One of the first things we need to understand about Christmas is that there is no biblical indication that God intended for us to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Remember? Most certainly! That’s why the story was told. But unlike the resurrection which is repeatedly talked about in the New Testament, the birth of Jesus is never mentioned outside of the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke. The early church remembered and celebrated the resurrection, but there is no indication in the bible that the birth of Jesus was to be celebrated.
There is extra-biblical evidence that Clement, one of the late first century church leaders, did encourage Christians to observe Christ’s birthday as a primary feast day, but whatever day that was has been lost in antiquity. Some early evidence actually placed the day of Jesus’ birth in the spring, some in the fall. It wasn’t until early in the fifth century that December 25th was finally accepted as the best tradition by most of the church.
The best guess for how we finally settled on December 25th is that the date is of pagan origin. The pagan winter festivals took place around that time. As Christianity spread from Rome up into Europe, many of the pagan festivals were substituted for Christian festivals.
These festivals, coinciding with the end of the year (since the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, is on December 21, the sun was once again ascending, therefore it was a new year), were celebrated around the world. Many of them included swapped roles – the master became the servant of the slave – and exchanging gifts, as well as, of course, feasting. Many of our contemporary Christmas traditions are rooted in some of those ancient pagan winter festivals.Does all that mean we shouldn’t celebrate Christmas? Or does it mean that we need to be very careful when we preach about the ‘true meaning of Christmas’?
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