Merry Christmas!

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reaganmarsh

Puritan Board Senior
Dear PB brethren,

Merry Christmas to you! So very thankful tonight that "The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." Looking forward to worshipping with our church tomorrow morning. The Sabbath is a delight, regardless of what the date on the calendar says...but it is a lot of fun to preach on Christmas Day.

Joy to the world; the Lord has come!

Grace to you all, brethren.



(I know that some here do not celebrate Christmas, and I don't intend this post as a poke in the eye to those who abstain.)
 
And you! Regardless as to whether one celebrates or not, the world is thinking about the incarnation. That's great! I hope that we can be faithful witnesses to this reality and speak about it in a way that accounts for the hope that we have in Christ Jesus!

Blessings,
 
Calvin accepted the Geneva council's decision to restore preaching on some of the old pretended holy days (I would like to see the Latin text for some of the translation below) but this is his idea of preaching on the one observed today.

“Now, I see here today more people that I am accustomed to having at the sermon. Why is that? It is Christmas day. And who told you this? You poor beasts. That is a fitting euphemism for all of you who have come here today to honor Noel. Did you think you would be honoring God? Consider what sort of obedience to God your coming displays. In your mind, you are celebrating a holiday for God, or turning today into one but so much for that. In truth, as you have often been admonished, it is good to set aside one day out of the year in which we are reminded of all the good that has occurred because of Christ’s birth in the world, and in which we hear the story of his birth retold, which will be done Sunday. But if you think that Jesus Christ was born today, you are as crazed as wild beasts. For when you elevate one day alone for the purpose of worshipping God, you have just turned it into an idol. True, you insist that you have done so for the honor of God, but it is more for the honor of the devil.

Let us consider what our Lord has to say on the matter. Was it not Saul’s intention to worship God when he spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites, along with the best spoils and cattle? He says as much: ‘I want to worship God.’ Saul’s tongue was full of devotion and good intention. but what was the response he received? ‘You soothsayer! You heretic! You apostate! You claim to be honoring God, but God rejects you and disavows all that you have done.’ Consequently, the same is true of our actions. For no day is superior to another. It matters not whether we recall our Lord’s nativity on a Wednesday, Thursday, or some other day. But when we insist on establishing a service of worship based on our whim, we blaspheme God, and create an idol, though we have done it all in the name of God. And when you worship God in the idleness of a holiday spirit, that is a heavy sin to bear, and one which attracts others about it, until we reach the height of iniquity. Therefore, let us pay attention to what Micah is saying here, that God must not only strip away things that are bad in themselves, but must also eliminate anything that might foster superstition. Once we have understood that, we will no longer find it strange that Noel is not being observed today, but that on Sunday we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper and recite the story of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ. But all those who barely know Jesus Christ, or that we must be subject to him, and that God removes all those impediments that prevent us from coming to him, these folk, I say, will at best grit their teeth. They came here in anticipation of celebrating a wrong intention, but will leave with it wholly unfulfilled.” A sermon preached Tuesday, December 25, 1551, Sermons on the Book of Micah, trans. Benjamin W. Farley (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2003), 302–304.
 
The celebration of set anniversary days is no necessary mean for conserving the commemoration of the benefits of redemption, because we have occasion, not only every Sabbath day, but every other day, to call to mind these benefits, either in hearing, or reading, or meditating upon God’s Word. "I esteem and judge that the days consecrated to Christ must be lifted," says Danæus: "Christ is born, is circumcised, dies, rises again for us every day in the preaching of the Gospel."2
2. Apud [cited in] Balduin, de Cas. Consc., lib. 2, cap. 12, cas. 1. Dies Christo dicatos tollendos existimo judicoque, quotidie nobis in evangelii prædicatione nascitur, circumciditur, moritur, resurgit Christus. [Cf. Balduin, Tractatus Luculentus (1654), 348.] George Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies (2013), 50.
 
§4. As touching the judgment of divines, we say: 1. Many divines disallow of festival days and wish the church were free of them. For the Belgic churches, in their synod anno 1578, wished that the six days might be wrought upon, and that the Lord’s day alone might be celebrated.2 And Luther in his book, de Bonis Operibus [Concerning Good Works], wished that there were no feast-days among Christians but the Lord’s day.3
2. [Cf. Kerkelyk Hantboekje, ed. P. Biesterveld and H. H. Kuyper (Kampen: Bos, 1905), Art. 75. “It would be desirable that freedom to work six days as allowed by God be maintained by the church and only Sunday be kept holy” (Richard De Ridder, Translation of Ecclesiastical Manual: including the decisions of the Netherlands Synods and other significant matters relating to the government of the churches (Calvin Theological Seminary, 1982] 75, page 95). The Belgic churches had agreed in 1574 to be content with observing only the Lord’s day; but the magistrates maintained some of the customary holy days, and the churches addressed the issue again in 1578. Cf. James Gilfillan, The Sabbath Viewed in the Light of Reason, Revelation, and History with Sketches of its Literature (second edition, 1862) 19.]
3. [Works of Martin Luther with Introductions and Notes, volume 1 (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1915) 240–241. “And would to God that in Christendom there were no holiday except the Sunday; that the festivals of Our Lady and of the Saints were all transferred to Sunday. . . .”]
George Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies (2013), 63.
 
"May we not be like the Pharisees who rejected the commandment of God in order to keep their own traditions" Amen. We can also apply this wisdom to "Easter".
 
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