Transcript
Danny Price: everyone, welcome to episode 24 of the Table Talk Discussions podcast. I'm really excited to have you guys here listening with us. We have another kind of a special episode.
Danny Price: Shane is not able to make it. um He had a trip that he's had planned for a long time with Bruce and Lorraine and his wife and a couple of other people. So that they took a vacation and he was kind of frustrated that he was going to be missing another podcast episode.
Danny Price: But what we're going to do instead of a normal sermon debrief, I guess back up a little bit. Just this this week's sermon was Scott McKinney. He preached on Christmas and talked about Joseph. It was really, really good. I'd really highly encourage you guys to go listen to it if you haven't already or if you weren't there on Sunday.
Danny Price: it was a great message. But instead of a normal sermon kind of recap and discussion, what we have is a little bit more of a Christmas-centered podcast. So I invited my mom.
Danny Price: um Jennifer Price to be on the podcast, which was really exciting for me to be able to have her on um or having her on. She's she's here with us now. um But my mom is, mom, how old are you?
jennifer: I'm 60 years old.
Danny Price: You're 60 years old. My mom's 60 and has been a Christian for most of her life, pretty much since she was a little girl. And I thought it'd be really cool for her to kind of outline a little bit more of what the the Christian calendar looks like from a more liturgical perspective. My mom's background, I'll let her explain a little bit about herself, but her background Lutheran and she goes to Mountain Life Church up in Park City now. So she's local to the area. um and Mountain Life is kind of a sister church with Mountain View for those of you listening.
Danny Price: you're not familiar with them. But her background was Lutheran. And I thought it'd be really cool for her to kind of maybe walk us through a little bit of kind of the church calendar and then maybe settle and spend some more time on Advent, which is the season we're in now. I know a lot of you guys, I'm saying all this stuff and you're like what does that even mean?
Danny Price: um mean Mom, maybe just, what does liturgical mean? Maybe just run month through that first. And then, you know what? take Take that back. Before you do that, introduce yourself a little bit. Just give us a little like short, little blurb about who you are, what your life looks like right now. And then we'll talk about the liturgical calendar.
jennifer: Sure. um I'm Jennifer Price, wife to David Price, and we have three grown children, um Danny and our daughter-in-law, Hannah, and Jonathan and Megan, and then our daughter, Olivia.
jennifer: We have four grandchildren, and life right now is full. um We're empty nesters. Dave's still working. We love watching our grandchildren. and all the other stuff in between.
Danny Price: um Give a little background on like what your life looked like a little bit. You were a missionary. talk Talk about that for a second, how you met how you met Papa.
jennifer: so yeah, um Dave and I met at Bible school in 1987. That was in Missouri. We were attending seminary there and we were both in the missions program. He was a semester ahead of me and we met and actually married there and with the intent to do mission work and then went down to Guatemala for a year and a half of language school. And then we were just about 10 years in Zacatecas, Mexico.
Danny Price: Nice. And then you came back. um Actually, I was there in Zacatecas for five years, or almost five years, and we came back to the States and we've been here in the parks of the area ever since. Awesome.
Danny Price: I'm trying to think if there's anything else that would you should add. Describe a little bit of your Lutheran background, I guess just a little bit, and then maybe we'll we'll talk about the like the the liturgy, what what that means.
jennifer: Sure. um Yeah, I grew up in the Lutheran Church back in my hometown in Illinois outside of Chicago. and it was a denominational church, pretty traditional.
jennifer: um Let's see hymns every Sunday, communion every Sunday, pews, we sat in pews.
Danny Price: Did you guys have robes?
jennifer: There was and The pastor wore robes, and there was also a choir. I was part of the choir, and we wore robes in the choir, mainly organ and piano music. And just about the time I was in high school, they were changing to contemporary worship. So it was an amazing church. They were really evangelistic and did all the things like VBS, Sunday school, It's where I received Christ. and I received Christ there in Sunday school in that church. And it was a big factor in, I think, building the foundation of my faith. One thing that they had, and people may or may not be familiar with. If you're Catholic, you would call it, what is the school that they go to? CCD?
jennifer: um
Danny Price: Oh, good grief. I don't know.
jennifer: Well, in in the Lutheran church, it's called It's called Confirmation. And I went through three years. So sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, every Saturday for two hours, the pastor of our church met with us and took us through the foundations of the faith.
jennifer: So that really grounded me in who is God? Why am I? Kind of all the big questions. Who is God? Why am I here? What do you believe about the Bible? and This was all in preparation for Communion.
jennifer: And then when you were in eighth grade, you would pass all the confirmation, took a test, and then you were able to answer all the questions about faith and then be free to take communion, knowing that you understood what you were doing.
Danny Price: Right,
Danny Price: right. right um I guess really quick, I keep on postponing this liturgy thing just for the sake of trying to make sure things are cohesive. ah What do you, about like the Lutheran background,
Danny Price: Is there anything that you miss or that you you really enjoyed? i mean, obviously going to Mountain Life, it's an EFCA, you know more non-denominational style church, very similar, almost identical to Mountain View and the way we operate.
Danny Price: um Is there anything that you miss kind of from that older style, that more, don't want to say conservative, but traditional background? Is there anything that you're like man, I wish we still did something like that, or that you just look back fondly on and thought was a good idea?
jennifer: i actually really love some of the old hymns. You know, that is a difference with mountain life being more contemporary. You have the contemporary worship with instruments and that. I like some of the old hymns because they tell the gospel.
jennifer: i can't remember my grandfather singing like the old rugged cross. Like the words are just so powerful. So I miss some of the old hymns because of just what you learned through them about God.
jennifer: um What else do I miss? I don't miss the pews sitting on them.
Danny Price: ah
jennifer: I really like the chairs a lot better.
