CHRISTMAS NOT IN THE BIBLE
In the first place, Christmas is not a Bible doctrine. If our blessed Lord had wanted us to celebrate His birthday, He would have told us when to celebrate it and how to do it. The apostles and the early church never celebrated Christ's birthday at any time. The Bible tells us everything we need to know relative to our spiritual life (II Tim. 3:16). We don't have to go outside the Bible for anything. God's Word tells us how we're supposed to worship, how we're supposed to give money for the Lord's work, how to evangelize the lost, how to take the Lord's Supper, and everything else pertaining to the Christian life. But not once in the Bible does God tell us to celebrate Christmas.
Don't you think that if God had wanted us to observe Christmas, He would have told us about it at least one place in the Bible? God's people are supposed to be Bible people. So the very fact that Christmas is never mentioned in the Bible is sufficient reason why we shouldn't celebrate it.No one knows the exact day when Jesus was born. The birthday of Jesus is a secret with God the Father, and God would have told us the exact day of His Son's birth if He wanted us to know it!
The shepherds came to Bethlehem to see Jesus at His birth. The wise men came to Nazareth to see Jesus when He was almost two years old. If you will readMatthew 2:7-11carefully, you will see that the star led the wise men to Nazareth, not to the stable in Bethlehem where our Lord was born. Verse 9 tells us that they found Jesus in "the house" where He had lived with Mary and Joseph since He was 91 days old (Luke 2:7, 21-39). This "house" was in Nazareth, the place where Joseph and Mary lived. It all becomes very simple if you will keep in mind that the shepherds came to Bethlehem and found an infant in a manger. The wise men were led to Nazareth and found a child living in a house.
Herod knew that the Christ child was nearly two years old when he inquired of the wise men, and that's why he ordered all the children from two years old and under to be put to death (Matthew 2:16). So never confuse the visit of the shepherds and the visit of the wise men. They were two entirely separate and distinct events. Another thing, there is nothing said in the Bible about three wise men coming to visit Christ. The fact is that the Bible does not give their number at all but merely states that there were wise men. There may have been two, there may have been three, there may have been four, there may have been a dozen - we don't know. Yet ninety-nine people out of a hundred think that there were three wise men. That's the way tradition has it. What does the Bible say? It simply says that "there came WISE MEN from the East to Jerusalem saying, 'Where is He that is born King of the Jews?'" (Matthew 2: 1-2).
That brings me to the next reason why I don't celebrate Christmas, and that is because Christ was not born on December 25th. Notice: "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night (Luke 2:8)."
Now this verse tells us very plainly that the shepherds were in the fields taking care of their flocks on the night Jesus was born. As the shepherds were watching their sheep, the message came to them of the birth of Jesus. Now it is a well known fact that December is the rainy season in Palestine and the sheep were kept in the fold at that time of the year. The shepherds always corralled and brought their flocks from the mountain sides and fields not later than October l5th, to protect them from the cold, rainy season that followed that date. So the birth of Christ could not have taken place at the end of December. Then, if you will turn to the second chapter of Luke, you will find that at the birth of Christ every woman and child was to go to be taxed at the city where they were citizens. This could not have been in winter. Augustus, the king of Rome, would certainly not call for such a taxing in the depth of winter. Therefore, Christ could not have been born in December. Actually, Christ was born some time in the first part of October. This is deduced from the fact that His earthly ministry lasted 3 1/2 years, and He was crucified on the l4th day of Nisan which corresponds to our April. See John 19:31;Leviticus 23:5. If we go back 3 1/2 years to the time when Jesus was 30 years old (when He began His public ministry), we come to the month of October. This was probably the month when our blessed Lord was born into the world.
Of course, the date of Jesus' birth is not too important. The important thing is that He was born and that He died for our sins. We're not worshiping a helpless infant lying in a manger, but we're worshiping a risen and exalted Christ who has all power in heaven and in earth (Matthew 28:18. ).I shall now quote from the Encyclopedia Americana, 1942 Edition, vol. 6, page 623, concerning its report of the origin of Christmas:
"Christmas – It was according to many authorities NOT celebrated in the first centuries of the Christian Church as the Christian usage in general was to celebrate the death of remarkable persons rather than their birth. A feast was established in memory of the birth of the Savior in the FOURTH Century. In the Fifth Century the Western Church (Roman Catholic) ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman Feast of the birth of Sol. The holly, the mistletoe, the yule log and the wassail bowl are of pre Christian times. The Christmas tree has been traced back to the Romans. It went from Germany to Great Britain."
