The Holiday Spirit Part 4

We began this reflective journey to discover why the end of the year is so “festive” for many religions and cultures and why it leads to a greater tendency to do good and be less self-centered.  I propose to you that we may be able to trace it back to the Tower of Babel.   I will explain.  First, let us come full circle and summarize what we have seemingly learned about the “holiday spirit” so far.  It is a real enough phenomenon to make it into a dictionary.  It is the “feel-good” experience that comes from the nostalgia of holidays gone by, amidst the peak of celebration, or the anticipation of a holiday season to come.  It invokes feelings of joy and excitement and acts of social bonding and altruism.  Cultural and family traditions are a huge driver of many of the behaviors that take place around the holidays.  They can even have an impact on other cultures, religions, and nations.  We also learned emotional responses are triggered by the release of certain brain chemicals.  While these psychological aspects of the “holiday spirit” are fascinating, could there be spiritual reasons to this phenomenon as well?  Here is where my theory begins… 

Traditions are a powerful thing.  Let’s be honest.  We are creatures of habit and tradition.  It affects everything from the way we dress, the foods we eat, the way we speak, the faith we observe and even our senses.  For instance, the aroma of pumpkin spice invokes thoughts of fall and wintertime.  We typically only desire it that time of year.  It is available all year long, yet grocery stores, coffee shops and restaurants alike, promote it only during the fall and winter seasons.  Why is that?  Simply put, tradition.  But what does the bible say about tradition?  Is it a good or a bad thing?  It could go either way.

Mark 7:8-9 ESV  “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the traditions of men.”  And He said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!”

2 Thessalonians 2:15 ESV  So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

From the biblical perspective, how do traditions play into celebrations and holidays?  While not all traditions are bad, not everything shiny means that it is holy, like the golden calf in Exodus 32.  Not every feast is a celebration that brings honor to God, such as the feast given by Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12:26-33.  He made a feast that imitated God’s but was rooted in idolatry.  In Leviticus, Chapter 23, the Bible describes all of the commanded feasts of the Lord.  I believe these feasts are imbedded within our genetic make-up.  Jeremiah 31:33 ESV states, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:  I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.  And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”   From the very beginning, our spirits have been drawn to observe and honor that which God placed within us the moment He created us.  These biblical feasts are written upon our hearts and are a part of our original heritage and culture.  If you look a little closer, you can see fragments of various holiday celebrations in America that attempt to mimic the feasts of Leviticus 23.  Easter is similar to Passover week.  The Feast of Booths and Thanksgiving are both harvest celebrations.  The principle of Sabbath to cease work is practiced by the government when mandating all federal offices to be closed for predetermined holidays.  Can a man-made holiday, feast or celebration be acceptable to God?  It appears it is possible.  In John 10:22, we see Yeshua/Jesus was at the temple during the time of the Feast of Dedication, also known as the Festival of Lights or Hanukkah today.  Hanukkah is not a commanded feast of the Lord.  It is a historical memorial for the Jewish people, a tradition.  It commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after it was defiled by the Greek ruler Antiochus IV and reclaimed by the Jewish Maccabees.   While Hanukkah is mentioned only this once and does not explicitly say how Yeshua/Jesus observed it, it also does not reflect that He condemned this celebration.  It is in the observance of Hanukkah where I began to see holidays and celebrations mirror each other across cultural and religious lines.  I see similarities between Hanukkah, Christmas, and Diwali.  Hanukkah for the Jews is commemorated by lighting a menorah for 8 days, representing the one jar of oil that miraculously lasted for 8 days until more oil could be made during the restoration of the temple.  In Christianity, Christmas Eve candle lighting services originated in 1747 in the Moravian Church in Marienborn, Germany and continues to this day around the world.  From the 17^th century until the early 20^th century, Christians used candles to light their homes and to decorate their Christmas trees.  Over time, it evolved from candles to stringed lights.  Diwali is the Indian Festival of Lights.  In the religions of Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism, they celebrate the victory of light over darkness and good over evil.  They illuminate lamps to signify inner light protecting against darkness and partake in feasts and fireworks.  It is the biggest holiday celebration for Hindus.

So, what does this all have to do with my theory regarding the Tower of Babel?  The Tower of Babel resulted in the dispersing of nations and the diversifying of languages.  It paved the way for our biblical heritage and culture to be lost by hindering oral tradition and breaking up a once unified nation.  It sparked a pattern that would continue generation after generation.  The sinful nature of man to be led by his own way crept in and the observance of the commanded feasts suffered as a result.  There is only one true God and only one true Word of God, so there can only be one true faith.  Yet, through the ways of man, we ended up with anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 different religions worldwide and approximately 45,000 different denominations of Christianity according to Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary as of 2019.  The more we have distanced ourselves from God, His Word, and His Truth, the more these things have become distorted.  We have a blueprint for holiday celebrations in Leviticus 23, but over time their observances faded due to the evolving traditions of men.  Consider this.  What if it is not the “holiday spirit” at the end of the year that inspires people to be festive and to do good?  What if it is the Holy Spirit calling us back to our Creator and how we were created to worship and celebrate according to HIS Kingdom?  Of all the biblical feasts, the most significant take place during the fall, beginning with The Feast of Trumpets.  During this feast, shofars are blown around the world as a call to repentance.  The Hebrew word for repentance is “teshuvah,” meaning “return.” In Scripture, there are examples of where the shofar demonstrates profound spiritual power through divine encounters, miraculous victories, and prophetic signs. (Exo 19:16-19, Josh 6:4-20, Jud 7:16-22, Num 10:1-10, Eze 33:3-6, Joel 2:1, Isa 27:13, 1 Thes 4:16)   Is the trumpet sounding a spiritual call that is echoing to every culture and every religion to return back to their created nature?  What if many of the holidays celebrated by other cultures and religions are an adaptation from the commanded feasts?  What if these rare attributes and selfless behaviors of the holiday season are simply evidence of a spiritual submission responding to the call of our Creator?  All that is beloved about the “holiday spirit” at the end of year, HE embodies. HE IS selflessness, love, peace, joy, and all that is good.   There is no greater giver than HIM and no greater gift but HIM. 

It was God who allowed for the diversification of the nations, but in the end that which was diversified will become one again.  (Eze 37:15-22, Jer 31:31 and 50:4-5, Isa 11:12-13, Zec 10:6)  In Part 1, we asked the question, “If we discover the source of the holiday spirit, can we harness this to change the way we act and serve all the time?“  From the psychological point of view, it appears to be unlikely.  It would require unsustainable emotional circumstances.  But if the "holiday spirit" is actually the move of the Holy Spirit, then there is hope of a transformation that can only come from our Creator.