Danny Price: ah
jennifer: I like the worship music. I miss choirs. I sang in the choir when I was younger. And um during Easter, they would do the whole Easter story.
jennifer: The cantata sang the whole Easter story. And i just remember the baritones, you know, singing out Barabbas, Barabbas. You know, just they walked the whole thing in song.
Danny Price: Huh.
jennifer: And it was beautiful. I i miss that.
Danny Price: That's cool. it's It's so funny to me because all of us as a family are terrible singers. So it's so wild to me that you were in the choir. um but you were i mean, I guess you must have been a better singer back then. That's so funny to me.
Danny Price: Because all of us now, like i like we can't carry a tune.
jennifer: No.
Danny Price: It's so bad.
jennifer: We can't. The Price family singers cannot even sing happy birthday.
Danny Price: No, I know it's bad. um Yeah, no, that that makes sense. And I think you kind of instilled a little bit of that in me. Like some of the the stuff we had around the house at growing up, there was a lot of hymns and older like style of music and even like learning piano and stuff. We had old four-part harmony, hymnal and stuff that I learned how to play piano with.
Danny Price: So very very ah very rich theology in a lot of those hymns.
jennifer: Mm-hmm.
Danny Price: So it's really cool. um And I would agree with you. I'm very partial to a lot of that older stuff as well. um So getting into this whole church calendar, describe what the liturgical what liturgical means and then talk about the calendar and maybe a little bit of like the background on that, like where this came from.
jennifer: Yeah, sure. So liturgical, it just breaks down to the word liturgy. And liturgy in a definition form would be a prescribed form of public worship. So it's ritual. Like in Acts, I think it's Acts 2, you have the verse that says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship of the breaking of bread and prayers.
jennifer: That's liturgy. So it doesn't have to be something traditional, but we we relate it to something traditional.
Danny Price: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
jennifer: So in the Lutheran church, our liturgy would be, we always had an opening hymn. There was speak and response. So the pastor would say something and then the congregation would respond There was communion every Sunday.
jennifer: That's liturgy. But liturgy in its simplest form, like we all even have liturgy. Another word that might be more relatable to people is like rhythms.
jennifer: Like you have your daily rhythm, which in a sense, as a Christian, we have maybe our daily liturgies.
Danny Price: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
jennifer: We have prayer. pray. might listen to worship music. We have Bible reading at home. Those would all be considered liturgies. But the liturgical calendar, if we go back to that word liturgical, is really just the story of Christ laid out in the calendar year.
jennifer: It's what we call the church calendar. so You have the months of the year, January through December. Well, the church year, it just lays out all the things.
jennifer: um I can go through just a couple of them. So we're in Advent right now, and I know you're going to talk more about that. And Advent is just the celebration of the coming of Christ, the arrival.
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: And we can talk
Danny Price: The incarnation, yeah, like when he was born, right?
jennifer: Right, so it's it's the coming of his birth, and then it pinnacles with Christmas, with Jesus' birth. And then after that, in January, you have Epiphany.
jennifer: And Epiphany comes right at the beginning of January, and that is celebrating the visit of the Magi, kind of like when Jesus was revealed.
jennifer: So Epiphany last, and then on the church calendar, Epiphany
Danny Price: Hold on. I got to pause there really quick. Just like a little tidbit. I'm so sick of this. I've heard about this from like Christmas stories. A lot of people put the Magi like at the birth of Jesus, like right after he was born. It's like the shepherds show up and then boom, the Magi are right there. And I got to just say, like if this might blow your mind, but the Magi,
Danny Price: It blew my mind a couple years ago because I like put it all together. The Magi were not there until Jesus was like three, maybe four. Like he was a he was like a toddler. And then they showed up. So really interesting, and I think, for a lot of people, you know, all the nativity scenes, all like the stories, all the songs. It's like the Magi were there and they showed up and they followed the star and boom, there Jesus right right there right after he was born.
Danny Price: That is not the case. Sorry, I had to like just interject that a little bit.
jennifer: No, no, yeah, we kind of have a typical view of how we visualize it, and it was a little bit different. Although, surprisingly, the dates for Christmas are about right, either the 25th or 6th from the church calendar.
Danny Price: Yep.
jennifer: So we have Advent and then Christmas, which is his incarnation, Christmas, you know, day celebrating his birth. Then the Epiphany with the Magi, as you mentioned.
jennifer: And then after that, people will be familiar with Lent. So Lent on the church calendar is that time of preparation and repentance before before Jesus' death, which you have Holy Week that week, Easter, and all the Monday, Thursday, Good Friday, those celebrations, and then his death.
Danny Price: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
jennifer: And then resurrection, resurrection Sunday. And then after Easter is Pentecost. So a lot of us have heard that word Pentecost. That's when the Holy Spirit came in the book of Acts and settled on the disciples. And then they have on the church calendar something called ordered time. And ordered time is after Pentecost.
jennifer: which is 50 days after Easter. And then order time are just numbered days until it repeats again with Advent. So the church calendar, again, is just the story of Christ and those highlighted events that happened that we celebrate, that we can take note of.
Danny Price: Right. No, that that was really good. That was great great laying that out. Remind me. Which denominations would practice these? I mean, obviously, Christians, it doesn't matter denomination, like you can observe these things, but which denominations observe them more like staunchly? Is this going to be, and I know Lutherans, obviously, but then is this a Catholic? This Catholics really isn't denomination, but do Catholics, um they celebrate these holidays as well, correct?
Danny Price: As well as other ones that, because they have a lot of saints.
jennifer: Yeah, Catholics. Yes, excuse me. Yeah, Catholics would too, as well as Lutherans, I think some Methodists and Baptists, I would tend to think, I don't know for sure, that most denominational churches, so when you get into more non-denominational or charismatic churches, you would maybe not be experiencing that.
jennifer: Although at our church, I don't know how it is at Mountain View, but we do celebrate Advent, these four Sundays, and they each stand.