Any reputable encyclopedia will tell you that our modern day Christmas customs came out of paganism. Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say:
"Christmas (i.e., the Mass of Christ) was not among the earliest festivals of the church."
Any good encyclopedia will verify the fact that Christmas came out of paganism, that the exchanging of gifts, the making use of holly, the mistletoe and the yule log, the Christmas tree and the singing of carols, the dancing and the feasting are all of pagan origin and were all gradually grafted into the so-called "Christian" church during or after the fourth century A. D. Tertullian and others tell how exchanging of gifts was a part of the Saturnalia celebration. And the hymns they sang at that pagan feast were predecessors to the Christmas carols. Says Pysher: "Many pagan carols were adopted but were given a Christian meaning. Carols and dancing were kept out of the festival of Christmas for many centuries." TheEncyclopedia Americana declares: "The holly, the mistletoe, the Yule log and the wassail bowl are relics of pre Christian times." The historian Hislop confirms these findings: "The wassailing bowl of Christmas had its precise counterpart in the 'Drunken festival' of Babylon," says Hislop;" and many of the other observances still kept up among ourselves at Christmas came from the very same quarter. The candles, in some parts of England (and America), lighted on Christmases, and used so long as the festive season lasts, were equally lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of the Babylonian god, to do honor to him . . . The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in pagan Rome and pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm tree; in Rome it was the fir." – The Two Babylons, page 97.
Now, beloved, God's people are not supposed to have anything to do with pagan customs or pagan doctrine. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 10: 2, "Learn not the way of the heathen." But somehow the Christian has learned it just the same.
Some will say, "We can't help it if we were born into a pagan world. We can't help it if we were reared and steeped in pagan doctrines and customs." Oh, yes you can! Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."There is only one righteous thing that you can do with these pagan holidays and that is to repudiate them and have no part in them. The virgin birth of Christ is a blessed fact, but the Christmas celebration is a wicked and an ungodly thing.
Another reason why I don't celebrate Christmas is that Christmas is a Catholic holiday. Why should I steal Christmas from the Catholics? They got it from the pagans and I'm happy to let them keep it.
Sometimes you hear the slogan, "Let's Put Christ Back Into Christmas." Well, beloved, how can you put Christ back into something when He was never there?Even the name "Christmas" is an abomination to the Lord. Christmas is a combination of two words, "Christ" and "Mass." Christ is the divine title of our Lord. "Mass" is from the Roman Catholic sacrament of the mass. Certainly born-again Christians shouldn't have anything to do with masses. The mass is a Roman Catholic invention. The mass is a prayer that is read or sung for the soul of a dead person.Every time you say "Merry Christmas," you are actually mixing the precious and holy name of Christ with a demon holiday. The Lord tells us in no unmistakable language that we are not to mix His name with any pagan holiday or with a pagan god. The Lord says inEzekiel 20: 39, "Pollute not my holy name no more."
The next reason why I don't celebrate Christmas is that Christmas is of the world. We are commanded in I John 2: 15, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
One fact alone proves to me that Christmas is not of God. It is this: The world which hates Christ and His blood atonement for sin makes more fuss about Christmas than any other holiday. Now beloved, if December 25th were really the birthday of Jesus, don't you know that the world would have nothing to do with it?
More people get drunk at Christmas than at any other time during the year. There's more big parties and more selfish spending at Christmas than at any other season. Doesn't that prove that it's of the world and not of God? If it were of God, the world wouldn't have anything to do with it. The very fact that the world observes it proves that it isn't of God.
Furthermore, Jesus said, "That which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God (Luke 16:15)." Jesus said anything which men highly esteem is abomination to God. Well, don't people esteem Christmas more highly than almost anything else!
The vilest sinner in town will run over you if necessary in order to celebrate Christmas. If you have any doubts as to whether the world loves Christmas or not, just go into any big department store or dime store during the last few frantic hours of the Christmas shopping season, and see how many people run over you and what a mad house it is. Why, they'll elbow you practically to death.
