Christmas & Christmas Traditions in America
Dec. 25, 2024
Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Guest: Bill Federer
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 12/25/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Sam Rohrer:
Hello and welcome to this very special Christmas Day stand in the Gap Today program. I trust that as you listen to today’s special emphasis with my very special guest, historian and author, bill Federer, that you’ll be encouraged and enlightened and indeed edified. So as to even better appreciate not only Christmas Day, but the cultural observance of Christmas here in America. And today on this program, my guest, Bill Federer will share history regarding the celebration of Christmas traditions in America. We’re going to discuss some of the greatest challenges to the celebration of Christmas in America. And then we’re going to conclude with certain choices that we all can make to help ensure that we do not give in to the temptations to turn Christmas from its real purpose into a counterfeit celebration where the Christ of Christmas is just cut out and we know that that is the case. With that, let me just welcome right now to the program, a real honor to have you with Bill Federer. He’s again, nationally known speaker, bestselling author, president of Amerisearch Incorporated. And so Bill, thanks for being with me today on this very special Christmas Day.
Bill Federer:
Sam, great to be with you
Sam Rohrer:
Bill. Let me get this set up here if I don’t mind: giving gifts. Let’s just go here and talk about Christmas generally and then I’m going to talk to you about how things started in America. But giving gifts at Christmas, it’s a tradition that’s unique, memorable, frankly it’s very appropriate. And for the true believer, ladies and gentlemen, and we understand that the giving of gifts at Christmas was started first by God himself, who gave to all mankind the greatest gift of all eternal life. Roman 6 23 says, the gift of God is eternal life. We also know that Jesus Christ, according to John 14:6 makes it very clear that he is that eternal life because he says there I am the way, the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father except through me. But we also know that God gave his gift of eternal life available to all men because he says he’s not desirous that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
So this giving of the gift of eternal of life through God equates with his gift of giving Jesus Christ. And as it says in John three 16 says, for God so love to the world that he gave a gift, his only begotten son Jesus Christ, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. So as we observe Christmas today, the giving of gifts, the model was set by God himself, who because of his love for each human being that he gave as a gift, his son Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life that if we trust in him, we can have God’s gift of eternal life. Jesus Christ, eternal life, they are the same. So there we go, bill, I went right there to the heart of giving of gifts and so forth at Christmas. But with that in mind, can I ask you to share some piece of history right now, whether from American history or world history since you are an expert, I would say on both of them, where did culturally the giving of gifts at Christmas start, where did that tradition start from and then wherever you want to go, world or here in America?
Bill Federer:
Well, the first several centuries of Christianity date that everyone was interested in was Passover. When Jesus diagnosed again and since the Jews used a lunar calendar, the Christians would ask the Jews, Hey, when’s Passover this year? It was only when a bunch of Greeks started converting to Christianity, did the interests go to when Jesus was born? Because believe it or not, Hebrews did not celebrate birthdays. The Greeks did in many Asian countries, Turkey, Korea, they don’t celebrate birthdays every January 1st. Everybody in the country is a year older. But when the Greeks started converting, that’s when the question was, and a little side note, the hint is in the book of Luke, it says that Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, was in the temple ministering and he is of the course of Abijah. And people say, what’s that? Well, king David divided the Levi priest into 24 courses.
Each one each course took two weeks, a year of six months apart from each other to minister at the temple. And Zacharias was the last week of September. And so the last week of September is by the Greek Orthodox Church. September 23rd celebrated as the conception of John the Baptist. So if John the Baptist is conceived last week of September, we know six months later when Elizabeth is pregnant, it’s when Mary is visited by the Holy Spirit and then Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. And so six months after September 25th is March 25th, which is the traditional date for the annunciation. When the angel announced to Mary, she’s going to conceive. And then nine months after March 25th is December 25th. And so the third century on is when December 25th began to be celebrated, you had the gift giving, as you mentioned, a movement swept through Christianity in the third century called Pietism, a monasticism where if you were really a Christian, you were so excited to have a relationship with Jesus that you would give away all your worldly possessions and then go live in a cave as a hermit the rest of your life or join a monastery and take vows of silence and you would just enjoy your personal relationship with Jesus.