Danny Price: who
jennifer: It's hope peace, joy, and love are the four Sundays leading up to the arrival of Jesus' birth and celebrating and just focusing on that time.
Danny Price: Yeah. No, that's that's that's good. um Yeah, I think it's a bummer sometimes some of these things get... i don't think... Well, I got to be careful how I say this. I don't want to misconstrue anything. I don't think it's wrong not to celebrate them, but I think it's missing out potentially on some like richness in church history and theology and some really cool opportunities to reflect.
Danny Price: um So with Advent specifically, let's let's dive into that for a second.
jennifer: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Danny Price: what what is What is it... um do you have I know you had you know you had done some research or you have but done some research and obviously have practiced it for a while. What does it sign signify? Obviously, it's leading up to Jesus's birth and you talked about the four Sundays. Is there anything else, any other tidbits that have to do with what it is, what we're celebrating exactly and why it's you know the month of December or how many days leading up to it?
Danny Price: Lead up to Christmas, sorry.
jennifer: Well, Advent, in the early church, Advent looked forward to the second coming of Christ. That's how it started. started out very early, but over time, it began to focus more on his first coming in Bethlehem. So Advent now is really a four-week celebration in the church, as I said, each Sunday representing Hope, peace, joy, or love.
jennifer: And then along with that are some things that just have developed over time. And part of that is the lighting of candles. There's usually a wreath and then the candles are either pink or purple with a white one in the middle.
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: I don't know if you remember, Danny, but with different words I had them at the house and I have a a wooden circular like centerpiece that has holes in it to put candles in.
Danny Price: Yeah, no, I do.
jennifer: It has Joseph leading Mary on a donkey. It's like a little cutout and you move it along until until it hits for Christmas Day.
Danny Price: Right.
jennifer: Yeah.
Danny Price: Yeah, yeah.
jennifer: Advent, really, again, like you said really well, it's just a reflection in preparing our hearts for the arrival and coming of Jesus. So there's lighting of candles.
jennifer: There's the countdown to Christmas, which a lot of people do commercially, just the Advent candle calendars with the little chocolate window, you know, the little window you open.
Danny Price: Oh, yeah. Or whatever. They sell everything now. they like I think ah last year Shane got for Sam like ones that had a little... like It was like a knockoff Hot Wheel brand, like a plastic car. that Every single... It's like you can make you can have an advent calendar for anything now, which is just you know the days of December, essentially.
jennifer: Right. But that really, that tradition belongs to the church and the world has kind of adopted that to count down to Christmas.
Danny Price: Mm-hmm.
jennifer: There's also so scriptural, scripture readings. And I do that personally. And we did that when you were growing up.
Danny Price: okay
jennifer: We also had books. We read through different books that were stories of Advent, kind of setback in Jesus' time. I don't know if you remember those, like Jotham's Journey, Amon's One was in Eastwood when you guys were like in junior high.
Danny Price: Yeah, I think I do. yeah
jennifer: Another thing and during these four weeks is for prayer and rip prayer and reflection and the Jesse Tree. Some people might be familiar with the Jesse tree, which is a tree that you set up, either a separate Christmas tree or your personal Christmas tree, or just a couple branches with special ornaments that have a symbol on them that has to do with Jesus and his coming. We did that.
jennifer: I don't know if you remember those ornaments. They were like colored.
Danny Price: But we didn't do, we did it on like the mantle. Like we didn't do it on a separate tree, if I remember right.
jennifer: We did it a along the mantle on like, yeah, like a little rope that I strung across.
Danny Price: Yeah, at the fireplace, like a fireplace.
jennifer: So also acts of kindness can be part of that and the nativity. and As our family, when you guys were growing up, do you remember the years we did the live nativity?
Danny Price: Yeah, yeah.
jennifer: Over in Silver Creek, we acted that out and we did the live activity. And then in Midway, and for anyone there in Heber Midway, they're doing that this year. and This coming weekend and then the weekend of the 20th, 21st, they're doing the nativities that you can do for free.
jennifer: They're on Main Street. They have over 500 nativities, like of all different materials, like it would be glass, paper, paper.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Danny Price: yeah
jennifer: you know So again, these are just things that help us remember and reflect. I had a little quote I was going to read that I read by Felicia Mason Heimer, and I really liked this. She said, holidays reveal the foundations we build our lives on, and our minds and hearts are are formed by what we celebrate.
jennifer: So it's like these celebrations are important, remembering Christ, and they kind of root us in church history.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Danny Price: No, that's a great... Those are some great things. um I guess what I would want to ask you is, What would you recommend for, like, i'm just saying I'm just thinking like practical application for this kind of stuff.
Danny Price: If you've never heard, obviously, I'm guessing some people have never heard of these kind of things before. Advent is kind of a foreign concept. um What are some practical ways that you could take some of these traditions and take them into your family life?
Danny Price: And why would that maybe be a good idea? Maybe start with that. Like, why is it I mean, you kind of just did it with the quote, but why is it a good idea to focus on this for this whole month leading up to Christmas? And then what could you possibly you know start?
jennifer: Thank you. yeah
Danny Price: you know Even if it was little steps, like what could you possibly implement into your life?
jennifer: Yeah, great question. i think that Christmas, first of all, is the greatest story ever told. It is the base of our Christianity and what we believe Jesus coming.
jennifer: And Christmas is over so quick that a big part of it is what leads up to it. And in the in church life and as a Christian, for me, I can say it helps me slow down and prepare my heart.