A person must surely be blind it he can't see that the modern day Christmas celebration is of the world.I do not celebrate Christmas because the Christmas tree is condemned by the Bible.
"Learn not the way of the Heathen . . . For the customs of that people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not . . . But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities . . . (Jeremiah 10: 2-4, 10)."
Here you have a perfect description of the Christmas tree, called by God "the way of the heathen." We are commanded not to learn that way or follow it. It is also viewed in this passage as idolatry. The fifth verse says that these trees cannot speak – cannot walk – must be carried. Some people misread this to make it say there is no harm in having a Christmas tree, but that is not what it says at all. Rather, the prophet Jeremiah tells us that it is vanity and foolishness and says "learn not the way of the heathen." Some people will stay up all night to work on an old dead tree. They'll trim it all up, and stand off a little ways and admire their handiwork. Some of you will sit up all night and look at that old Christmas tree.
I hope some of you preachers will get up in the middle of the night and throw that old tree out of your house and out of your church. Well, I realize some of you will just gnash your teeth and call me "narrow minded." Well, you can call me narrow minded it you want to, but I'm just giving you the Word of God.
I'd like to leave this little thought with you. Did you know that the green tree is mentioned 14 times in the Bible, and in every instance it is linked with idolatry. There isn't one place in the Bible where God commends the use of the evergreen in connection with true worship.Perhaps the most important part of the Christmas celebration is the buying and exchanging of gifts. Now beloved, I do not celebrate Christmas because the custom of exchanging gifts has nothing to do with the birthday of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When people exchange gifts, they're not bringing them to Christ; they're giving them to one another. You have got to keep a list of the people who sent you presents last year and each year your list grows longer and longer, and before long you're in such a heavy debt buying Christmas presents that you've got to start saving money right after one Christmas in order to buy presents for the next Christmas.
Beloved, I can't understand why anyone would went to be in bondage to such an expensive custom. Jesus is supposed to be the cause of Christmas, and yet people give their gifts to everybody but Jesus.
Perhaps some of you are asking, "Didn't the Wise Men give gifts to Jesus?" They certainly did, but they didn't give them to one another. And their gifts were not birthday gifts because the Wise Men did not come to visit Jesus until he was nearly two years old. The Shepherds came to visit Jesus at His birth, but the Wise Men came to see Him nearly two years later.
Did you know that giving gifts to a king was a common custom in the Far East? That's the reason why the Wise Men brought gifts to Jesus – because he had been born to be King of the Jews. But they were not birthday gifts. So there is no connection between Christmas and the birthday of Jesus in this respect.Every time some conscientious mothers raise this question, "Don't you think we ought to give the children a good time? They don't understand." Let me ask you this question, mother – is it necessary to drag the holy name of our blessed Lord down to the low level of fleshly gratification and drunkenness to show the kiddies a good time? A thousand times, No! Let's teach our children the truth about Christmas. God's Word says (Ephesians 6:4) to bring our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and why should we dishonor the name of Christ in such manner under the pretense of showing the children a good time? There are 364 more days in the year during which we can give gifts to our children.It is plain to see that there isn't a single thing connected with Christmas that is Biblical. Let's just take Santa Claus as an example.
The name Santa Claus is a corruption of the name Saint Nicholas who is none other than Old Nick, the Devil. And yet thousands of parents will encourage their children to write to dear old St. Nick or dear Santa. Now if you're a Christian, you should be ashamed of yourself if you lie to your children by telling them that there is a Santa Claus. Through the year you punish your children for lying, and then you turn right around and lie yourself by telling your children that there is a Santa Claus. Is it any wonder that when they grow up and learn the truth they begin to believe that God is a myth too?
The Bible says in Colossians 3:9, "Lie not one to another." We are commanded in Ephesians 4:25, "...to put away lying, and to speak every man truth with his neighbor."
Beloved, I say again I don't know of a single thing connected with Christmas that is Biblical. You have to go outside of the Bible to learn of the Christmas tree, Santa Claus, the holly wreath, mistletoe, yule log, and all other things that go along with the Christmas celebration. Let's be honest before God and admit that this is a pagan holiday and a trick of the Devil.