And so one of the people that was a Christian at this time was Nicholas St. Nicholas, and he decided to give away all of his possessions, but he didn’t want to do it and get the credit for it, right? So he decided he would go into town at nighttime and throw money in the window of poor people and supposedly they would land in the stocking that was hanging by the fireplace and one daughter became popular, a merchant in the town had gone bankrupt. And the creditors were not only going to take their house and lands they were going to take their children. He had three daughters. He knew it’d be a terrible life. Nicholas hears the problem, throws money in the window for a dowry so the oldest daughter can get married, throws it in later for the second daughter to get married when he throws it in for the third daughter, the dad runs outside and catches him. And Nicholas makes the father promise not to tell where the money came from because he wanted the credit to go to God and not to him. And that was the origin of the tradition of secret gift giving on the anniversary of Nicholas’s death, which was December 6th of 3 43 AD and the midnight visits by St. Nicholas and the stocking by the fireplace and all the rest. And it obviously got morphed over the centuries, but that was the origin of it.
Sam Rohrer:
And that’s very interesting. So giving gifts in secret, which is what you established began that was what would you say about 300 AD? When did that happen?
Bill Federer:
Right, right. So Nicholas dies at 343 AD and so he’s assumed to have been born around two 80 AD during the persecution of Emperor Diocletian and he had become a bishop. He was arrested, he was put in jail, he was awaiting death when Diocletian is struck with an intestinal disease and abdicates the throne on May 1st 3 0 5 ad and the next gallius continues the persecution he struck with an intestinal disease. Disease steps down at three 11 AD and then it’s a fight between four generals. Constantine wins in three 12 AD and then Constantine stops the persecution of Christians in three 13 AD Milan Nichols is led out of jail and Nicholas preaches against Paganism. He preaches against Diana worship at Ephesus. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world was the temple, two Diana 127 huge pillars and temple prostitutes. It was the Las Vegas of the Mediterranean. The Apostle Paul preached an Ephesus against Diana worship in Acts 19, and they all said, great, Diana, they got into the Ephesians. Well, Nicholas preached against so much the people tore the temple down. So Nicholas was a fiery, he just stood against the sexual agenda today.
Sam Rohrer:
And with that bill, let me just step in, ladies and gentlemen, listen to a special program here today on Christmas Day. My special guest here is Bill Federer. We’re talking about Christmas, the giving of it, the history of it. When we come back, we’re going to kind of segue from this historic national, international observance to Christmas and early America. While the celebration of Christmas, of course goes back to the birth of Christ 2000 years ago. Now the birth of Christ was first prophesied, not just a year before that, but a long time, hundreds of years before by the prophet Isaiah because in Isaiah chapter seven and verse 14 where Isaiah said, there, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. Then in Matthew chapter one, verse 23, Matthew then repeats the very same verse in his account of the birth of Christ, where he says, behold the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us.
Then from that time then the wise men we know came from the east bearing the gifts of gold and Franken said, and Myrrh and the celebration of Christmas has taken on various forms and traditions around the world and here in America, beginning as my guest Bill Federer said in the last segment about 300 ad when things actually began to take, well actually take form that then is translated into Tation that continues to this very day. So Bill, let’s go back into your mind. You are perhaps the lead historian of all things modern and past and walled the way back of anybody that I know. What can you share about the earliest accounts of Christmas celebration now in our country, in America, who celebrated it first as far as we know? Why did they celebrate and how work all that together? Could you please?
Bill Federer:
Well, first of all, I’d like to throw in a quote from Clarence Manion. He was the dean of the Notre Dame Law School. He wrote a book in 1951, Keys to Peace, which sold millions of copies and Eisenhower put them on staff. So Clarence Manion gave this quote about Christmas. He said the long march of measured time suddenly stopped and did an about faceh and started to march in another direction through the different drums, straight through the ensuing centuries of Christ and Christendom BC before Christ and anno Domini, the year of our Lord mark each one of the only reliable milestones along the path of world history. The end of the first time chain in the beginning of the second came together on the night that Christ was bored in Bethlehem, the first Christmas day thus stands as the great divide for the timing and recording of all people things and events that have lived or taken place upon this earth.
The one place on the long, long trail of time where the magnetic needle of history stands vertical and points up. So every single thing that has ever happened on planet Earth is dated to the birth of Christ and even secular attempts to get away from it, BCE before common era and CE common era, it’s like a question, when did it switch from before common era to common era, the birth of Christ. It’s like you can’t get away from it the entire world, everything is dated to the birth of Christ. And anyway, so I wanted to point that out as far as America goes. You basically had two groups. The Pilgrims Puritan settled New England. They did not celebrate Christmas. The Dutch that settled New York did celebrate Christmas and then also the Germans and the French Italians and the rest of the immigrants. So in looking at the pilgrims and Puritans, where did they come from? They came from England and England.