Danny Price: Mm-hmm.
jennifer: Even just, there Daniel, there's so many things online. There's Advent books. There's scripture, you know, scripture readings. There's a lot of things you can do, even just taking a true Sabbath every Sunday, having a family day, you know, putting phones aside and just doing something that leads up. Maybe you're doing Christmas cookies together one time. Maybe you're reading through part of Luke a little bit every time, depending if you're you know, single or married or have kids, it will depend on how you celebrate. But marking special things, even lighting candles during dinner and just talking about what did it mean that Jesus came?
jennifer: You know, what does that look like then in our lives? you know because if he didn't come, everything would be so different.
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: So there's a lot of, and but more practical, does that kind of clue people in?
Danny Price: Mm-hmm.
Danny Price: No, that's that's that's that's great.
jennifer: Is that good?
Danny Price: No, that's great. Yeah, I think I'm actually go to talk about this here in a second, a little bit more too, but I think Christmas has turned into, I mean, it's kind of hard not for, you know, to tend to take over your life in the commercial capacity. It's turned into such a commercialized holiday, which,
Danny Price: you know i think you know people want to make money where they can, and that's where a lot of this has come from. But I think it's very easy for you to get all the way through December up to Christmas without really reflecting. And then everyone, you know a lot of Christians will go to Christmas Eve service, and that's kind of the only time we get to kind of reflect on it. And then Christmas morning...
Danny Price: Often for a lot of families, it's just like hustle, bustle, craziness, you know opening presents. And then fit maybe family's coming over. So moms are getting you know really stressed about having to have food rate ready and the house ready. And it's it's not a time where a lot of people settle in onto what the meaning of Christmas is. So i liked I like the idea of slowing things down and taking some time to dwell on this stuff ahead of time.
Danny Price: um Is there any res... I didn't... This is like an impromptu question. Are there any resources, like websites, that you would encourage people to go to if they're like wanting to learn more about this? Or is this kind of stuff that you just kind of knew and kind of just jotted down?
jennifer: think because I grew up celebrating it when your dad and I got married, we just continued on with it. The only website that comes to mind offhand is actually every woman, a theologian.
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: She has some really good resources to do with kids for Advent. But if you just look online and searched Advent or ways to celebrate There are some great devotional books that lead you through, you know, just like for Lent, they lead you through a little bit of a reading or a little bit of history.
jennifer: i know Amy Gannett has one, think it's called Light of the World. i can't remember, but she sells an Advent celebration. And then at the end of every little lesson, you light the candle.
jennifer: So it's a great way to, like you said, slow down, to reflect, to remember. why we're celebrating Christmas, the significance of it.
jennifer: I think it's really fun to do with kids. And part of it, part of it, I like mixing together, to be honest, it has come become really materialistic, but even the tree, even trimming the tree, you know, we as a family go out and cut our tree down.
Danny Price: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
jennifer: That's maybe not a Christian thing, like it like that Christians would have to do. But I view it as part of our life and part of our faith. Just we get together as a family where we go cut our tree down in the woods.
Danny Price: who
jennifer: We come back and we eat together. Charcuterie is my favorite day of the year around the table. And so that is these things, these holidays, these traditions do root us.
Danny Price: Yep.
jennifer: They, um, They help us remember not only for our family times, but when you add the faith element of Jesus coming and celebrating that and you take time to read the word or there's even just listening to more reflective music. I mean I love all that, you know, jingle bells, you know, and all those songs, but just even more reflective worship about you know, oh, come, oh, come Emmanuel.
jennifer: What does that mean? He came, he's with us.
Danny Price: Hmm.
jennifer: Like there's a lot of great things.
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: And I think it can be simple. I don't think it has to be complicated, but there are, I'm sorry, I'm not better prepared. There are websites, there's things.
Danny Price: No, I didn't ask that question ahead of time. So you had no idea. I'm sorry.
jennifer: No, that's fine. That's fine.
Danny Price: Um, man, I love that you said all that. That was, that's a great perspective, mom. Um, I wanted to take a second with you here too, and just go, go through some of these myths about Christmas. Um,
Danny Price: there's There's been a push, and I guess here, really quick, fair warning, I'm going to talk about St. Nick, just a heads up for parents if you're listening with young kids. you can You know exactly what I'm talking about, so there you go.
Danny Price: But with Christmas, there has been a push, a recent push, and it's been within the past couple hundred years, of Christians getting really up in arms about the Christmas traditions that we practice and how they are
jennifer: you
Danny Price: pagan origin or we shouldn't be celebrating them. And it's actually, you know, we should we shouldn't even be having a Christmas tree. There's all these things that people are pushing against. And I took some time and dug into some research on this because I was like, man, I think a lot of these traditions are actually good things. And we kind of have, obviously there's been the commercialization of them and I'm not going to lie. Like a lot of that has ruined it. And so if any Christian is out there and they go, you know what we're going to do, we're not going to do X, Y, Z tradition.
Danny Price: for our sake, because we want to focus on the true meaning of Christmas, I would never fault you for that. But I did want to set the record straight on some of these um some of these myths, I think, about Christmas. So the resources I'm pulling most of this from is just a lot of internet research. But i don't know if you guys are familiar. Mom, I know you know Wes Huff.
jennifer: Apologist?
Danny Price: Wes Huff is a theologian. He's more of an archaeologist, and he goes into a lot—or not archaeologist. Oh, good grief.
jennifer: college
Danny Price: I'm Apologist. Good grief. Um, he's an apologist and he works with apologetics Canada. Um, so he's a Canadian dude. He's awesome. He was on Joe Rogan, um, a little while back, a couple months ago and did a great job just showing the evidence for Jesus. And he's not an apologist from a philosophical point of view, as much as he is from an archeological and like actual like evidence and like language point of view. He's very, um,
Danny Price: very good at language and looking at old documents. And it's really ah interesting listening to him talk about this stuff. I would really encourage you guys to listen to him if you haven't already. But he did a video and he's done some different graphics that he's put together.
