Reasons to Keep Celebrating Christmas

It is said that confession is good for the soul, so here it goes: I am a part of that evangelical generation that actually questioned some time ago, and to an extent still in a healthy way, the wisest and best way to celebrate Christmas. You might be among those who find it hard to imagine in the present cultural moment that there are those of us who have, and still do, question the rightness (yes, even the necessity), of celebrating Christmas.

It is obvious that the Christmas juggernaut continues to roll unabated and gathering ever greater mass and velocity in a rapidly secularizing American culture. “American Christmas” continues to win converts in all parts of the world to a secular, sentimentalist vision of good will and joy to all men via consumerist spending. Christmas is now celebrated in places you would least expect it. It is celebrated in secular, Buddhist Japan and in Islamic Turkey. In these places, and many more, it is seen as a harmless, definitely non-religious, moment for good-hearted family fun. It is this very point that concerned many evangelicals in the past and should still concern evangelicals today.

In light of the rampant secularization of Christmas today, should Christmas still be celebrated by sincere evangelicals?

In all honesty, Christmas’ origins bring with it a wooly and unsavory past. For example, most Bible scholars do not believe that Jesus was born on December 25. Much has been written on this subject. The best article of which I am aware is Colin Humphrey’s “The Star of Bethlehem, A Comet in 5 BC and The Date of Christ’s Birth^[1]” Professor Humphrey’s concludes:

The birth of Christ was in the Spring, in the period 9 March–4 May 5 BC. Tentatively the period around Passover time is suggested (13–27 April 5 BC). This date is consistent with the available evidence including a reference in Luke to there being shepherds out in the fields at night. Although today Christmas is celebrated on 25 December in the west and on 8 January in the east, we suggest that the evidence of astronomy, the bible and other ancient literature points to the Spring of 5 BC as being the time of the first Christmas.^[2]

December 25 is most likely not the correct historical date for the actual birth of Christ. This leads to some logical questions then:

• What is so special about December 25?
• Why is it celebrated as a special date?

December 25 is normally associated with the ancient Feast of Saturnalia. George Fisher wrote in the Princeton Review last century:

In connection with the close of the year there had existed a series of heathen festivals into which the Romans entered with extreme delight. First were the Saturnalia, the jubilee of Saturn or Kronos, which marked the close of farm-work for the year, when the reins were given to merriment, when slaves could put on the clothes of gentlemen, and wear the badge of freemen, and sit at a banquet, being waited on by their masters.^[3]

It is a fact that December 25 as a festival date has deep roots in a pagan and sensual past. An evangelical Christian is not to be faulted if they find themselves uncomfortable with December 25 as the preferred date for celebrating Jesus’ birthday.

What is to be made of this Christmas conundrum?

It is not historical; it has become a tool for promoting secularism; it has profoundly questionable origins in a dark pagan past. For centuries Anglo-Saxon/Celtic protestants knew exactly what to make of it: avoid it. Christmas was illegal in Massachusetts until the 19^th century. There is little indication that this prohibition provoked an offended outcry on the part of the general American populous. All indications seem to point to the Dutch as being the first to introduce Christmas to the United States in the 17^th via the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas. (If interested in a book for your children and grandchildren, I could not recommend a finer text than Pieter Spier’s “The Legend of New Amsterdam”, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NI2CR5S/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1.) B. B. Warfield, one of Americas greatest Protestant theologians, speaks for many centuries of Protestant thought when he wrote just last century:

There is a certain passionate intensity in the way in which Christmas is now celebrated among us. But after all, what can be said for the customs to which we have committed ourselves? There is no reason to believe that our Lord wished His birthday to be celebrated by His followers. There is no reason to believe that the day on which we are celebrating it is His birthday. There is no reason to believe that the way in which we currently celebrate it would meet His approval. Are we not in some danger of making of what we fondly tell ourselves is a celebration of the Advent of our Lord, on the one side something much more like the Saturnalia of old Rome than is becoming in a sober Christian life; and, on the other something much more like a shopkeeper’s carnival than can comport with the dignity of even a sober secular life?^[4]

Rather, than cavalierly dismissing Warfield concerns as the theological spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge, we would do well to consider his probing question:  Is the experience of Christmas for many not more akin to a pagan celebration of old than to the values reflective of a sober Christian life?

I offer you some questions for your reflection:

• Does my conduct during Christmas reflect my Christian confession? The fact is that Christmas is often the occasion for some notoriously bad behavior.
• Do my fiscal expenditures reflect my Christian commitments? For some, Christmas is a time in which families enter further and further into consumer debt. At times, actual purchases of some products (often media related) actually undermine the very beliefs and values reflected in the Cristian understanding of Christmas.
• Do my time commitments during Christmas reflect my Christian commitments? Yes, Christmas is a wonderful time for families to be together. Yes, it is a special time for children. But, neither family nor children is to be the primary focus of Christmas. It is the worship of and the reflection upon the Incarnate Lord that should be the primary focus of the Christmas season. Make sure that you give time to your local church to be fully involved in its life during this Christmas Season.
• Finally, does my experience cause me to treasure Christ more or to treasure my treasure more? How you answer this last question determines what you should make of Christmas as you look to the future.

What then are the conclusions to be drawn? I invite you to read the second part of this article, which will be posted in the next couple of days. If you find this helpful, feel free to share it with someone who might find it to be of interest.

God bless you and Merry Christmas,

Mark and Caron

^[1] (1992). Tyndale Bulletin, 43(1), 30. ^[2] (1992). Tyndale Bulletin, 43(1), 55–56.^[3] Fisher, G. P. (1880). The Old Roman Spirit and Religion in Latin Christianity. The Princeton Review, 1, 167.^[4] Warfield, B. B. (1903). Historical Theology. Review of WEIHNACHTEN IN KIRCHE, KUNST UND VOLKSLEBEN by Georg Rietschel. The Princeton Theological Review, I(1–4), 490.