Most of the world is getting ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus this week.  Churches began a countdown starting from December 1.  The secular world started from Black Friday.  Neighborhoods prepare with decorations.  Shopping malls with music.  Companies with office parties. 

We don’t know if Jesus was actually born on the 25th.  Some biblical historians say it was in April.  Others, in September.  But we act like we know it with calendar certainty.  There is no scriptural data telling us which day Jesus was born, nor is there even a hint of a command to celebrate it.  

Then why do we do it?  I believe it comes from a human instinct to commemorate important events, even when we’re not told to do so.  Scripture testifies to  this characteristic, when the Jews invented certain holidays outside the commandments of God.  Purim was one of them, memorializing the deliverance of  the Jews at the time of Esther.   The Feast of Dedication was another, commemorating the re-dedication of the second temple.  God delivered no rebuke for either of these “sacred” inventions.  And apparently, Jesus may have also participated in both.    

The problem only seems to emerge when we’ve initiated cultural practices that conflict with, or neglect, what God has commanded.  And, of course, there is the allegation that Christmas borrows from pagan origins.¹ But I believe human beings can create things without needing Roman gods and monsters to do so.  After all, we’ve invented plenty of special days with nothing more than Hallmark to credit.  

Long ago I came to the conclusion that I’d rather have the world forcing itself to acknowledge Jesus once a year (regardless of the calendar day), than ignoring Him outright.  If lights and trees go with it, well, okay.  May as well enjoy the decorations.  It’s better than hiding in a broom closet until December is over.

If there’s any tragedy, it’s our failure to honor Christ in the more complete scriptural sense.  I can’t fault the world for this, because in its lost condition, it does what it does.  But how about us, the sons and daughters of God?  We have a book, a testimony of truth, with serious intimations of what to do with Christ.  You see, Scripture presents Him through five great movements:

  1.  In the Old Testament (Genesis through Malachi), Christ is coming.  In those books we find often shadowy, sometimes vivid promises of an incredible figure who dominates the future.  He will vanquish the devil, solve all human dilemmas, and actuate all the intentions of God here on earth.  The correct posture during Old Testament times was one of faithful, hopeful expectation.
  2. In the gospels (Matthew through John), Christ has come.  These biographies of Jesus record Him as entering our time and space, with an eternal mission.  He is born, He lives, He dies, and He lives again, fulfilling the promises made back in the Old Testament.  Our faith rests upon these blessed facts.  Therefore, the correct posture today is one of trust in His once for all, accomplished work of redemption.    
  3. In the book of Acts, Christ is spreading.  This historical narrative follows the acts of the apostles as they take the gospel everywhere.  Wherever a human being receives Christ, His resurrected life and transcendent authority becomes evident.  When this reception of faith concentrates in a geographic area, churches emerge, bearing witness to who He is and what He has done.  The appropriate posture toward this book lies in understanding the mission and participating in it.
  4. In the epistles (Romans through Jude), Christ is here.   These apostolic letters mostly function to help us understand the finer points of  interaction with Christ, both personally, and in the setting of church fellowship. The present reality of Christ–the blessed “now”—becomes our daily orientation, correction, and endless source of wonder.  Our posture toward these letters lies in pursuing unbroken fellowship with Jesus, individually, and together.  
  5. In the book of Revelation, Christ will come again.     This book of New Testament prophecy heightens the enigma that while Christ is here today, He is still not yet here until the future.  Only in time to come will glory, reward, and final judgments become visible and complete.  With Christ globally executing the will of God, His kingdom becomes manifest for all eternity.  In the meantime, similar to the Old Testament faithful, our attitude toward this book of prophecy is one of faithful endurance and anticipation.      

I began this post on the subject of holiday celebrations and the fact that there’s no real harm in celebrating the nativity of Jesus.  But in comparison to Christ’s multi-movement cloud of glory, eggnog and mistletoe simply vanish.   Before we know it, we’re on to New Years, and tax season.  How then, can we celebrate in a way that will truly do Christ justice?    

A whole life, that’s how.
Then, an eternity.      


1.  You’ll find these claims all over the internet.  The books most used to popularize Christmas as pagan, The Two Babylons, and Babylon Mystery Religion, were both eventually debunked for their lack of responsible research, and dubious source material.  The  author of the second book, Ralph Woodrow, pulled it from bookshelves himself, when he realized its errors. 

The hunt for pagan origins can turn into a slippery slope indeed, especially when personal names, products, days of the week, months of the year, business logos, popular sayings, holidays, customs, and many other things, represent bits and pieces of pagan culture cobbled together whose meanings have long been forgotten.  Upon unearthing their original pagan influences, those of us who wish to avoid these things may end up feeling like we must depart the world itself in order to escape the sheer number of them, as Paul put it in First Corinthians 5:10. 

The investigative search becomes even more challenging when we come across spurious historical accounts that, due to their bias against Christmas, fudge narratives to portray the holiday as idolatrous. 

Finally, others err when noticing a similarity between something pagan and something Christian (correlation), and then conclude that the pagan must have morphed into the Christian (causation).  That is like suggesting a manhole cover has evolved into a pizza because both are round. 

In pointing these matters out, I am not providing a “free pass” for the Christmas holiday.  Since it has been celebrated for so long, by so many stripes of people, it has developed eccentricities, and some misguided, often lamentable beliefs.