Danny Price: A lot of this information is based off of that. And then there's a couple different YouTube references. I can put most of this down in the in the description of the podcast so you guys could look at it. But the main...
jennifer: you
Danny Price: the main um objections to Christmas kind of revolve around a a few different things. The first is the actual day of Christmas. So a lot of um people, and it's really funny, it's like you get both ends of the spectrum. You get like the atheists who are like, you know, Christmas is actually from pagans, so ha ha, you you stupid Christians. So you get that side of it. And then on the totally opposite, you get that fundamentalist side of like, actually, like, did you know that Christmas was pagan, so we shouldn't have even celebrate it this way? So you get like these two total, like they have the same conclusion, but they have obviously two separate worldviews. So it's really interesting to me how you get the two opposites, polar opposites agreeing on something like this. um
Danny Price: But the big the big one is that Christmas on the 25th of December is actually from a pagan, is from pagan holidays. And Christians stole that from the pagans, um which totally falls apart. there's two There's these two holidays that people like to point out. The first is Saturnalia, which is the...
Danny Price: Roman festival, um and they would say, oh, it was on December 25th. And that's just not that's not not the case. It was on December 23rd. And a lot of people, I was actually listening to Westup talk about this. It's really interesting. A lot of people say that the emperor at the time was noticing that the Christians were growing so much in number. And at that time they were,
Danny Price: actually practicing um Christmas, celebrating on the 25th. And he decided to kind of co-opt that for the roman this Roman festival. So it was actually the other way around. It was the Romans that kind of switched their day to the 25th to kind of ah compete with the Christians because they were growing so much in population. And then the other...
Danny Price: um common holiday is Sol Invictus, which is the Unconquered Sun Festival. um And that was this was this was, this is kind of a whole situation. um But the first known reference of Sol Invictus on the 25th, excuse me, appears after, again, the Christians are using that date as Jesus' birth.
Danny Price: And there's different... There's different historians that talk about this. The first is, and I'm going to butcher this word, his name, but it's Hippolytus. I want to say hippopotamus, but it's not, but it's Hippolytus.
jennifer: Thank you.
Danny Price: And then the Emperor Aurelian, both of them talk about the Christians having this holiday on December 25th. And so this whole Sol Invictus thing being co-opted, it's actually the other way around. they they both of these um Both of these holidays were kind of stolen and put on top of Christmas trying to compete with it. So there's there's one of those...
Danny Price: you know common things. And then the question I guess comes up, well, where where did Christmas come from in terms of the 25th? Mom, did you do you know a lot about that? and I know I'm asking this on the top, on the fly, but you mentioned that we were pretty close with the date. do you want to talk about that for a second? Do you know anything about that?
jennifer: I looked up a little bit about why the 25th and that um some scholars believe the church fathers chose those dates because of Jesus's presumed conception date being around Passover.
Danny Price: Mm-hmm.
jennifer: And
Danny Price: Yes.
jennifer: The Church Father to Tillion, there was some stuff there about um the 14th of Nisan. And when you count that out, it ends up to be about the 25th or others think the 6th of January, which is Three Kings Day.
Danny Price: Right.
jennifer: We celebrated Christmas once that year.
Danny Price: Right, exactly.
jennifer: so
Danny Price: Right.
jennifer: Yeah, i it doesn't matter to me personally the day. It's more that we celebrate it.
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: I don't understand or know all the history. I looked up a little bit, you know, about the pagan roots. I think that just focusing on Christ and his coming, and there's always pagan things going on.
jennifer: There were and there still are, but it's up to us to choose to celebrate
Danny Price: yeah
jennifer: you know, the the real reason for this season and his coming and what that means.
Danny Price: yeah I would agree. I think there's no out there's absolutely no reason that you can't celebrate Christmas, which what you're doing, I mean, Christmas, Christmas, mass it's the celebration of Jesus coming. It's the celebration of Christ coming in incarnate in in the form of a man, fully a man, but fully God.
Danny Price: If you're up in arms about the day that you celebrate that, I would i would be a little confused. I would want to talk to you more because, I mean, you should be celebrating that, I believe. And I don't think it's anything i don't think there's anything wrong with celebrating that.
Danny Price: That's another common...
jennifer: Thank you.
Danny Price: thing people will say sometimes is, well, Jesus never, never, never celebrated certain holidays. So why are we celebrating them? And it's kind of like, well, I mean, Jesus isn't around anymore because he's ascended. And so why is it wrong for Christians to celebrate, especially Christmas and Easter, like the two biggest things like him dying on the cross and then also, and being raised from the dead and then him coming to earth. I mean, I don't know. I i don't get that argument, but you're exactly right. Those are the things that I found too. A lot of people will say, this was like a common Jewish thing, I guess, was that prophets and like really, you know,
Danny Price: significant people in Jewish tradition would die on the same day that they were conceived. And then a lot of people say that Jesus died on March 25th, because there's right around Passover with the holidays and everything. don't remember that, but Passover is happening with the disciples and he shares the, you know, communion with them in the upper room. And then he's crucified like the the next day, or is that right? The next day or two days later, whatever it was. But the whole idea of that being on March 25th and then nine months from March 25th is December 25th. yeah.
jennifer: Mm-hmm.
Danny Price: Kind of interesting. But again, just pointing out that that's not a pagan. This isn't like co-opted from pagans. Like we had this. This was original. um The next thing is the Christmas tree. My mom pointed out that, you know, we as a family, my family growing up would cut down a Christmas tree.