Beloved, anyone with any sense at all ought to be able to see that Christmas is good for only one thing – to make money for the department stores and the business merchants. Any simpleton should be able to see that Christmas makes dollars, and dollars make Christmas. But, does it make any sense?
No, there's no reason why anyone has to celebrate Christmas. It's not in the Bible. Jesus was not born on December 25th. And we can remember the birth of our wonderful Savior 365 days a year.Finally, I don't celebrate Christmas because God's Word absolutely forbids the observance of any (religious) holy days in this church dispensation. Listen:
"Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain (Galatians 4:10-11)."
That sounds like the observance of Christmas, doesn't it? Here the Apostle Paul absolutely forbids the observing of days, months and seasons. To the Christian there are no special holy days. Every day should be alike, holy unto the Lord.
If you are truly saved, you will remember the birth, the life, the death, the burial and the resurrection of your wonderful Savior 365 days a year. Yes, I am glad to serve a real and a living Christ who lives all year round. Let us as born-again Christians use our money this season of the year, not for foolish and unnecessary presents, but to spread the Gospel message to this lost and dying world.
Oh, Christian, I beseech you, turn from the world and its holy days, touch not the unclean thing; associate not the birth of the holy Son of God with the fables of the world and apostate Christendom. Hear His pleading voice, "Be ye separate, O my people (II Corinthians 6:19)."
When someone at work asked me why I do not celebrate the holidays, I did not have what I thought was a good response to give her, but this essay will provide a handful of valid reasons.
First, Jesus was not born on December 25. While the Bible does not give an exact date for His birth, John Reid, in the Forerunner article, "When Was Jesus Born?" tells us that the Bible leaves clues that point to His actual birth date. The article provides a method of calculation starting with John the Baptist's father, Zacharias. Based on when Zacharias would have served in the Temple during his priestly course, John the Baptist's birth would have occurred in the latter half of March. Since he was six months older than Jesus (Luke 1:32), we can extrapolate that Jesus would have been born in the second half of September, around the fall holy days.
Lawrence Kelemen, a Jew, brings up several points about the problems people face when they attempt to justify their keeping of the holiday. He affirms that the Bible does not list the actual day of Jesus' birth anywhere. He infers that, since Mark, the earliest gospel (written a half-century after Jesus' birth) begins with the baptism of Jesus as an adult, first-century Christians cared little about His birthday.
Second, the roots of Christmas are found in Saturnalia. Pagans in Rome celebrated this weeklong period of bedlam and lawlessness between December 17-25. During this period of anarchy, no one could be punished for their vandalism and mayhem. An "enemy of the Roman people" was chosen to represent the "Lord of Misrule." Each community selected a victim and forced him to gorge himself on food and other indulgences throughout the week. On the last day of the festival, December 25, they took vengeance against the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this victim. Kelemen writes that besides this human sacrifice, there was widespread drunkenness, public nudity, rape, and other sexual license.
After Constantine converted to Catholicism, many pagans followed him once they were allowed to maintain their celebration of Saturnalia. They solved the problem of Saturnalia having nothing to do with Christianity by declaring December 25 to be Jesus' birthday, replacing the celebration of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Invincible Sun), but little changed in practice.
These practices are blatant violations of God's command in Deuteronomy 12:30-31:
. . . take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, "How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise." You shall not worship the LORDyour God in that way; for every abomination to the LORDwhich He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.
Third, many of the trappings of Christmas are directly imported from paganism. For instance, the Catholic Church shamelessly welcomed the pagan tree worshippers into their fellowship. They simply called their trees "Christmas trees." Mistletoe is another example of such syncretism. The ancient Druids used its supposed mystical powers to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck. In ancient Norse mythology, mistletoe was used to symbolize love and friendship. The custom of kissing under the mistletoe is a later blending of the sexual license of Saturnalia with Druidic practice.
The Catholic Church says that the practice of gift-giving was begun by an early bishop, Nicholas, who died in AD345 and made a saint in the 1800s. Nicholas was a senior bishop who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325. Some 750 years later, a group of sailors who idolized him moved his bones from Turkey to Italy, where he supplanted a favor-granting deity called the Grandmother, who used to fill children's stockings with gifts. In his honor, his followers would give each other gifts on the anniversary of his death, December 6.
