It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Should it? I’ve read several discussions of the topic over the last week or so, and thought I’d throw my thoughts out there too. Specifically I want to answer three questions.
1. Should Yeshua’s birth be celebrated?
I can’t think of any reason why not. It was one of the greatest events in history, and God has a history of wanting people to celebrate great events. As long as it doesn’t violate any of God’s other commands, why not? Celebrate your own birth and those of your family and friends while you’re at it.
2. Should Yeshua’s birth be celebrated on December 25th?
This is, perhaps, a thornier question. I don’t think many people seriously believe Yeshua was born on that date, but is that a problem? We should celebrate his birth in some fashion every single day! Since nobody can be absolutely sure on which day he was born, why shouldn’t we just pick this one?
There is nothing inherently evil about any particular day on the calendar. October 31st is a day that God made just like December 25th, July 4th, and April 12th. There is nothing wrong with having a party, inviting friends and family to your house for a feast, or even exchanging gifts on those days. However, there may still be a problem!
God told Israel (with whom we have been joined) to “learn not the way of the heathen,”1 and to “learn not to do after the abominations of those nations.”2 Of course, he did not mean “Don’t do anything that pagans do.” That would be absurd. Pagans sing, dance, and eat cookies, and there is nothing at all wrong with those things. God’s intent seems to have been to say, “Don’t adopt religious practices in order to emulate pagans or that are specifically pagan in nature.” Does a peculiar celebration of Yeshua’s birth held on December 25th pass or fail this test? Here are the apparent facts:
a) Yeshua was almost certainly not born on December 25th.
b) The date appears to have been chosen sometime in the fourth century by gentile church leaders with little to no understanding of Torah and Jewish customs.
c) A few church leaders of the day believed Yeshua had been born in December, but most seem to have settled on that day specifically because it was already a well-established pagan holiday. The Roman church, especially, has a very long history of adopting pagan traditions and redressing them in quasi-biblical trappings.
God seems to have a habit of grouping significant events around particular days. Some of those days correspond to the Biblical Feasts, some of them don’t. Since Yeshua is the focus of the Law, I’m willing to bet that all of the major events of Yeshua’s life took place on or around one of the seven feast days. Here are a few examples:
a) Passover/Unleavened Bread/Firstfruits: Death and resurrection
b) Shavuot: Teaching in the temple as a child (and the giving of the Holy Spirit, aka Pentecost)
c) Rosh Hoshana: Second coming?
d) Yom Kippur: Day of judgment
e) Sukkot: Arrival in the Promised Land. Both times.
There are some very good reasons for supposing that Yeshua was actually born during Sukkot. While I haven’t done the math myself (other trustworthy individuals have and you are welcome to check their work), it appears that John the Baptist was born around Passover. Yeshua would have been born six months later, which is about the time of Sukkot. Also, Old Testament prophecies talk of God tabernacling among his people, and tabernacling is what Sukkot is all about.3
I am not saying that everyone must celebrate Yeshua’s birth during Sukkot or that anyone must celebrate his birth at all. I’m not even saying that it is wrong to celebrate his birth on December 25th. I am saying that the choice of that date seems to have been inspired by a desire to emulate a pagan religious practice.
Which brings me to Christmas trees.
3) Should believers have Christmas trees?
The origins of the Christmas tree are shrouded in even more mystery than the origins of December 25th as Christmas. There are a lot of theories with very little historical documentation. Here are some better attested facts:
a) Evergreen branches and lights were used as decorations by the Romans to celebrate Saturnalia. Some Christians retained this practice and might have incorporated it into their Christmas celebrations.
b) Many ancient peoples used evergreen branches as winter decorations to symbolize life against the cold of the season.
c) some ancient peoples used evergreens to ward against evil spirits.
d) The first Christmas trees, as such, appear to have originated in Germany in the late Middle Ages. Nobody seems to know who started the custom or why.
There is nothing inherently wrong with decorating your house with evergreens. However, the date of Christmas was specifically chosen to correspond with Saturnalia, and evergreen branches and wreaths were used as decorations for that holiday. It seems to me that decorating with those objects as part of a Christmas celebration is dangerously close to emulating pagan religious practices while saying you are doing it for God. Maybe early Christians copied Saturnalia customs and maybe they didn’t, but Paul said to avoid the appearance of evil. If you have evergreen decorations in your house normally, I don’t see any reason to take them down, but I wouldn’t put them up just for Christmas.
Christmas trees are almost certainly related to the many customs of decorating homes with evergreen branches during the winter. That, in itself, poses no problem, and the pagan roots of putting decorated trees indoors seem dubious. However, consider these words of God given through Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 10:2-4 Thus says the LORD: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, (3) for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. (4) They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.
Clearly, God did not intend Jeremiah’s audience to interpret this as referring to Christmas trees or even their analog in that day. The very next verse explains that he was talking about idols, carved figures used in the veneration of deities, but God’s perspective is not limited to what’s happening today. He knew 2500 years ago that we would be cutting trees down, prominently displaying them in our homes and buildings, decorating them with silver and gold, and bowing down before them to receive their gifts. And he knew that we would be reading Jeremiah’s book. I don’t believe in coincidences, so I’m going to play it safe and not put a Christmas tree up in my home.
1 Jeremiah 10:2
2 Deuteronomy 18:9
3 I don’t buy the argument about sheep not being in the fields during December. They didn’t have huge barns in which to shelter their sheep. They kept them in the fields year round. According to the US Department of Agriculture, shepherds in Montana around the beginning of the 20th century kept their sheep on the open plains through much harsher winters than Israel has ever experienced. Why shouldn’t Jewish shepherds in the 1st century BC?
Further reading:
-http://www.orlutheran.com/html/chrtree.html
-http://kimber64.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/how-does-the-messianic-community-celebrate-christmas/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
- http://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/theology/christmas-should-it-be-celebrated-or-rejected-you-decide!/
-http://www.fullquivermission.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1271
Update: Jim Staley has a pretty good sermon on the subject of whether or not it even matters how and when we celebrate the birth of Yeshua. Not perfect, but good.