Danny Price: A lot of people want to say the Christmas tree is a pagan tradition and again this kind of starts to fall apart and there's there's a little bit of this um correlation is not causation there has been trees that have been worshipped and celebrated in all kinds of pagan rituals for a very long time but specifically the douglas fir the evergreen the pine tree um is not specific to any like that is the only tree that certain pagan um religions will worship. And in fact, back to the 16th century, Christians were using the Christmas tree, the evergreen, for multiple reasons. The first reason was it's evergreen. it doesn't fade. And that was supposed to signify eternal life in Christ.
Danny Price: They would also light candles, which to me is shocking because back then there was no fire suppressant.
jennifer: Thank you.
Danny Price: So they would put candles in the Christmas tree. To me, I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't imagine the amount of houses and cottages that probably burned down. And back in the 16th century when they would light candles, um,
Danny Price: And then at the same time, they would also do these paradise plays that were performed on December 24th, which was just, um, kind of these medieval, there were like these medieval style plays that were kind of signifying the garden of Eden and life and all this stuff Christians would do. This wasn't like a, like a secular, this is like a Christian thing. Um, and they would often use, um, pine trees decorated with all kinds of stuff. and that's, you know, a lot of the decorations that we do kind of comes from that now. Um,
Danny Price: But there's a lot of people that will say, well, no, this was this this was you know Celtic or Germanic origins. And it's true that Germany, German Christians were kind of the first ones to do this.
jennifer: Mm-hmm.
Danny Price: But this did not mean, just because that Germans decided to use this this pine tree, this does not mean that it was co-opted and taken from all these pagan religions and we're trying to steal from them and use this. And a lot of people, people fight against this so much. And they try to really point out that the Christmas tree is this evil thing where you're bowing down before the tree to get your presents. And you're making this, all this, like this crazy, like, you know, all these like crazy cultic culty kind of like, you know, origins. It is just, it is just not that way. Um, again, I'm doing a poor job explaining a lot of this. There's a lot more like, um,
Danny Price: evidence and papers and certain things and writings that I would point you to. Again, I'll link some of these videos and stuff down below so you can kind of check out my research. The one thing I did want to mention, which was I thought was cool, there's two things. First is um Saint Boniface, who was this guy um back in 724 AD in Germany.
Danny Price: During this kind of this time, but pre the Christmas tree, just to kind of show like the power that all these like religions did not have. There's this, there's this whole story that I just like was digging all this stuff up and it came up and I got to share the story with you guys. It's so cool to me.
Danny Price: So he's a, he's a saint back in the church and he comes across a bunch of people um who worship Thor, which is called, you know, or also known as Donner, where who worship Thor. He comes across these people at this oak tree, which was kind of like Thor's like tree was like the oak tree. And,
Danny Price: all these people are about to sacrifice, like humans sacrifice some people on this tree. And he stops them. And he says, you know what, I'm going to cut down this tree. And all the people freak out. They like lose their minds because they're like, if you cut down this tree, Thor is going to strike you down dead where you stand.
Danny Price: And it's going to be really bad for us. And so they're freaking out. He doesn't care. He gets an axe. He cuts the tree down. And as the story goes, and this is like, this is a true story. You can look this up. The wind kicks up right at the end and actually finishes the job for him and pushes the tree down. It breaks. It doesn't hit anybody. doesn't kill anybody. Everything's fine.
Danny Price: And he literally saves these people's lives that are about to be sacrificed. And because of that, all these people that worship Thor that were at this tree, he like he ends up leading them to Christ. Um, this is kind of like, this is in England, I believe, or is this in Germany?
jennifer: Germany.
Danny Price: It's in Germany and that this happens.
jennifer: He was a missionary Germany.
Danny Price: Um, But just like kind of a really crazy story that I was like looking up. um So if you guys want to look at that, St. Boniface, who I've never heard it before. but So that's really cool. But the other thing that a lot of people will use to say that we haven't, shouldn't have Christmas trees is from Jeremiah 10. And people, I'm actually going to read it really quick. like I got to look this up really quick. So I don't misquote this, but I want to read Jeremiah 10 for a second here.
Danny Price: People will say this, this is applying to, um, Christmas trees, and that specifically we should not have Christmas trees because the Bible in Jeremiah says it, which to me is kind of crazy once you read this, what it says. But this is Jeremiah 10, 1 through 5. I'm just going to read it. This is the NIV version because that's what came up when I Googled it.
Danny Price: Hear what the Lord says to people of Israel. This is what the Lord says. Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by the signs in the heavens, though the nations are terrified by them. For the practices of the people are worthless. They cut down a tree of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with a chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold.
Danny Price: And they fasten it with hammer and nails so will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them. They can do no harm, nor can they do any good.
Danny Price: um So if it's not clear to you what he's talking about, he's talking about don't be like the pagan nations that make idols for themselves. And yes, because wood is one of the most popular materials for making idols.
jennifer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Danny Price: He's talking about they cut down this tree and they adorn it with wood and everything and people go, or sorry, they adorn it with gold and silver and metals and stuff. And people will go, well, that's exactly what we do on Christmas. which is totally just like reading in into reading into something that's not at all what he's talking about. He's talking about them making idols for their houses um and for them to have in their lives. And he also just like kind of mocks them a little bit, like a scarecrow in a cucumber field. Their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. He's talking about the total powerlessness.
Danny Price: Jeremiah is speaking of the total powerlessness of these idols. Um, this is the culture at that time. There was no Christmas trees. There was, this was not a like, Oh, this is like a foretelling of something. This is just him speaking plainly to the people of Israel about don't have idols in your houses. So if you're worried that the Christmas tree is becoming an idol, I guess you could take it that way and maybe not have your Christmas tree because of that.
