Is Christmas a Christian Holiday?

            Christmas sure has taken a beating lately, seemingly from all sides. 
?The secularists demand that we say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas,
while some believers have threatened to boycott a certain large retail corporation
for caving in to political correctness and no longer mentioning Christmas.  When my checkout
person said ?happy holidays? to me the other day, I was tempted to retort, ?and
a Merry Christmas to you too.?  Some Christian groups celebrate Christmas as the
highlight of their religious year, while other, more conservative sects, claim
that Christmas is a pagan holiday which should be shunned by all believers.  Who is right? 
?What is the correct doctrine of Christmas?

            The answer is that there is no ?correct? answer to this question.  Obvio
usly, Christmas is not mentioned in the Bible, but this fact can be used by
either side.  Some would argue that since the Bible does not prohibit the celebration
of the birth of Jesus, we are free to celebrate it.  Others would say that since
the celebration of Christmas is not authorized by the Bible, to do so is to
add to God?s word, and is therefore not biblical.  True, it is not biblical, but then
neither are church buildings or Sunday School or ushers or nearly any of the
specific things we do when we gather to worship God.  Such traditions are harmless
unless we let them rise to the level of doctrine (Matthew 15:9).  Arguably, some have
done exactly that with Christmas. The apostle Paul seems to answer the question
once and for all in Colossians 2:16f in which he declares that no one should
judge anyone else with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath.  Th
e judging should not occur in either direction; pro or con.

So, we are free to celebrate the birth of Jesus if we like, but is it a good
idea to do so?  Let us look for just a moment at the history of this Christian
holiday.  First of all, there is the issue of the date of the birth of Jesus.  The fact is
that we do not know for sure even the general time of the year of Jesus? birth,
never mind the exact day.  Scholars  have argued for a late Spring or early Fall
date based on the fact that the shepherds were out in the fields with the sheep. 
?So much for the debate about the timing.  Bottom line, no one knows when Jesus was
born.  If we are to celebrate the birthday of the Son of God, someone had to choose
a date.  Why was December 25th chosen by the Western churches and eventually adopted
by Rome? (by the way, the Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on January
7th).  The evidence is that in the third century AD or possibly earlier, the
leaders of the Christian churches set the date of December 25th to celebrate the
birth of Jesus because this coincided with the Roman holiday of Saturnalia.  Saturnali
a is named after the Roman god Saturn.  This holiday was timed to coincide with the
turning of the days at the winter solstice.  The birth of a new year was celebrated not
just by the Romans, but by most of the ancient cultures as the point when the
amount of daylight began to increase.  It represented a new beginning?new hope for everyone.
Because the Roman holiday Saturnalia was chosen as the time for the celebration
of the birth of Jesus, opponents have claimed that it is a pagan holiday.  This is a
spurious argument.  Yes, it is true that the church leaders chose a pagan holiday as
the date, but what kinds of holidays were there to co-opt other than pagan ones?
 Obviously, the early church had absolutely no intention of making this a pagan
holiday!  Given that they had no idea of the actual date of Jesus? birth, and given
that the Christians already had a holiday scheduled at this, the slowest time
of the year, what better date could they have chosen?

So we have a traditional date which is neither better nor worse than any other. 
One thing we can be sure of is that we are stuck with this date.  For those of us
in the Northern Hemisphere, it just so happens to come at a time when we really
need a celebration of new birth and new hope.  What better time to celebrate the
birth of Jesus (assuming that the idea is a good one in the first place)? 

This brings us to the meaning of Christmas.  The word is a compound of the words Christ
and mass.  Christ comes from the Greek for anointed one.  The Hebrew equivalent word
is Messiah.  The word mass in the English evolved from the Anglo-Saxon word maesse,
?which derived in turn from the Latin missa, which is a form of the verb mi
ttere, which means "to send." So, the meaning of the word Christmas is the sending
of the messiah.  If we celebrate Christmas according to the original intent of the Christian
church, we are celebrating the coming of the messiah.  If we can put aside the crass
commercialization and all the associated ?stuff? which comes with the Western
celebration of Christmas, the heart of the holiday seems like a pretty good
idea, at least to this observer.

What, then, about all the ?stuff? that comes with Christmas?  What about the trees, the
wreaths, the ornaments, the Yule logs and the holly, the mistletoe, Santa Claus,
Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman?  Some of these have an interesting history.  Yes, it is true
that many if not most of these traditions were borrowed from pagan celebrations.  What else
is new?  What else would we expect? The custom of bringing branches from evergreen
trees into the home during the dark days of winter predates Christianity and
was a reminder that the sun would return, the snow would melt, and the vegetation
cycle would begin again.  Some argue against Christmas trees using Jeremiah 10:2-4;
?Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by the signs in the sky?
For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest,
and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.  They adorn it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter.?  I certainly am not here
to defend the religious significance of the Christmas tree.  The best I can tell
there is none!  However, unless we are actually worshipping it as an idol, we are
not guilty of violating the command in Jeremiah 10:2-4.

What about Santa Claus, otherwise known as Saint Nick?  Many ancient cultures had
a myth of a magical figure who came once a year to spread around gifts for the
poor and the children.  The Christian church adapted this idea quite early to serve its
purposes.  The story of ?Saint? Nicholas is interesting.   Nicholas was a bishop in Asia(present
-day Turkey).  He was born in the mid to late third century, coming from a wealthy
family. Traditions differ, some saying he gave up his social position, others
saying he was orphaned.  Either way, he dedicated himself to preaching, teaching, and
spread of the Gospel. He defended the Christian faith against the heresy of
Arias of Alexandria, and eventually was martyred for his faith. Nicholas was
known throughout the churches for his sacrifice and charity for the sake of others.  A
s the early church began to make Saints (with a capital S) out of well-known
saints, they began to celebrate a day devoted to Nicholas.  Because of his charitable
spirit, and because his day fell in December, he began to be associated with
gift-giving on Christmas.  Santa Claus comes from the Dutch Sinter Klaas, which comes
from Saint Nicholas.  The jolly fat man dressed in red is an invention of nineteenth
century British writers, but that is another story. 

What is the ?Christian? response to all this stuff?  Despite the fact that most of
the traditions which have grown up around the celebration of Christmas have
their roots in pagan traditions, there is nothing inherently sinful in putting
up a wreath or stringing lights or hanging ornaments.  Nothing wrong, that is unless we
are also worshipping the pagan deities with which these were once associated.  The Santa
Claus thing is more troubling from a religious point of view, but I would prefer
to leave Santa alone.  The blatant materialism, commercialization and outright greed
which is associated with the holiday is another thing altogether.  How are Christian families
to emphasize the celebration of the coming of Jesus without caving in to the
selfishness associated with the holiday?  Perhaps those who say the whole thing is from
Satan (after all Santa is Satan respelled) and that Christmas is sinful have
a point.  Perhaps, given the fact that celebrating the birth of Jesus is not biblical,
the holiday does more harm than good. 

For me, I am not prepared to take that step.  I still find Joy to the World to be
one of the most inspiring of Christian songs.  Yes, Christmas can do more harm than
good, but if the followers of Christ will make the effort to bring Christ back
into Christmas, to emphasize giving rather than receiving, to celebrating the
coming of the savior into the world, then maybe we can still save Christmas.  The proper
response of the Christian is a matter of opinion, but to accept the status quo
without response is not a wise path.  So let us celebrate the season, and let us
?Remember Jesus Christ, descended from David.? (2 Timothy 2:8.

Merry Christmas,

John Oakes