The NT teaches that Christians are not under any obligation to observe/keep any day for religious purposes! Paul says as much in Rom 14.5a when he notes that some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. Also, throughout his letters Paul, remember who he was now, the former “zealous-Torah-observant Pharisee,” compares the keeping of the Sabbath day to paganism! What he now calls “the spiritual forces/elements” of this present evil age. For example, Paul asks the church in Galatia:
Why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?
You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years.
And to the church in Colossae he warns:
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths.
This perhaps explains why early Christians did not keep records of Jesus’ virgin birthdate or his death/resurrection. Which makes the observance of any date, superficially Dec. 25, even more baffling. As a matter of historical fact, according to The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, “there’s no historical evidence" that his birthday was celebrated at all "during the apostolic or early postapostolic times.”
Furthermore, according to the Benson Commentary “The birth of Christ has been placed in every month of the year” except December, i.e., during the winter solstice!
Many of you might not even know that when Christians started to officially observe Jesus' virgin birthdate they did so in Jan not in Dec. Still others celebrated it on April, others in May, and still others in the summer months of June and July. The only hint we get from the Gospels and other early Apostolic age Jewish-Christian sources is of a season and not a date.
Luke 2.8 records that he was born at night and in the fields near Bethlehem some shepherds were guarding their sheep.
Ellicot’s Commentary notes that this is “the season at which the grass is greenest" in Jerusalem, which is just before the Passover. And John 6:10 records that the feeding of the 5k occurred near the Passover festival, when there is "much grass" in that region.
So how exactly did we get to winter, let alone Dec 25?
Ellicot’s Commentary on Luke 2.8 adds that “The traditional season, which does not appear as such until the 4th century [may have been chosen] to displace old pagan Roman festivals like the Saturnalia, which [just happened to coincide] with the winter solstice.”
Once upon a time Christians banned Christmas for these very reasons. This has been a well-known and recorded kept secret!
The Historical Jesus for Dummies observes that “The first evidence of Christian celebrations for Christ’s birth comes from Clement of Alexandria in about 200 CE, but he finds the custom strange. And that it did not "become a common tradition celebrated around the Winter Solstice until the 4th c. CE.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica:
“The reason why Christmas came to be celebrated [by] Christians [was because they] wished the date to coincide with the pagan Roman festival marking the birthday of the Unconquered sun. In Rome Saturnalia (Dec 17) was a time of merrymaking and exchange of gifts. Dec 25 was also regarded as the birth date of the Iranian mystery god Mithra, the Sun of Righteousness.”
On the Roman NY (Jan 1), houses were decorated with greenery and lights, and gifts were given to children and the poor. To these observances were added the German and Celtic Yule rites when the Teutonic [early German] tribes penetrated into Gaul, Britain, and central Europe."
Food and good fellowship, the Yule log and Yule cakes, greenery and fir trees, gifts and greetings all commemorated different aspects of this festive season. fires and lights, symbols of warmth and lasting life, have always been associated with the winter festival, both pagan and Christian.”
Here's a helpful Timeline from The Christmas Encyclopedia by Crump.
Clancy in his book Sacred Christmas Music says "St. Gregory the Great in the late 6th century encouraged adopting some pagan customs as another method of spreading Christianity.
One way this could be accomplished was by destroying religious idols and altars without doing the same to the buildings so that the pagans could still use the same familiar premises for worshipping Jesus Christ."
Excursus: Christians Banned Christmas!
But Do You Recall? 25 Days of Christmas Carols and the Stories Behind Them by Brian Scott:
By the 1600s “it was well established that Dec. 25 was not the birth date of Christ, and that Chrtistmas had roots in paganism.
This was something that the English Puritans would not tolerate.
Any connection of Catholicism had to be severed….
Despite protests from the people, which were violent in some cases, the holiday was officially banned for over a decade [under the Cromwells in England].
Such harsh reactions were not limited to the English side of the Atlantic….
When the Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620, Christmas was not a holiday they celebrated.[It] was an especially hated holiday, associated with mirth, revelry, and drinking…."