Danny Price: I don't think we need to worry about it just because of Jeremiah 10, if that makes sense. Mom, do you have anything you want to point out with that? Anything interesting?
jennifer: I think you brought up a couple good points. and One, in referencing the verse, it's always good to know the context, right? But also going, is this repeated somewhere else in scripture? So is this something that's repeated and then we know it needs to be followed today? and it's not. It's just one verse. So we can't make a doctrine out of that. But you mentioned a word that I think is really important. You mentioned the word idolatry.
jennifer: And I think with all of this, with celebrating Christmas, having a tree, having some of these traditional things that as Americans we do, we want to have faith be first and foremost, that we are remembering we are doing these things to celebrate because of Jesus coming, but it's where our heart is.
Danny Price: Hmm.
jennifer: So idolatry was always speaking to the internal, but it was evidenced externally, right? So I think that when our heart is, God, we just want to worship you and celebrate.
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: i think that comes out and we can do that in ways where we have a tree knowing we're worshiping Jesus, that we have, I mean, evergreen also green is life.
jennifer: I mean, you can go the total opposite direction and think of all the positive things that it represents too, you know, with with having a tree.
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: So
Danny Price: Yes, exactly.
jennifer: Yeah.
Danny Price: so Yeah, to to my mom's point, I love that she talks about that. you Anything that you you have, can you can kind of turn it into an idol. But if you're not letting it be an idol, I think as as a symbol of Christmas, I don't think there's anything wrong with the Christmas tree. I think it's actually a really valuable kind of remembrance, and it's a fun it's a fun tradition. I think there's, as long as, again, your traditions are focused on Jesus, I think you're you're kind of in the right spot. Yeah.
Danny Price: The next really common thing that people like to talk about being pagan is Saint Nick. and this is what I was talking to parents about. I'm just going to be speaking really plainly about a lot of this. um So Saint Nick is actually really cool. You know, Saint Nicholas, his origins, if you if you dig into this, it's so rich. It's so cool. Saint Nick is actually Saint Nicholas of Myra or Myra. I don't know how to say that.
Danny Price: um Someone's going to correct me about on that. But this is a fourth fourth century Christian bishop from modern day Turkey. And he was famous for generosity, for defending Christian doctrine at the Council of Nicaea, and for caring for children and for the and for vulnerable people. So talk about like a like hero that you should be like, wow, what like what an awesome guy. He was really common commonly associated with giving gifts.
Danny Price: And that kind of gets co-opted by Christians. At that time, a lot of gifts were given during New Year's, not during Christmas. Christmas wasn't like a gift-giving time. And they kind of took that and said, hey, you know what, St. Nicholas, like he was really, you know, commonly known for gift-giving. It's kind of this tradition that starts to kind of come together. There's a feast that celebrates him on December 6th.
Danny Price: And essentially, it kind of just turns into this, like, this tradition.
jennifer: Thank you.
Danny Price: And obviously... ah origins of Santa Claus. And as you get further down the line of where different versions of Santa Claus comes from, that doesn't necessarily all stem from, truly from St. Nicholas, because there's certain, there's like Father Christmas and the English tradition, their tradition, excuse me. There's different traditions that kind of come out of this. But the point is, is that originally St. Nicholas of of Myra was a Christian guy doing really good things and giving gifts.
Danny Price: One of the cool things I was looking up, and this is on Wikipedia, I was just like scrolling through. i mean, it's just miles long, all this stuff about him. But I thought this was really cool. It says right here, in one of the earliest attested and most famous incidents from his life, he is said to have rescued three girls from being forced into prostitution by dropping, throwing a sack of gold coins through the window of their house each night for three nights so that the father could pay the dowry for each of them.
Danny Price: so that they could get married and they did not have to go and be prostitutes. So, I mean, talk about just like an awesome guy and a hero. Like how how cool is that?
jennifer: Thank you.
Danny Price: So for me, at least, whether you choose to celebrate um Santa Claus with your family and children and you do like the whole, like, I guess, you know modern american American tradition, or you're not doing that and you're just, you know, just talking about him as a saint, whatever you choose to do, I think it's kind of cool that you could point back to this being the original, um,
Danny Price: the original source for all this. And I think regardless of whether or not you do Santa Claus with your kids, as long as you're making Jesus the main focus, and even talking about Santa Claus and who he was, if you're talking about him in the present tense, you can maybe even talk about how he worshiped Jesus.
Danny Price: um But I think it's really cool to have that as kind of like, this is not a pagan thing. This is quite literally one of the most you know Christian guys. And that's something that we that you can celebrate and talk about. Um,
Danny Price: There's different, you know like I said, there's different traditions. There's Sinterklaas in the Netherlands and Father Christmas from England. And there's obviously you get the cool Kris Kringle thing from the United States. But a lot of these have origins, again, that are not Christian or some of them that are kind of like mixed and matched from other things from those regions.
Danny Price: but it's interesting how all of them kind of settle on gift giving as kind of like the primary thing, which again, I would not argue with being a bad thing. I would just say be careful how you frame that because again, the whole point of Christmas, again, trying to like refocus on what it's about. I don't think the point of Christmas is just gift giving. That can be part of it and the way we celebrate, but it's about Jesus. And as long as we're bringing it back to that, I think we're, we're in the clear and we're doing something that is admirable. Mom, do you want to talk about that at all or anything you want to add to that?
jennifer: I agree that we want to center it on Jesus. And what I loved trying to communicate when you guys were younger and with grandchildren now is that God has given us the greatest gift.
jennifer: Like he gave us the gift of Jesus.
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: And i I love it when siblings give gifts to each other and we can focus on, that's a really beautiful thing. And I don't know if you remember one thing we did, but that people can do to help encourage us, especially when you have younger children or even older children is make a plate of cookies, make a loaf of bread.
jennifer: you know, a pancake mix and take it to your neighbors because it's such a great opportunity to share love, to give gifts.
