A Short History of Christmas

Jesus’ birth is one of those crucial tales that shape us as Christians. Far from a fictional story, but a story we retell and celebrate every year nonetheless. Why then, if Jesus wasn’t born on our Christmas Day do we celebrate it on the 25th of December (1)? As faithful followers of our Lord Jesus, we need to be able to confess in unison that “it is more crucial to celebrate Jesus’ birth than not at all”. That was the early church’s opinion anyway…

“It is winter in Narnia,” said Mr. Tumnus, “and has been for ever so long… always winter, but never Christmas.” (2)

Why did C.S. Lewis choose to refer to a world (be it fictional) tormented by evil and lacking freedom, as a world without Christmas? He could have merely said “it’s always winter but never spring” and the picture would have been sufficient. A world caught in a loop of cold and misery without an end in sight. However, Lewis knew something core to our humanity. That, often, what we believe to be true in tale influences what we believe in reality. Some of us might cheer at the thought of an endless winter swell, or our experience with Christmas time is on the beach in the blazing sun. Stick with me though, since Winter is much more referring to a spiritual condition rather than the weather season.

“Let all mortal flesh keep silence / And with fear and trembling stand; Ponder nothing earthly-minded / For with blessing in His hand, Christ our God to earth descendeth /Our full homage to demand.”

- Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent, Gerard Moultrie (1864)

We, the Church, started the celebration of Jesus’ birth to combat early heresies seeping into the believing community from within - it being that Jesus was never born in the flesh. This is crucial to our faith as Scripture reads “every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God” (1 John 4:2–3). The celebration occurred in January marked by meeting together in worship and feasting, for God’s presence and person in Jesus had broken into our time and space to declare an end to Winter!

This is the moment when the sun melts every ounce of snow and gives life for new flowers to grow.

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor… and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn…”

- Jesus quoting Isaiah 61:1-2

Just a few weeks earlier, during the month of December, citizens of the Roman Empire were celebrating multiple feasts during a time called ‘winter solstice’. A time marred by heinous sacrificial practice. At the pinnacle of it’s practice, Saturnalia was practiced as worship to a sun- god, whom they declared to be the supreme Lord and ‘inner-mover’ over creation and humanity (3). This was truly a Winter pinnacle for humanity. Expectantly the Church would have none of it.

“Man’s maker was made man, that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that the Truth might be accused of false witness, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.”

- Augustine of Hippo

They were moved by the writing of Scripture and leading of the Holy Spirit to act in accord with proclaiming the Good News at all cost, as so many believers and martyr had done before them. They knew the true Light of the World. Indeed it was Jesus come in the flesh to be the Word to the world, Immanuel. Intentionally, Christians started immersing their celebration of the one and only Son-God during the most notorious pagan celebrations of the year! Pretty punk rock if you’ve ever thought Christianity is boring or irrelevant to present-day culture. On the other hand, you might ask where did the Holy Scripture warrant such an act?

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth… that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

“ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

“ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Christians have always been and will always be the bearers of the Best News. We get to declare to the world that this is the moment when the SON melts every ounce of snow and gives life for new flowers to grow. Let’s heed to the call and bear it faithfully.

by Henku Grobler