Hugh Latimer, a 16th c. clergyman, described Christmas as a stretch of 12 days when men dishonor Christ more than in the previous 12 months. When Christmas was outlawed by Parliament in 1647, the colonists in New England did so as well and went one step further. Anyone found celebrating Christmas would pay a penalty of 5 shillings.
May 11, 1659, Massachusetts Bay Colony order:
“For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiceon, by reason of some still observing such ffestivalls as were superstitiously kept in other countrys, to the great dishonnor of God & offence of others, it is therefore ordered that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labour, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the county.”
Christmas Comeback
The Christmas Almanac
“It was probably the influence of immigrants from Germany and Ireland that finally convinced the Yankees that Christmas could be a harmless, pleasant, and even religious festivity. The first state to declare Christmas a legal holiday was Alabama in 1836. The last was OK in 1890.”
Yet, even as late as the 1800s you had the famous English Baptist Charles Spurgeon, in a Dec 24 sermon in 1871, preach:
“Christmas is a superstition because it’s not of divine authority.”
2. The Real Reason for the Season
Over the years I’ve collected quotes and news articles in efforts to show likeminded Christians the real reason for the season, as they say. Christmas is about the Incarnation with capital I, i.e., when God assumed or took on flesh when He entered Mary’s womb! In other words, when God became a baby!
Like it or not!
And this goes back a millennia.
Tertullian, writing in the 2nd c. AD.
The Son “was sent by the Father into the Virgin….”
St Hilary writing in the 4th c.
“The One Only-begotten God, ineffably born of God, [Who] entered the Virgin's womb."
There’s no difference today!
The noted German Lutheran Bonhoeffer:
God became human by taking on human nature, rather than taking on a single human being.
This distinction was necessary for the preservation of the universality of the Christmas miracle.
American populist preacher Rick Warren:
“The entire reason for Christmas is the love of God.
God loves you so much that he came to earth as a human….
Theologians call this the Incarnation.
God became one of us, a human being, so we could understand what he is really like.”
Here are some US news articles.
From Christianity Today Magazine, How to Celebrate Christmas as Cultural Minority:
A few years ago, I bought a paper star of my own to hang at Christmastime.
I hang it high in my window for the neighbors to see.
It’s just one small light in the midst of decorations everywhere, and yet it helps me remember the Christians all around the world who delight in awe and wonder at a baby who came to take away the sins of the world.
It gives me a concrete visual of a God who became incarnate in our suffering and brokenness.
And it reminds me, most of all, that the invisible one took on flesh and blood….
https://www.christianitytoday.com/w...celebrate-christmas-as-cultural-minority.html
And this Opinion piece from LifeSiteNews, anti abortion group, called Christmas should inspire us to fight even harder to save babies from abortion:
God took on a body at Christmas, and became visible, so that love could become visible….
Christmas is God in the flesh: no longer only an eternal Spirit who fills the universe, but our brother, whom we can hear, see, and touch.
By having his own blood, he could shed it for us.
By having his own body, he could offer it on the cross for us.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinio...ight-ever-harder-to-save-babies-from-abortion
What about Christmas “worship,” i.e., carols, aka music?
All Praise to Thee, Eternal Lord by Martin Luther:
“clothed in garb of flesh and blood;
choosing a manger for thy throne.”
And who can forget the famous Wesley hymn:
Tis mystery all!
The Immortal dies!
Who can explore His strange design?
Most Christians justify celebrating saying:
Yes, we all know the pagan elements in Christmas but that’s not why I or my family celebrate Christmas!
Or they simply say We're not celebrating the Incarnation.
But as a friend who wrote to me said:
I’m sure many arguments can be made, it all depends on how much Christians want to be a part of the traditions and celebrations of this world as opposed to the scriptures.
So perhaps you can ask your fellow Christians: Where does scripture authorize the celebration or observance of any religious day, as I showed earlier.
Is it okay for Christian parents to lie to their children about a mythical Santa Claus?
Historian Will Durant:
“Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it.
The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual…"
Other pagan cultures contributed to the syncretist result.
From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity…and the mystic theosophy that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian creed…
Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.”
And of course, from the Old to the NT the Biblical WARNINGS are very clear!
In Lev 18 God, through Moses, warned the Israelites not to follow the customs of the lands God was bringing them into.
In Eph. 5 God, now through Paul, echoes a similar warning:
"Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them."