Danny Price: and
jennifer: And even though that has become commercialized, we don't need to make, have it be commercialized in our homes. We have the opportunity to focus on Jesus, the true gift, to remember, you know, to receive, to give and receive.
Danny Price: Yes.
jennifer: So there's a lot of great principles in that. i Again, I think it's perspective and how we view it and what we settle on as families to choose to focus on.
Danny Price: Yeah, no, that's that's a great great way to wrap that up. ah Yeah, I guess i just like a final parting thought would just be, yeah. the goal of Christmas, keep the main thing, the main thing, I guess it in a time where it's so easy to be distracted by the hustle and bustle and parties and this and that. And Try to take ownership over your family. um I'm speaking to, I guess, if you're single, you know, take that with, you know, just for yourself. But if you have a family, like try to take ownership with your family and go, hey, you know what, as far as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. And this is what Christmas looks like for us. And try to reshape as much as you can, your traditions and your time and your energy and your parties and all that to focus on what Christmas is about.
Danny Price: umm I'm definitely not one to... shame or knock any of these you know fun traditions that people do, you know the hot cocoa and the presents and all this other stuff that's not necessarily focused on Jesus. I'm not knocking any of that, but man, if there's a way to redeem some of that and kind of you know reclaim some of those things for the right reasons, I think we're in a much better position. And I also love you know modern Christmas music and the I guess not modern, like the 50, you know, Frank Sinatra, that kind of style of Christmas music. i don't think there's anything wrong with that. But again, like my mom was saying, just like even having more like worshipful Christmas music on at your house, not just the classics.
Danny Price: um I think that goes a long way of just our minds are building up to this expectation as we get towards Christmas. And I think this, if you want to use the word, the Christmas spirit, I guess you could use that, but it builds anticipation. It builds joy. It builds hope. It builds all these things as we get closer to the day.
Danny Price: if you're thinking about it earlier, if you wait until the day before or two days before, it's like hard to get your mind right and in your mind in that whole frame of reference of like, what are we even celebrating? But if you've been thinking about it for a whole month, like how cool is that? Like, it's like a a great climax and event to celebrate when we finally get to Christmas.
Danny Price: So yeah. Anything else you want to add mom on that?
jennifer: No, I think you said it well. That's the whole point, I think, of Advent is to help us slow down and to focus on Christ and his coming.
jennifer: And it's beautiful. And all these other traditions are wonderful to have in the mix. But we know that we're focusing on his coming and the difference that makes.
jennifer: And it's it's a great time. I love christmas Christmas and Easter. I mean, those are our cornerstones of the faith. And it's
Danny Price: Yeah.
jennifer: It's a beautiful thing to understand a little bit of the church calendar, whether you grew up in it or not, to realize, wow, this is the life of Christ that we're celebrating. and it changes, you know, it changes our view on these holidays.
Danny Price: yeah Yeah. No, that's that's so great. Awesome. Well, was such a great episode. um We're going start you know closing things up here. Just a couple of housekeeping things. If you guys, again, want any of these resources that I'm talking about in terms of why Christmas is not pagan, I will link that all that stuff down below in the description. Please take some time if you're curious about this stuff or your friends are battering you with these like, well, actually, did you know? It's like, no, you can go find some some real resources. I will give you guys some...
Danny Price: great opportunities to kind of look through this stuff for yourself if you're curious about it. Maybe you're not. Maybe you just take my word for it. But I would encourage you to do your own research as well. Literally, called my mom today at like 1 o'clock and came up with it. I didn't know what I was going to do for this podcast. So this is like a me scrambling last minute, my mom scrambling last minute to kind of come up with this stuff. So if I sound a little bit disjointed with some of my research, it's because it is a little bit.
Danny Price: um But props to my mom for being able just be on the spot. I just asked her literally today and she's like, oh yeah, I guess I could do that. um So really cool that she's here. I'm really glad that she was able to take the time to do this with me.
Danny Price: Hopefully you guys enjoyed that and just getting to hear from um my mom. um and just, I don't know, just the the original, you know, talking about like the Lutheran and kind of a little bit more of that tradition, not original, it' excuse me, the traditional background that she had. Hopefully that was cool for you guys just to hear a little bit about that.
Danny Price: We will be back next week with Shane. He is coming back finally, good grief, but he will be back and we'll be doing, a recap of his sermon next week. You know, we're getting closer and closer to Christmas. so a lot of these messages were finished with our Ephesians series. I think we have one more wrap up that he's going to after Christmas, but because he got sick and there was that whole disjointedness with the way the sermons lined up, it was supposed to end at the beginning December and it didn't. So he has one more makeup episode or not episode, one makeup sermon to do at the beginning of January, but we're pretty much done with our Ephesians series. And now we're just getting into like this prep for Christmas.
Danny Price: So i'm really excited about that. um Hope you guys are enjoying listening. Again, I've told you guys, I tell you guys this every single week. If you guys could rate the podcast, that would be so helpful and especially just pass it on to your friends. And if, you know, once again, if you have questions from the sermon or just things that you're curious about, I've already had a couple of listeners reach out, reach out to me, but it does not necessari necessarily have to be sermon related. Me and Shane,
Danny Price: and my mom and whoever else we we have we have on, we love talking about this this these theological questions and these things. So don't be shy and don't feel like there's any question too stupid or too simple um to talk about. This stuff is just, it's edifying hopefully for the believers and for the body. And it's hopefully it's enjoyable for you guys to listen to. So anyways, i appreciate you guys listening. Mom, thanks so much for being on.
jennifer: Thank you for having me.
Danny Price: We'll see you guys. Yeah, absolutely. we'll We'll see you guys next week. Same time. Bye-bye.