Quick overview, you had the gift giving associated with St. Nicholas. The Muslims invade Greece. All seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation are wiped out. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, AYA Sardis, Philadelphia, Laia, I always got to concentrate. They’re all wiped out by the Muslims. And the Muslims would trash churches and destroy graves like in 846 AD 11,000 Muslims and invaded Rome, Italy, trash the Basilica St. Peter’s and trash the bones of St. Peter’s and then the bones of St. Paul. And so Pope Leo decided to build a 39 foot wall around the Vatican after that. But that was 8 46 ad Now we’re up to the year 10 87 ad Muslims are invading into what is today Turkey and they’re destroying churches. And so the Christians move the grave of St. Nichols over to Italy in the year 10 87. There’s a church in little town called Bahari, Italy.
And his remains are there. The Pope Urban II dedicates the church and then Pope Urban II goes to the kings of Europe who are meeting at the cons of Claremont in 10 95 AD and begs them to send help to the Greeks and they do it is called the First crusade. And so we would not have St. Nicholas gift giving traditions in Western Europe had it not been for Muslims conquering Eastern Europe and them moving his bones over. The gift giving got so popular that St. Francis of ASI sort of in protest came up with a nativity scene in the year 1223 ad. And so the idea of, hey, all the gift giving is a distraction, we need to get back to the real reason for the season. That’s the same exact thing that St. Francis of ASI said back in the year 1223. So he invented the crush scene, the nativity scene, Jesus Mary Joseph donkeys in the manger.
So whenever you see a nativity sea that goes back to the 1200 St. Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther brings the reformation to Germany. By this time there’s saints‘days for every day of the year, cathedrals are filled full of relics and statues and all kinds of side altars and everybody’s praying to all these saints. And Martin Luther said, this is a distraction from Christ. He gets rid of all the saints days, even the popular Saint Nicholas state. But the Germans like the gift giving. So Martin Luther moves all the gift giving to December 25th and says, all gifts come from the Christ child and the German pronunciation of Christ child is Chris Kinder. Chris means Christ Kindle like kindergarten, kinder care kin means child. So Chris Kindle is Christ’s child. Over the centuries, Chris Kindle got pronounced Chris Cringle. So Chris Cringle is really Chris Kindle, which means Christ child. And Martin Luther says all gifts come from the Christ child. But then you have England. Henry VII brings the reformation to England, but not because he had a spiritual experience, he just wants another wife. He went on to have six wives.
He brings back some old Roman festivals. Britain used to be a Roman colony from 55 BC when Julius Caesar first invaded. And so these Romans had a feasting and merryman at the end of the year called Saturn. Alia Saturn was the Roman god of feasting and plenty in merryman. If you ever saw the Christmas Carol with Charles Dickens, there’s the spirit of Christmas present and it’s this big fat guy with robes and a wreath in his hair and a couple of wine and grapes all around the Happy Party guy. And you’re asking yourself, who is this guy? He sort of looks like Santa, but he also sort of looks like some Roman God. Well, that was Saturn, but they christianized him and called him Father Christmas. They could not call him Saint Nicholas because saints were outlawed because of the reformation. And so Christmas under Henry VIII became a party time drinking carousing house to house gaming waffling where you drink spiced ale and then throw a bunch of it on a apple tree for a nice harvest the next year and sort of became like a Mardi Gras.
People forget Mardi Gras used to be a religious day. It was the day before lent when you would fast 40 days before Easter. Now Mardi Gras, this lewd party in New Orleans, that’s sort of what happened with Christmas in England under Henry the eighth. And so when the Puritans took over, they outlawed Christmas. They even outlawed Shakespeare for mentioning the name of God in his plays because they thought it was disrespectful to say the holy name of God in front of a bunch of drunk theater goers and they call them dens of iniquity. And then in 1642, the Puritans tour Shakespeare’s Globe Theater down. And so these puritans settled New England and they did not celebrate Christmas. Sort of interesting when you look at the captain of the Mayflower, Christopher Jones, and he writes at Harbor Plymouth in Plymouth because this Christmas day he says, but not observed by these colonists, they being opposed to all saint days, et cetera, a large party went ashore, it fell timber and to build their first building.