From there, his cult spread to the German and Celtic pagans. Many of them worshipped Woden, who wore a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens each fall. Through the process of syncretism, Nicholas and Woden were combined. Nicholas now sported a beard, rode a flying horse, wore winter clothes to battle the elements, and took his trip in the last month of the year instead of in the fall. As it evangelized in Northern Europe, Catholicism absorbed the Nicholas cult and persuaded its adherents to give gifts on December 25 instead of December 6.
In 1809, novelist Washington Irving satirically wrote of this Saint Nicolas using his Dutch name, Santa Claus. Thirteen years later, Clement Moore wrote a poem based on this Santa Claus, The Night before Christmas. The poem incorporated the giving of gifts, added his descent down the chimney, and replaced the horse with a sleigh and eight reindeer.
Our modern image of Santa Claus was provided by a Bavarian cartoonist, Thomas Nast, who drew over 2000 pictures in the late nineteenth century for Harper's Weekly. Before Nast's cartoon, Saint Nicholas had been depicted as "everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock." Nast provided many of the traditional details: He gave him a home at the North Pole and a workshop with elves who made toys.
The creation of Santa was completed in 1931 when the Coca-Cola Corporation developed a marketing campaign for a Coke-drinking Santa. Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom modeled a chubby Santa, dressed in a bright Coca-Cola red outfit. Kelemen states, "[The modern] Santa was born—a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol."
Fourth, December 25 has traditionally been the day when pagans marked the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It is a day venerated every year by worshippers of the sun god. Egyptians celebrated Horus' birthday on December 25. Other cultures also worshipped their gods on this day: the Mesopotamians, the ancient Greeks, and the Persians. Winter solstice traditions stretch back long before Jesus Christ entered into the world.
Fifth, Christmas is all about commercialism. Many people struggle with low wages and debt, yet they spend hundreds of dollars to buy Christmas gifts. The average American family will spend $882 this year on Christmas presents. An article in US News and World Report, "Commercialism Only Adds to Joy of the Holidays," avers that Christmas is a spiritual holiday whose main theme is personal, selfish pleasure and joy, claiming that the season's commercialism is integral to it. The article cites Ayn Rand, who said that Christmas' best aspect has been its commercialization: "The Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors . . . provide the city with a spectacular display, which only 'commercial greed' could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle."
Lastly, and in summary, the supposed worship of Christ is based on falsehoods. From rebranding pagan sun worship as worship of the Son of God to people telling their children that Santa will withhold their presents if they are not good, everything is a fabrication. Try as they might, people cannot make the unclean clean or the unholy holy.
As we drive along and see the beautiful lights and decorations, consider the way that John Ritenbaugh defines worldliness, "the love of beauty . . . without a corresponding love of righteousness" (see "The World, the Church, and Laodiceanism"). It fits in this case, as there is absolutely nothingrighteous about Christmas.
