t" (with the cross piece lowered) which was first letter of his name. (Ezekiel 8:12-15)
In Sumerian text, Tammuz is called Dumuzi and is identified as the consort or lover of the fertility goddess Inanna (the Babylonian Ishtar or Easter who is honored by Christendom each year with her symbols of rabbits and eggs at the time when Christ's sacrifice was to be memorialized).
Christmas too was tied up with the worship of Mythra...all of the pagan customs were incorporated into what Christendom calls "Christ's Mass"....just to let you know where it comes from.