And so the pilgrims didn’t celebrate Christmas. William Bradford says the next year, a second boatload of pilgrims came over and he said another story rather amusing. He said that the new pilgrims refused to work on Christmas day, excusing themselves said it went against their conscience. So the governor told them that if they made it a matter of conscience, he would spare them work until they became better informed. So they went into the field. But upon returning from work at noon, the governor found them at playing in the streets, some pitching the bar, some stool ball and other such sports. So the governor took away their games and told them it went against his conscience that he should work while others play. And if they made it a matter of religious devotion to do it quietly in their house. And so in 16,
Sam Rohrer:
So Bill, we got one minute left here. So then if it wasn’t the pilgrims and it wasn’t the Puritans who actually takes credit for, you said the Dutch, they actually were the ones who officially began to celebrate Christmas as we more know it today.
Bill Federer:
Yeah, the Puritans had a five chilling fine for anybody caught celebrating Christmas. So Pilgrim’s, Puritans and Presbyterians did not celebrate Christmas, the Dutch did, and then the Germans and then the French and Italians and the rest of them. And so the Dutch pronunciation is Saint Nicholas is Santa Claus. And so basically when you say Santa Claus, you’re saying the Dutch pronunciation of Saint Nicolaus. And maybe after the break I can get into how the story of him coming back actually goes back to the return of Christ coming to judge the earth at the end of the world.
Sam Rohrer:
Alright, Bill, that thing is right up to the break here, ladies and gentlemen. How many of you were even remotely aware of that history? Probably not many because that’s a part of history that is just not shared. But there’s a lot that goes into what we’re celebrating today, Christmas, Christmas tree giving of gifts, why and how we come back. I’m going to let Bill complete what he was going to say there. And then we’re actually going to talk a little bit about where the challenges have come in recent times that really removes any thought of Christ from Christmas and tends to bring the commercialization into it. There are some challenges. Well, on this Christmas day, we are glad that you’re listening to this program and whether you are catching it right at the normal time that we do this live at noon or sometime later in the afternoon or evening, like so many do across the country, we’re glad that you are a part and I trust that you’ve had a blessed day with perhaps your family or friends if you’ve been able to do that Christmas.
Very special day, isn’t it? Today we’re just kind of looking at a few of the things behind the history of Christmas. We started the program Bill Federer and I did, and Bill’s my guest. And many of you listening right now would’ve heard him or you’ve heard him probably many times before, looking at the historical pieces behind Christmas. Christmas, we know today, birth of Christ giving of gifts. We’ve talked about that and how that’s come about. Bill, on the last segment, and one before you’ve referred a couple of times to where this individual Saint Nicholas has come into the picture because he’s referred to a lot, some areas, some countries more than another. But in any regard, you said you had some thoughts to build out a little bit more about him as an individual, how he came about and the connections that are sometimes drawn between him and the personage of Christ. Go ahead and build that out. Would you please?
Bill Federer:
Right. So over the years things get added. And so for example, the Catholics say St. Peter’s at the gates of heavens, like, well, not really. So the Greeks and then the Dutch take the prophecy in the Book of Revelation that Jesus will return at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead riding a white horse. And the saints will come back with him riding white horses. And since St. Nicholas is a saint, he will be one of those riding a white horse. But since he’s so special to the Dutch, he gets to come back once a year for a little mini judgment, a little checkup on the kids, see who’s naughty, see who’s nice. And so in Holland, St. Nicholas comes once a year dressed as a bishop wearing his robes and his mired hat, and he’s riding a white horse and he’s coming to checkup on the kids and he’s got his books.
And the Dutch had these pictures of the bishop sitting down with these big books and opening it up and the little kids looking for their names. And of course this is the biblical and Daniel, it says, behold the ancient of days in his throne was like a fiery flame. 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him. The judgment was set and the books were opened. And then Revelation, I saw a great white throne and him and sat upon his face, the earth and heavens flood away. And I saw the dead small and great standing before God and the books were opened and another book was open, which is the Book of Life and the Dead were judged according to their works by the things that were written in the books plural. And anyone who was not found in the Lambs book of life was cast into the lake fire.