An anonymous quotation making the rounds of the Internet this year runs, "Christmas is weird. What other time of year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks?" Though it may induce a chuckle from its readers, most people either miss or ignore the larger point: Christmas is a bundle of contradictions, inanities, and outright lies. The astounding fact is that most people are aware of this. On a Christmas Eve radio show, a local preacher substituted for the regular host. His topic of discussion centered on the greeting "Merry Christmas!" and he asked if, in our multicultural, multi-religious society, this was offensive. One caller said, no, Christianity was still the majority religion in America, but what really troubled her was the fact that Christians promoted the traditional lie that Jesus was born on December 25. The preacher/talk-show host then explained to the audience that his caller was correct, Jesus could not have been born around the winter solstice, and that, in the early fourth century, the Catholic Church had combined the Roman winter solstice festival, the Saturnalia, with a celebration of Jesus' birth to help new converts adjust to Christianity. He treated these facts as common knowledge. His "resolution" to the conundrum, however, was revealing. The gist of his answer to the troubled caller was, "If Christians would live according to the teachings of Jesus, these contradictions would not matter." I had to shake my head. Neither the host nor the caller could see the self-contradictory nature of his answer. Did not Jesus teach that we are to be honest? Certainly, He did! He tells the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-18 that, to have eternal life, he should not bear false witness, which is the ninth commandment (Exodus 20:16). In the Sermon on the Mount, he says, "But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one" (Matthew 5:37). We could say, then, that keeping a celebration to Christ on a day that is not His birthday with customs and traditions that derive from paganism is from the evil one. It is a lie, and the Devil is the father of it (John 8:44). This is what makes the oft-heard phrase, "Let's put Christ back into Christmas!" so laughable. It is another self-contradictory statement. How can we put Christ into something in which He never was in the first place? Search the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and no command - not even a suggestion - to commemorate the Savior's birth will be found. It is amazing to consider that nominal Christians around the world keep days and festivals never once enjoined on them in God's Word (Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, Halloween, Christmas), yet the ones God tells them to keep (the Sabbath, Passover, God's holy days), they ignore! What about the real central character of Christmas, Santa Claus? Today's jolly old elf - a roly-poly old man in a red suit trimmed in white; big, black boots; spectacles; long, white beard; and a "ho-ho-ho" - was the brainchild of Coca-Cola's marketing department early in the last century. He was based loosely on the English Father Christmas and the German Kris Kringle. This figure in turn has blended with the early Christian Saint Nicholas, a churchman who was known for spreading the wealth to needy members of his community, sometimes throwing sacks of coins through open windows and down chimneys. Where is the biblical basis for such a character? He may be present in the modern crèche, but no one like him appears in the gospelnarratives of Jesus' birth. And then there is the season's alternate name, Yule. Where does that come from? Check the origin in the dictionary: "a pagan midwinter festival." Another contradiction! The preacher/talk-show host made mention of this point too, laughing about how so many people do not realize that their Yule log hearkens back to the heathen practice of driving away evil spirits with bonfires on the night of the winter solstice! Now, however, it is just another way we stir up our Christmas cheer! No harm in that, right? If these pagan, unbiblical elements are so commonly known, why does the Christmas tradition continue? Three reasons come to the fore:
In a word, Christmas continues because human nature deceives itself into practicing things that are not right because they are enjoyable. Human nature allows people to justify self-contradictory things because they appear to produce benefits for them. In such a case, truth does not matter; what is important is that a person receives presents and has a good time. And if a religious significance - real or imagined - can be attached to it, all the better. We should not expect people anytime soon to give up Christmas just because it has pagan origins. Human nature has a long history of explaining such pesky details away. |
Jesus was not born on December 25. While the Bible does not give an exact date for His birth, John Reid, in the Forerunner article, "When Was Jesus Born?" tells us that the Bible leaves clues that point to His actual birth date. The article provides a method of calculation starting with John the Baptist's father, Zacharias. Based on when Zacharias would have served in the Temple during his priestly course, John the Baptist's birth would have occurred in the latter half of March. Since he was six months older than Jesus (Luke 1:32), we can extrapolate that Jesus would have been born in the second half of September, around the fall holy days. Lawrence Kelemen, a Jew, brings up several points about the problems people face when they attempt to justify their keeping of the holiday. He affirms that the Bible does not list the actual day of Jesus' birth anywhere. He infers that, since Mark, the earliest gospel (written a half-century after Jesus' birth) begins with the baptism of Jesus as an adult, first-century Christians cared little about His birthday. The roots of Christmas are found in Saturnalia. Pagans in Rome celebrated this weeklong period of bedlam and lawlessness between December 17-25. During this period of anarchy, no one could be punished for their vandalism and mayhem. An "enemy of the Roman people" was chosen to represent the "Lord