(SBA) - Dale always said that he could not understand how people could celebrate Christmas if they profess to have no faith in Christianity. So, this year I thought I would do some research into the question of whether Christmas was a pagan or a religious holiday. I found an essay on the topic in a book by Timothy Larsen entitled TWELVE CLASSIC CHRISTMAS STORIES. Larsen maintains that “Christmas is a time to remember and rejoice over some deeply Christian themes that are key parts of salvation history as revealed in the Bible. These themes had already been announced in the Old Testament by the prophets.” Both the books of Isaiah and Micah speak of a Mighty God made flesh. In the New Testament, John, Matthew and Luke all tell of Jesus’ birth. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we read the words of what becomes a sacred hymn. (Philippians 2: 6-8) But is Christmas solely a Christian holiday?
Christians celebrated Christmas for well over a thousand years without such a question troubling them. The Church was celebrating the holiday at least as early as AD 350. By the 16th century, however, Protestants was so concerned about the secular aspects of the holiday to give up Christmas altogether. Records show that by the 17th century, reformers, including John Calvin, went door-to-door to assure themselves that no one was having a good time! In America, the Puritan governor of Plymouth tried to forbid anyone to take a day off from work on December 25th. Some 17th century Puritans went so far as to insist that December 25th be a mandatory Fast Day. For the next three centuries (16th through early 19th centuries) most Protestant groups forbade Christmas celebrations, but by the early 1800’s these same groups did an about-face and decided that Christmas observances were biblical, after all!
The unbiblical concerns rest on two points—one, that the Bible does not tell us the date of Jesus’ birth. The second is that nowhere in the Bible is there a reference to celebrating Jesus’ birth. The Regulative principle in formal theology asserts that anything that does not have explicit instruction in the New Testament is prohibited. This principle goes so far as to ban the use of musical instruments in worship, although most Christian churches use instruments today. Martin Luther loved Christmas, particularly its music, and he preached many sermons on the joys of the holiday. Do such observations make Christmas extrabiblical, in the sense that people can make choices about how to celebrate the holiday in ways that are not mentioned specifically in the Bible? Although the event has nothing to do with Christmas, in the book of Esther, Mordecai declared a month’s celebration for the deliverance of the Jews from their enemies. It was solely Mordecai’s decision to celebrate this event, which he called the Feast of Purim, a “man-made” holiday.
In the Bible, many celebrations are tied to solar and lunar cycles, as is the observance of Christmas in the dark days of winter. Genesis 1:14 declares that the reason God created light and dark was to “mark out the sacred seasons.” Moses established the Festival of Ingathering, the Harvest Festival in Judaism. Celebrating this festival during exile, Moses told his people to go out into the countryside and gather evergreens (a Christian practice in later centuries).
Is it wrong to say that the winter solstice is inherently pagan as all early cultures marked time by the sun and the moon? In the ancient world, most people were illiterate and so could tell the passage of time by the cycles of the sun and the moon and thus determine the time of festivals only by the passage of light and dark. The choice of December 25th as the observance of Christ’s birth is a theological one. The date of the winter solstice means that from the time on, there is more light than dark (December 21st is the longest night). So, Christmas Day marks Jesus as the “light of the world.” John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” That is the spiritual meaning for Christians. Christ has come.
Most of what passes for ancient pagan ritual and practices today are just modern inventions. We didn’t have written records of celebrations in those early times, the best we can do is estimate. The 19th century author Washington Irving is responsible for much of how we celebrate Christmas, after all, he is the source of the legend of Santa Claus. Another of his early works, written under the pen name of “Geoffrey Crayon” offers a fictional account, often taken as a true one, of how an old-fashioned Christmas was celebrated in England, including attending church on Christmas Day. In an effort to be more entertaining in his fiction, Irving invented customs including that the church fathers regarding mistletoe as an “ungodly plant.” Mistletoe was used traditionally as a decoration in churches of the time.
The inclusion of a tree in Christmas celebrations is an old one. In the Middle Ages, the church fathers instructed their illiterate flocks by the use of outdoor mystery plays in which evergreens were used to illustrate the “Tree of Life” in the account of Adam and Eve. The Christmas tree is a Christian reminder of God’s plan that people would enjoy the “Tree of Life,” a plan restored to believers in Revelations 22. So, no matter how you choose to observe Christmas, you may. No one else can judge your efforts as either Christian or pagan. Enjoy your holiday. Merry Christmas!