So we got two different groups of books. We have the book, the Lambs Book of Life, and your name’s in there when you believe in Jesus. But then there’s other people, they’re trying to do the works and you can never do enough works, right? There’s none made righteous by the works. So you’ve got the duck. And it’s a funny part of the story is that St. Nicholas has a helper and his name is Varde Pete, and he’s a moor, he’s a Muslim. People forget, Spain was conquered by the Moors, the Muslims for seven centuries, and they enslaved over a million Europeans. There were whole Catholic orders in Europe called the Trinitarians. And for centuries they would collect s and donations at church service and use it to ransom back your friend. And like Miguel de Cervantes was the writer of Dante, he was imprisoned and ransom back.
And so they would tell the little kids, if you’re good, St. Nicholas will give you a present. If you’re naughty, his little helpers of Art de Pete will put you in a gunny sack, take you back to Spain and sell you into Muslim slavery. So often when you would tell a little boy that Santa Claus is coming, they’d start crying because they think it might be their last night until they have these pictures of these families and they’re say, Nicholas, he’s giving a present. And then in the background you see this little guy dressed in his black outfit and he’s shoving a kid into a sack and all the little brothers and sisters are on their knees pleading. And I did a call in radio show one time a guy calls in and he goes, yeah, I was raised in Holland and our neighborhood, all the little boys would go to sleep the night before St.
Nicholas visited with pocket knives in our pockets. I said, why is that? He goes, that’s to cut ourselves out of the gunny sack in case Pete took us. And so it was a little bit different. Now the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, which they came New York and the Dutch really liked St. Nichols. He was the quote patron saint of sailors. And so the biggest church in Amsterdam is the Basilica de Hile Nicholas St. Nicholas. And so when the Dutch in 1624 settled New Amsterdam, which became New York, they started the first Dutch reform church. Guess what? It was named the St. Nicholas Dutch Reform Church 1642 founded Battery Park downtown New York City. That congregation grew for centuries and it became the biggest protestant church in America. And they had this big cathedral at the corner of 48th and fifth Avenue. And even Teddy Roosevelt attended church there.
And then as the city became more financial, the congregation dwindled in size and the church elders sold it to Sinclair Oil Company who demolished it and built an oil building there. And the congregation merged with the second oldest Dutch congregation, the Marble Collegiate Church. And that’s where Norman Vincent Peel was the pastor and so forth. But the Dutch in New York brought their St. Nicholas traditions, but someone changed Nicholas’s outfit. It was Washington Irving. Now he’s in New York, he’s a writer. And he wrote Rip Van Winkle and Legend of Sleepy Hollow and created the name Gotham for New York City, while Washington Irving in 1809 wrote Dietrich Knickerbocker, which was a made up name, so popular that you have a New York Knicks basketball team today, the Knicker. And so he wrote Dietrich Knickerbocker, a History of New York from the beginning of the New World to the end of the Dutch Dynasty.
And it’s filled full this half history, half fictitious stuff, sort of like Paul Bunions Blue Locks. But he says, now St. Nicholas visits us once a year. He rides over the house, top strong forth magnificent presence, dropping them down to chimneys and to his children. But he says, describes him no longer dressed a bishop. And in a typical Dutch outfit of a stocking hat, long trunk hose, a leather belt and a large pipe laying his finger beside his nose gave a significant look mounting his wagon returned over the treetops and disappeared. Well, in New York, you have someone else, Clement Moore, 1823. He’s a Hebrew professor at the Episcopal Seminary. His family donated the land for the seminary. There’s even a park in New York called the Clement Moore Park at 10th Avenue and 22nd Street. And Clement Moore writes a poem for his children titled A Visit from St.
Nicholas. And we’ve all read, it was Night for Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be there. And when, what do I’m wondering, I should appear and ate miniature slay Tanya Reir, a little old driver, lively and quick. I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. And then refers to him several different times in the poem. And then he puts his finger beside his nose and he rises up the chimney. But it describes him as an elf, right? Charlie plump, old elf. So now he still calls St. Nichols, but he shrunk. And then you have Civil War and you have Thomas Nast is an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly magazine. You know him because he invented the Republican elephant and the Democrat mule in his political cartoons.
