by Penney Kester

Created on: March 06, 2008

It is March; just close your eyes for a second -your mind wings backwards-, remembering that wonderful warm glow of family feeling that envelopes you when you envision a crackling fire, stockings hung, and a beautiful green fir tree 'twined with twinkling lights and family heirlooms, wrapped presents piled high underneath. Each year people look forward to that very special feeling.

Laid at the foundation of Christmas tradition, we find a mixed conglomeration of religious and economic customs; Santa Claus, Jesus Christ, and the winter solstice are fused together, somehow giving rise to the idea that peace and joy will be distributed to everyone. Christmas has become one of the most celebrated holidays in the world, and a brightly lit Christmas tree is one of the most easily recognized symbols of the season, but is it a religious symbol, and of what religion? That same evergreen tree that evokes such memories is indeed a symbol of everlasting life - but whose?

Checking back through the mists of biblical and secular history, eventually we come to the great-grandson of the patriarch Noah(of the Great Flood fame). There we find a man named Nimrod, founder of the Babylonian Empire, and known in Egypt as Osiris. (See Genesis 10:8-12). Nimrod was married to Semiramis who also happened to be his own mother! When Nimrod died in 2186 B.C. Semiramis claimed that he was a god, and that during the night an evergreen tree had sprung from the stump of a dead tree on the very spot where he had been buried. She said that the tree was a symbol of new life, that Nimrod had been reborn and would return to visit this tree every year on the anniversay of his birth, to leave gifts under it. His birthday was at the time of the winter solstice, specifically on the 25th of December!

A symbol is identified as the concrete representation of an idea or concept. If the real Christmas tree is a symbol of the false babylonian religion established by Nimrod's wife/mother, it cannot be a religious symbol of the followers of Christ.

Although the Christmas tree has become accepted as part of present-day culture and tradition, and warm, fuzzy feeling not withstanding, it cannot be connected with the truth of Jesus Christ.

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