I've read a couple of other blogs recently, talking about whether our Christmas celebrations are Biblical. I thought I would explain that, in case you wonder where the idea for this post came from. And in case the people who wrote those two blogs, see this, I'm not trying to single out anyone's viewpoint...I'm simply trying to offer other thoughts on the subject.

We celebrate Christmas on December 25. As Christians, we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, our savior. We know Jesus wasn't actually born on this particular day - it's just that we choose to celebrate on this day. Some say Jesus was most likely born in the Spring. I've been reading many articles that suggest he may have actually been born in the fall, In August or September. Some say September 29, as close as it can be figured. This date makes perfect sense to me. Read this article and study the dates they give, and the reasoning. It's extremely interesting.

Is it "Biblical" that we celebrate Christmas, or celebrate the birth of Jesus? Does the Bible tell us to do it? No. The Bible does not mandate us to celebrate the birth of Jesus on a particular date. It does not nail down the exact date of His birth, and if that were important, it would be nailed down. The time of His death is recorded. It happened at the time of an established Jewish celebration. The above article notes that people of that time period did not celebrate the birth of important people - they celebrated the death of important people. God wants us to remember that He sent his son to die in our place.

Luke 22:19.....19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."  NIV

When he was actually born is not nearly as important. All of the things that happened were done at the time and in such a way that the Jewish people would make the connection - or understand the significance. There was no such celebration connected with the time of His birth. However, scripture does give us hints at the time Jesus was born. But you must study it closely to discover the hints.

People are intrigued about the date of Jesus birth. And studying the scripture closely gives the hints. I wonder if maybe God thought about that - knowing that some people would study His word more closely in order to reveal when Jesus was actually born? People love a mystery. 

But just because the Bible doesn't tell us to celebrate His birth, doesn't mean that it is inappropriate to do so. There are a lot of things that are not mentioned in the Bible. Is it inappropriate to celebrate the birthdays of our children? The Bible doesn't tell us to. No, of course not. The important thing is that the Bible doesn't tell us NOT to.

The above article also mentions that while the Jews celebrated the death of an important person, it was the Gentiles in their pagan worship, who celebrated the birth of an important person.  December 25 is the time when they celebrated the birth of the pagan sun god. When the Jews as a whole rejected Jesus, who did the job of spreading His word then fall to? Of course....the Gentiles who accepted Jesus....those who would be called Christians. (Yes, there were Jews who became Christian, but as a whole, the Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah, and still do.)

I've read several articles that say the date of December 25 was probably chosen because it was more palatable to the pagans. They already had a celebration then, so just maybe they would accept the Christian religion if a Christian holiday was put in the place of the already existing pagan holiday. That could be true, but that explanation just doesn't quite feel right to me. Remember that God told the Jews not to hang out with the pagans, and not to marry them? He did that because He knew the Jews would eventually be influenced by the pagan religions. The Jews would adopt the practices of the pagans. The same thing would happen if Christians hung out with non-Christians:

1 Cor 15:33.....33 Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character."  NIV

I think it is more likely that the Christians simply adopted the date of December 25 because it was an already established holiday - one they were familiar with because they use to celebrate the sun god on that date.

"In Rome December 25 was made popular by Pope Liberius in 354 and became the rule in the West in 435 when the first "Christ mass" was officiated by Pope Sixtus III."

Don't think for a minute that the Catholic church wasn't influenced by the non-Christian religions.

I thought it was interesting in the above article that Babylon was referred to as "the land of the East". We, as humans with a limitless ability to misunderstand things, have taken "the east" to mean the wise men traveled from the "far east". These wise men were never called "kings" in scripture. So when we sing, "We three kings of orient are.....", we are singing about something non-existent. It never even mentions the number three.  People made that up. The article I mentioned even suggests that the "wise men" could have been Jewish rabbis from Babylon, since the word "magi" is roughly equivilent of "rabbi". There was a large Jewish population in Babylon. Very interesting. The Jews would have been watching for a savior to be born. Maybe these men truly were wise, being Jews watching for what God promised them - even if their group, as a whole, rejected Him.

It's stated in the article that Babylon is about a 4 month trip away from Bethlehem. What if the wise men made good time (they had race camels instead of the standard version)? I wonder if Jesus was born sometime in September, and the wise men arrived sometime around the end of December, give or take?

I commented on one of the blogs that we (our house and our church) don't celebrate Halloween. It's not wrong for kids to go to the neighbors' houses and get candy. That's pretty harmless, for the most part. But there really are evil things that go on on Halloween, such as human and animal sacrifice. We choose to have a different activity on the night of October 31 - we have a Fall Fest at church. We take a day that was a non-Christian ritual, and turn it into a night where we can have fun while emphasizing that God does not want people to take part in the evil worship that happens on that night. We can say, "Look...the non-Christian world celebrates this as a night devoted to Satan. Let's celebrate it as a night made by God, and celebrate Him instead."

My personal opinion is that it is not wrong to decorate and it's not wrong for our children to believe in Santa Claus. Where we would fall into sin is if we allowed them to believe that Santa is the reason that we celebrate. It's not wrong to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and one date is as good as another, since we don't know the exact date He was born. Any time we have a celebration, we decorate. It's not any more wrong to do it for Jesus' birthday than it is to decorate for our children's birthdays. The Bible doesn't tell us to celebrate Thanksgiving, either, but we do.

Here's the important part: Can we use the date of December 25 to tell people about Jesus and to bring others into His saving grace? Of course we can. And if we focus on that, we will be doing what He told us to do.

Christians have taken the date of December 25 and said, "Look....this is a day that non-Christians worshipped the birth of their sun god. Let's change it, and celebrate the birth of the SON of GOD!"

So put up Christmas lights, and celebrate the Light of the World.

TRIPLES with EMMA