the history of “Jul”

спални комплекти
The celebration of God becoming human is celebrated in what the English world calls Christmas. Here in Scandinavia we don’t call it Christmas, we call it “Jul”. Jul has originally nothing to do with Christ.

Yule or Yule-tide is a winter festival that was initially celebrated by the historical Germanic peoples as a pagan religious festival, though it was later absorbed into, and equated with, the Christian festival of Christmas.

Christianity transformed and put new meaning into old religion all over the known world. Examples of this is how the church did this is how the word advent is turned into a christian holiday. Augustus introduced the advent of Augustus to celebrate the fact that he was the son of God 17 years before the birth of Jesus. (Read more about it here)

Christianity had a hard time

Here in Scandinavia the church never were able to remove the word Yule or Jul as we say today from what we called the birth of Jesus. Originally it has nothing to do with Christianity.

The festival was originally celebrated from late December to early January on a date determined by the lunar Germanic calendar. The festival was placed on December 25 when the Christian (Julian) calendar was adopted.

Some historians claim that the celebration is connected to the Wild Hunt or was influenced by Saturnalia, the Roman winter festival. The term “Yule” is still used in the Nordic Countries and to a lesser extent in English speaking countries to refer to Christmas. Customs such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others stem from Yule. In modern times, Yule is observed as a cultural festival and also with religious rites by some Christians and by some Neopagans.

Merry Christ mass

Have a good mass, a mass where Christ is celebrated. Where the fact that God became man is a story we now all can be a part of. Have a blessed Christ mass or a “god Jul” as we say here in Scandinavia.

John Howard Yoder has played an important part in influencing my thinking in various ways. Here he has interesting things to say about Democracy.

Yoder is best remembered for his reflections on Christian ethics. Rejecting the assumption that human history is driven by coercive power, Yoder argued that it was rather God — working in, with, and through the nonviolent, non-resistant community of disciples of Jesus — who has been the ultimate force in human affairs. If the Christian church in the past made alliances with political rulers, it was because it had lost confidence in this truth.

He called the arrangement whereby the state and the church each supported the goals of the other Constantinianism, and he regarded it as a dangerous and constant temptation. Yoder argued that Jesus himself rejected this temptation, even to the point of dying a horrible and cruel death. Resurrecting Jesus from the dead was, in this view, God’s way of vindicating Christ’s unwavering obedience.