Because "when all things are brought out to the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed."
Why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?
You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years.
And to the church in Colossae he warns:
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths.
This perhaps explains why early Christians did not keep records of Jesus’ virgin birthdate or his death/resurrection. Which makes the observance of any date, superficially Dec. 25, even more baffling. As a matter of historical fact, according to The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, “there’s no historical evidence" that his birthday was celebrated at all "during the apostolic or early postapostolic times.”
Furthermore, according to the Benson Commentary “The birth of Christ has been placed in every month of the year” except December, i.e., during the winter solstice!
Many of you might not even know that when Christians started to officially observe Jesus' virgin birthdate they did so in Jan not in Dec. Still others celebrated it on April, others in May, and still others in the summer months of June and July. The only hint we get from the Gospels and other early Apostolic age Jewish-Christian sources is of a season and not a date.
Luke 2.8 records that he was born at night and in the fields near Bethlehem some shepherds were guarding their sheep.
Ellicot’s Commentary notes that this is “the season at which the grass is greenest" in Jerusalem, which is just before the Passover. And John 6:10 records that the feeding of the 5k occurred near the Passover festival, when there is "much grass" in that region.
So how exactly did we get to winter, let alone Dec 25?
Ellicot’s Commentary on Luke 2.8 adds that “The traditional season, which does not appear as such until the 4th century [may have been chosen] to displace old pagan Roman festivals like the Saturnalia, which [just happened to coincide] with the winter solstice.”
- ChristMass: Pagan-Christianity
Once upon a time Christians banned Christmas for these very reasons. This has been a well-known and recorded kept secret!
The Historical Jesus for Dummies observes that “The first evidence of Christian celebrations for Christ’s birth comes from Clement of Alexandria in about 200 CE, but he finds the custom strange. And that it did not "become a common tradition celebrated around the Winter Solstice until the 4th c. CE.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica:
“The reason why Christmas came to be celebrated [by] Christians [was because they] wished the date to coincide with the pagan Roman festival marking the birthday of the Unconquered sun. In Rome Saturnalia (Dec 17) was a time of merrymaking and exchange of gifts. Dec 25 was also regarded as the birth date of the Iranian mystery god Mithra, the Sun of Righteousness.”
On the Roman NY (Jan 1), houses were decorated with greenery and lights, and gifts were given to children and the poor. To these observances were added the German and Celtic Yule rites when the Teutonic [early German] tribes penetrated into Gaul, Britain, and central Europe."
Food and good fellowship, the Yule log and Yule cakes, greenery and fir trees, gifts and greetings all commemorated different aspects of this festive season. fires and lights, symbols of warmth and lasting life, have always been associated with the winter festival, both pagan and Christian.”
Here's a helpful Timeline from The Christmas Encyclopedia by Crump.
- 336 The Roman Philocalian calendar first mentions Dec. 25.
- 350 The first official celebration after Pope Julius sanctions Dec. 25.
- 380 First official observance by churches in Cappadocia.
Clancy in his book Sacred Christmas Music says "St. Gregory the Great in the late 6th century encouraged adopting some pagan customs as another method of spreading Christianity.
One way this could be accomplished was by destroying religious idols and altars without doing the same to the buildings so that the pagans could still use the same familiar premises for worshipping Jesus Christ."
Excursus: Christians Banned Christmas!
But Do You Recall? 25 Days of Christmas Carols and the Stories Behind Them by Brian Scott:
By the 1600s “it was well established that Dec. 25 was not the birth date of Christ, and that Chrtistmas had roots in paganism.
This was something that the English Puritans would not tolerate.
Any connection of Catholicism had to be severed….
Despite protests from the people, which were violent in some cases, the holiday was officially banned for over a decade [under the Cromwells in England].
Such harsh reactions were not limited to the English side of the Atlantic….
When the Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620, Christmas was not a holiday they celebrated.[It] was an especially hated holiday, associated with mirth, revelry, and drinking…."
Hugh Latimer, a 16th c. clergyman, described Christmas as a stretch of 12 days when men dishonor Christ more than in the previous 12 months. When Christmas was outlawed by Parliament in 1647, the colonists in New England did so as well and went one step further. Anyone found celebrating Christmas would pay a penalty of 5 shillings.
