With Christmas around the corner, it can be seen that Christmas tree and beautiful ornaments are decorated all over the streets, stores, and houses. It is a joyous and warm season for Western countries people..
Yet does everyone know what is the true reason we celebrate Christmas annually on 25th December.? As for the atheists, it’s nothing more but the hectic season when the Santa Claus and his eves are busily fabricated the toys which the good children hope for in the letters and try to add to the gaiety of the celebration by granting all their wishes. Or it is the wonderful gala moment for family gathering around the table to indulge the scrumptious turkey meal.
Since past few years, the word “Christmas” is slowly subverted by the term “Xmas” either in the greeting cards or email cards where “Christ” had been taking out of “Christmas”. Some Christian may grouse that Jesus our lord has been censored out of his own “birthday” and decry the use of the abbreviation "Xmas" as some kind of blasphemy against Christ and Christianity.
This misunderstanding and fear mongering about the use of "Xmas" is not a new phenomenon.. I myself as a Christian understand their sensitivity who worry about the perception Xmas may give for those unbelievers. To be honest, I never thought of the meaning of Xmas and also don’t know why was Xmas. It can be Amas, Omas or ever Emas. So I decide to “google” it.
It is what the article written:
“Abbreviations used as Christian symbols have a long history in the church. The letters of the word "Christ" in Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written, or various titles for Jesus early became symbols of Christ and Christianity. For example, the first two letters of the word Christ (cristosV, or as it would be written in older manuscripts, CRISTOS) are the Greek letters chi (c or C) and rho (r or R). These letters were used in the early church to create the chi-rho monogram (see Chrismons), a symbol that by the fourth century became part of the official battle standard of the emperor Constantine.
Another example is the symbol of the fish, one of the earliest symbols of Christians that has been found scratched on the walls of the catacombs of Rome. It likely originated from using the first letter of several titles of Jesus (Jesus Christ Son of God Savior). When combined these initial letters together spelled the Greek word for fish (icquV, ichthus).
The exact origin of the single letter X for Christ cannot be pinpointed with certainty. Some claim that it began in the first century AD along with the other symbols, but evidence is lacking. Others think that it came into widespread use by the thirteenth century along with many other abbreviations and symbols for Christianity and various Christian ideas that were popular in the Middle Ages. However, again, the evidence is sparse.”
In this beautiful season, I hope to remind all of you that Christmas is the day when we celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus in Bethlehem who “humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross”. We all are sinner and our bodies only become perfect when accept Jesus as our Savior. So from now on, hope u guys have a better understanding of the celebration.(^_^)
Here I would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas DaY!!
Christ + Celebration = Christmas
11:06 PM |
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