Well, he wrote a political cartoon. It’s a cover of Harper’s Weekly and it has St. Nicholas addressing the union troops with a little North pole sign in the background and little kids playing with toys. And it was a political cartoon. It was saying that St. Nicholas’s belongs to the north, not the south, the Confederate south. And then fast forward, you have Coca-Cola and an artist named Hadden Lum. You know him because he invented the Quaker Roach man and Anura while he was hired to do a painting of St. Nicholas now called Santa Claus drinking Coke. And he’s grown full-sized again. And Coca-Cola invented mass marketing. It’s the best trademark name in the world. And so this image of this grandfather huggable rosy cheek Santa, it was spread around the world. But we have to remind ourselves, there really was a guy in the fourth century named Nicholas who loved Jesus so much that he gave away his money.
He joined, became a minister, became a bishop, was imprisoned under the Roman Emperor Diocletian. He came out and he preached against Diana worship the sexual immorality. He preached against exposure of unwanted infants. Didn’t talk about it, but that’s sort of their version of abortion in the old Roman Empire. He spoke, he confronted corrupt politicians. There was this governor going to execute some people to cover up his crimes. Nicholas goes down to the execution score, grabs the sword and throws it down. And then by the Holy Spirit tells everybody what the governor was doing. And so there’s all these stories. The Greek, he’s the most popular Greek Orthodox saint. And
Sam Rohrer:
So Bill, we just got about a
Bill Federer:
Good guy.
Sam Rohrer:
Don’t have much left here, time in this break. So in reality, what you’re saying, what we now know to be Santa Claus, Saint Nick never started really to be a counterfeit. Christ was a real man who loved the Lord, but over time has morphed to, in many people’s minds, actually become a counterfeit object of Christmas. Isn’t it? Kind of interesting, isn’t it?
Bill Federer:
Yeah. So saints come from where Heavens celestial city, the new Jerusalem that turned into the North Pole and the Lambs Book of Life and book of works turned into the book of the naughty and the nice. And in Norway, they didn’t have horses always riding a reindeer, and the angels turned into the elves. And so yeah, it started with the biblical thing, but it gets off track. But I think it’s important for us to realize you can redeem the Nicholas story or you can try to say, well, Santa Satan changed the letters around and it sets our hard sell to do with little kids. Their friends were getting presents. It’s like, no, there really was a guy and he was generous.
Sam Rohrer:
Yeah, absolutely. Bill, ladies and gentlemen, hope that you’re finding this a little interesting. But the truth of that segment there was that there is a lot of truth, Nicholas Santa Claus, there’s a real aspect of, but it’s been moved, it’s been supplanted, it’s moved as a counterfeit to Christ and Christmas. We’ll come back. Bill and I are going to compose that, what we can do to prevent counterfeits. Well, as we wrap up today’s program, the theme has been Christmas and Christmas traditions in America. And my special guest, bill Federer, who’s been with me sharing a lot of information, a lot of history that I would probably very safe in saying most listening to me maybe have heard little bits and pieces, but certainly not all that he has shared. And he happens to have a wealth of information on his website at American Minute, as in our minute, American minute.com, a lot of books that Bill has written.
And he does a minute program called American Minute as well. And so you can go to that website and encourage you to do so if you found this, he’s given a lot of information, but there’s a whole lot more there. If you’d like that kind of thing. You will find a wealth of information on his site@americanminute.com. Now, as we wrap this up, we started by talking about real Christmas Christ, birth of Christ, the aspect of God, loving man, giving the gift of Jesus Christ, gift of eternal life, a gift that available to all that is the heart of Christmas. And at the end of the day, the first giver of gift was God himself. When he sowed loved you and me, that he gave his only begotten Son Christmas, who when we believe in him, grants to us as the apostle Paul said in Romans, the gift of eternal life.
See, it’s all about redemption. It’s all about God’s plan. That’s what Christmas is all about. And it’s very easy to get distracted. And in the last segment, we’re just talking about a real life person called Santa Claus St. Nick, and how that has morphed over time. And of course you all know about how many children, all they know about giving and good and bad is this mythical Santa Claus. Things can change. So here’s my question where I want to conclude, ask Bill a question from his perspective and that is this, like all aspects of truth, the genuine the truth, for instance, the truth about God, the truth about God’s word, the truth about God’s plan of redemption, of which Christmas is central, the truth about the birth of Christ, the life of Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the truth about Christ, soon second coming, that truth that’s always been under attack by the devil from his questioning of truth and God himself where he questioned to eve, he tempted Eve by saying path.