May 11, 1659, Massachusetts Bay Colony order:
“For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiceon, by reason of some still observing such ffestivalls as were superstitiously kept in other countrys, to the great dishonnor of God & offence of others, it is therefore ordered that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labour, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the county.”
Christmas Comeback
The Christmas Almanac
“It was probably the influence of immigrants from Germany and Ireland that finally convinced the Yankees that Christmas could be a harmless, pleasant, and even religious festivity. The first state to declare Christmas a legal holiday was Alabama in 1836. The last was OK in 1890.”
Yet, even as late as the 1800s you had the famous English Baptist Charles Spurgeon, in a Dec 24 sermon in 1871, preach:
“Christmas is a superstition because it’s not of divine authority.”
2. The Real Reason for the Season
Over the years I’ve collected quotes and news articles in efforts to show likeminded Christians the real reason for the season, as they say. Christmas is about the Incarnation with capital I, i.e., when God assumed or took on flesh when He entered Mary’s womb! In other words, when God became a baby!
Like it or not!
And this goes back a millennia.
Tertullian, writing in the 2nd c. AD.
The Son “was sent by the Father into the Virgin….”
St Hilary writing in the 4th c.
“The One Only-begotten God, ineffably born of God, [Who] entered the Virgin's womb."
There’s no difference today!
The noted German Lutheran Bonhoeffer:
God became human by taking on human nature, rather than taking on a single human being.
This distinction was necessary for the preservation of the universality of the Christmas miracle.
American populist preacher Rick Warren:
“The entire reason for Christmas is the love of God.
God loves you so much that he came to earth as a human….
Theologians call this the Incarnation.
God became one of us, a human being, so we could understand what he is really like.”
Here are some US news articles.
From Christianity Today Magazine, How to Celebrate Christmas as Cultural Minority:
A few years ago, I bought a paper star of my own to hang at Christmastime.
I hang it high in my window for the neighbors to see.
It’s just one small light in the midst of decorations everywhere, and yet it helps me remember the Christians all around the world who delight in awe and wonder at a baby who came to take away the sins of the world.
It gives me a concrete visual of a God who became incarnate in our suffering and brokenness.
And it reminds me, most of all, that the invisible one took on flesh and blood….
https://www.christianitytoday.com/w...celebrate-christmas-as-cultural-minority.html
And this Opinion piece from LifeSiteNews, anti abortion group, called Christmas should inspire us to fight even harder to save babies from abortion:
God took on a body at Christmas, and became visible, so that love could become visible….
Christmas is God in the flesh: no longer only an eternal Spirit who fills the universe, but our brother, whom we can hear, see, and touch.
By having his own blood, he could shed it for us.
By having his own body, he could offer it on the cross for us.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinio...ight-ever-harder-to-save-babies-from-abortion
What about Christmas “worship,” i.e., carols, aka music?
All Praise to Thee, Eternal Lord by Martin Luther:
“clothed in garb of flesh and blood;
choosing a manger for thy throne.”
And who can forget the famous Wesley hymn:
Tis mystery all!
The Immortal dies!
Who can explore His strange design?
Most Christians justify celebrating saying:
Yes, we all know the pagan elements in Christmas but that’s not why I or my family celebrate Christmas!
Or they simply say We're not celebrating the Incarnation.
But as a friend who wrote to me said:
I’m sure many arguments can be made, it all depends on how much Christians want to be a part of the traditions and celebrations of this world as opposed to the scriptures.
So perhaps you can ask your fellow Christians: Where does scripture authorize the celebration or observance of any religious day, as I showed earlier.
Is it okay for Christian parents to lie to their children about a mythical Santa Claus?
Historian Will Durant:
“Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it.
The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual…"
Other pagan cultures contributed to the syncretist result.
From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity…and the mystic theosophy that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian creed…
Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.”
And of course, from the Old to the NT the Biblical WARNINGS are very clear!
In Lev 18 God, through Moses, warned the Israelites not to follow the customs of the lands God was bringing them into.
In Eph. 5 God, now through Paul, echoes a similar warning:
"Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them."
Because "when all things are brought out to the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed."