of Misrule." Each community selected a victim and forced him to gorge himself on food and other indulgences throughout the week. On the last day of the festival, December 25, they took vengeance against the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this victim. Kelemen writes that besides this human sacrifice, there was widespread drunkenness, public nudity, rape, and other forms of sexual license. After Constantine converted to Catholicism, many pagans followed him once they were allowed to maintain their celebration of Saturnalia. They solved the problem of Saturnalia having nothing to do with Christianity by declaring December 25 to be Jesus' birthday, replacing the celebration of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Invincible Sun), but little changed in practice. These practices are blatant violations of God's command in Deuteronomy 12:30-31. Many of the trappings of Christmas are directly imported from paganism. For instance, the Catholic Church shamelessly welcomed the pagan tree worshippers into their fellowship. They simply called their trees "Christmas trees." Mistletoe is another example of such syncretism. The ancient Druids used its supposed mystical powers to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck. In ancient Norse mythology, mistletoe was used to symbolize love and friendship. The custom of kissing under the mistletoe is a later blending of the sexual license of Saturnalia with Druidic practice. The Catholic Church says that the practice of gift-giving was begun by an early bishop, Nicholas, who died in AD 345 and made a saint in the 1800s. Nicholas was a senior bishop who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325. Some 750 years later, a group of sailors who idolized him moved his bones from Turkey to Italy, where he supplanted a favor-granting deity called the Grandmother, who used to fill children's stockings with gifts. In his honor, his followers would give each other gifts on the anniversary of his death, December 6. From there, his cult spread to the German and Celtic pagans. Many of them worshipped Woden, who wore a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens each fall. Through the process of syncretism, Nicholas and Woden were combined. Nicholas now sported a beard, rode a flying horse, wore winter clothes to battle the elements, and took his trip in the last month of the year instead of in the fall. As it evangelized in Northern Europe, Catholicism absorbed the Nicholas cult and persuaded its adherents to give gifts on December 25 instead of December 6. In 1809, novelist Washington Irving satirically wrote of this Saint Nicolas using his Dutch name, Santa Claus. Thirteen years later, Clement Moore wrote a poem based on this Santa Claus, The Night before Christmas. The poem incorporated the giving of gifts, added his descent down the chimney, and replaced the horse with a sleigh and eight reindeer. Our modern image of Santa Claus was provided by a Bavarian cartoonist, Thomas Nast, who drew over 2000 pictures in the late nineteenth century for Harper's Weekly. Before Nast's cartoon, Saint Nicholas had been depicted as "everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock." Nast provided many of the traditional details: He gave him a home at the North Pole and a workshop with elves who made toys. The creation of Santa was completed in 1931 when the Coca-Cola Corporation developed a marketing campaign for a Coke-drinking Santa. Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom modeled a chubby Santa, dressed in a bright Coca-Cola red outfit. Kelemen states, "[The modern] Santa was born—a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol." December 25 has traditionally been the day when pagans marked the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It is a day venerated every year by worshippers of the sun god. Egyptians celebrated Horus' birthday on December 25. Other cultures also worshipped their gods on this day: the Mesopotamians, the ancient Greeks, and the Persians. Winter solstice traditions stretch back long before Jesus Christ entered the world. Christmas is all about commercialism. Many people struggle with low wages and debt, yet they spend hundreds of dollars to buy Christmas gifts. The average American family will spend $882 this year on Christmas presents. An article in US News and World Report, "Commercialism Only Adds to Joyof the Holidays," avers that Christmas is a spiritual holiday whose main theme is personal, selfish pleasure and joy, claiming that the season's commercialism is integral to it. The article cites Ayn Rand, who said that Christmas' best aspect has been its commercialization: "The Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors . . . provide the city with a spectacular display, which only 'commercial greed' could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle." This supposed worship of Christ is based on falsehoods. From rebranding pagan sun worship as worship of the Son of God to people telling their children that Santa will withhold their presents if they are not good, everything is a fabrication. Try as they might, people cannot make the unclean clean or the unholy holy. |
Since the shepherds were still in the fields with their flocks (verse 8), Jesus' birth could not have occurred during the cold-weather months of winter. Sheep were normally brought into centrally located pens or corrals as the weather turned colder and the rainy season began, especially at night. If this were not significant, it begs the question, "Why would Luke have mentioned it in such detail if not to convey a time reference?" Notice what commentator Adam Clarke writes regarding this:
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It is evident this could not have been in late December! December nights, even in Israel, can be cold and wet with occasional snowfall. Shepherds in that area were known to have brought their sheep from the fields into the folds in the fall of the year. The evidence currently available indicates that Jesus was born in the autumn of the year 4 BC—perhaps on the Feast of Trumpets! |
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