God said questioned truth directly right there at the beginning. And in the Bible, the devil is called the great deceiver, the father of lies, the serpent, the lawless one, and a number of other names that God’s giving to him. In the Bible, the whole contest has been between God and Satan, truth and error, righteousness and evil, good and bad. That is the big picture of life. And for all of us, we have a choice. God’s given us free will. We must choose truth, embrace truth, and we must defend truth. Lest we also begin to believe a lie as so many have relative to Santa Claus as an entity and as a replacement for Christ, which obviously he is not. Alright, so Bill, as we wrap this up here today, Christmas, we’re all a part of it. Everybody has different connection and have done different things today relative to Christmas.
But as we talk here about Christmas truth, we talk a lot in this program about making choices and choices of consequences. Good choices bring blessings, bad choices bring bad consequences. So when it comes to the idea of Christmas, now as we’d know it in America, the tradition of Christmas gifts, Christmas tree, all of that, could you share a few things from your perspective of how our listeners choices that they can make to help preserve the integrity and the truthfulness of the real meaning of Christmas? What things can they do to help shield themselves from the many temptations that wish to counterfeit all that God has laid out?
Bill Federer:
Yeah, well you spoke eloquently on that and I think realizing how valuable Christmas is in world history. So there’s two things. God created you and your redeemed you to be honest, redemption’s more important because if he created you and you weren’t redeemed, that means you’d have you turned it away from God. That would be worse than he even been made in the first place. So redemption and Jesus, mark 10 said that the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many God is the just God. He has to judge every sin. He cannot change his nature in mathematical equations, there’s constants and variables. The constant is God is just, was, is and forever will be just the variable is who takes the judgment you or a substitute. Jesus is our substitute. He took the judgment for every sin that you’ve made upon himself.
And so you can approach this just God without having to worry about being judged. But the Christmas we celebrate Emmanuel, Isaiah seven 14, the virgin shall conceive and bear his son and shall name his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. So December 25th, did you know that in year 4 96 ad that Clovis, the king of the Franks got baptized with 3000 of his soldiers And this is when France became Christian. And then on Christmas day in the year, 597, 10,000 Anglo-Saxons were baptized by St. Augustine of Canterbury. And that’s when England became the Christian. And then Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman emperor on Christmas day in the year 800 ad. And then you have St. Stephen of Hungary is crowned on Christmas day in the year 1000, you have William the Conqueror. He’s crowned on Christmas day as the king of England in the year 10 66.
There’s dozens and dozens of kings that have been crowned and baptized on Christmas day, Columbus said sail and his Santa Maria ship is wrecked on Haiti on Christmas Eve 1492, he leaves 40 sailors names at Avi, dod. But we’re getting into America. George Washington crosses the Delaware River on Christmas day, evening of 1776, captures a thousand German Hessian troops and begins to turn the tide during the war of 1812. The treaty signed on Christmas Eve of 1814. And then even fast forward, Franklin Pierce was the first one to put a Christmas tree in the White House. Lincoln celebrated Christmas, world War I 1914, the Christmas truce. So you have the Germans and the French and the English and the Belgians, they’re fighting and it’s Christmas Eve and some of the Germans start singing Silent Night. And that’s the one song that every language has. And then they get together and they stop shooting and they come out and they put up a Christmas tree and they play soccer together and they’re shaving each other, snipping off buttons and trading them.
And it was like the people that were there said it was surreal that we were all just buddies like we’d always been. And they buried the dead and they would’ve joint funeral ceremonies. But then the officers found out about it the next day and forbid them from associating with the enemy. But then World War ii, battle of the Bulge, he got the hundred first Airborne is pinned down in Ba Stone. It’s this town with eight roads that go through it that the Nazis have to get through to Antwerp the coast. They want gas, they’re running out of gas.
Sam Rohrer:
And Bill, I hate to step in, but we are done. And you could go on literally my friend for because you’re head is full of the facts of history. Ladies and gentlemen, this was just a taste today. You can find out so much more information, not just about Christmas, but a lot of things of history at Bill Federer’s website@americanminute.com. And can I encourage all of you on this December 25th, that’s Bill of sightings, such these major events, make sure that you know Jesus Christ as your personal savior. And if not, make December 25th, 2023 that year and go forward. Enjoy the balance of the day and the balance of this week as we look into a new year, coming up soon of 2024.
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