Is Christmas Too Pagan for Christians?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Well, today is Christmas day,

00:00:06.140 | the day we celebrate the birth of Christ.

00:00:08.560 | Every year we get a whole batch of Christmas questions.

00:00:12.200 | The most asked for question about Christmas

00:00:14.960 | is by far about Santa.

00:00:16.640 | And we addressed him on the podcast twice already,

00:00:18.640 | back in 2016 and 2018, in episodes 978 and 1288.

00:00:23.640 | You can check those out, especially episode 978,

00:00:26.320 | which ends with one of the great paragraphs,

00:00:28.200 | I think, in the APJ archive.

00:00:30.440 | But here is the second most asked about Christmas question,

00:00:33.880 | represented by at least 35 emails

00:00:35.840 | in the inbox that I can see.

00:00:37.560 | Why did the church begin celebrating

00:00:39.280 | the birth of Christ on December 25th?

00:00:41.640 | This date appears connected to a holiday

00:00:44.200 | with Germanic roots in the pagan celebration

00:00:46.760 | of Yule or Yule tide.

00:00:48.760 | In those emails, commonly mentioned texts

00:00:50.480 | include those that forbid God's people

00:00:52.440 | from accommodating or adopting the traditions

00:00:55.200 | and holidays and feasts of the nations.

00:00:58.960 | Especially mentioned are texts like 1 Kings 12.33,

00:01:02.560 | Deuteronomy 12.29-32, and Jesus' own words

00:01:05.800 | in Mark 7.9.

00:01:07.680 | The same is true of Jeremiah 10.1-4,

00:01:11.160 | a text used to warn against Christmas trees, even.

00:01:14.980 | So maybe this is a horrible question

00:01:17.360 | to address on Christmas day, I don't know.

00:01:20.120 | But from the emails, here is a representative email

00:01:23.920 | from a listener named Michelle.

00:01:25.400 | Hello, Pastor John.

00:01:26.360 | Why do Christians celebrate Jesus' birth on December 25th?

00:01:29.320 | Before I was born again, I was a pagan and celebrated Yule.

00:01:33.200 | As I understand it, Constantine placed Jesus' birth date

00:01:36.240 | on December 25th to sort of cover up a pagan holiday

00:01:39.040 | to get them to switch to Christianity more easily.

00:01:41.720 | But after being born again,

00:01:42.840 | the thought of celebrating Christmas

00:01:45.000 | now makes me uneasy.

00:01:47.120 | Should it?

00:01:48.240 | - So let me say a word about each of those passages,

00:01:51.420 | just a brief word to point people

00:01:53.280 | in a possible consideration direction,

00:01:56.560 | and then say a word about December 25 and why that date,

00:01:59.440 | and then maybe give a principle to guide us.

00:02:03.240 | 1 Kings 12.28, the idolatrous King Jeroboam

00:02:07.640 | made two golden calves, called the people to worship them,

00:02:11.600 | and then in verse 33 says that he devised a time

00:02:15.480 | for that celebration out of his own heart.

00:02:18.280 | I think that's what people are probably fingering there.

00:02:21.900 | So the essential problem was blatant idolatry,

00:02:25.700 | two golden calves.

00:02:27.220 | And the counterpart today would be,

00:02:30.580 | let's just pick a random day.

00:02:32.060 | Let's say December 25 to celebrate justification

00:02:36.500 | on the basis of works,

00:02:38.220 | apart from the blood righteousness of Christ.

00:02:41.620 | That would be the counterpart.

00:02:43.100 | Doesn't matter what day.

00:02:43.940 | The essence of the issue was idolatry.

00:02:47.900 | Deuteronomy 12.30 warns the people

00:02:50.960 | as they enter into the promised land,

00:02:53.880 | you shall not worship the Lord your God the way they do.

00:02:57.940 | They even burned their sons and daughters

00:03:00.360 | in the fire to their gods.

00:03:02.660 | And then God adds, do what I have commanded you

00:03:05.680 | and do not add or take from it.

00:03:09.080 | Now, there are dozens and dozens of meticulous stipulations

00:03:13.380 | in the Old Testament about how to approach God,

00:03:16.480 | how the priesthood of function,

00:03:17.760 | the sacrifices to be done,

00:03:19.000 | the sacred space is to be used.

00:03:21.120 | Now, whether we today are governed

00:03:24.640 | with such meticulous specifics

00:03:27.080 | that we shouldn't take from or add to in the New Testament,

00:03:30.900 | I'll address that in just a minute.

00:03:32.240 | I think the answer is no.

00:03:34.000 | Mark 7.9, they were rejecting the commandment

00:03:38.120 | to honor your father and mother

00:03:39.960 | by diverting financial care from their parents

00:03:44.180 | to an ostensibly worshipful dedication

00:03:47.080 | of their money to the synagogue

00:03:48.420 | instead of their parents' needs.

00:03:50.620 | And the issue there was not that traditions exist,

00:03:54.460 | that's not the problem,

00:03:55.900 | but that they contradict the commandment of God,

00:04:00.540 | honor your father and mother.

00:04:01.980 | Jeremiah 10.2, learn not the ways of the nations.

00:04:06.420 | A tree from the forest is cut down

00:04:09.500 | and worked with an ax by the hands of the craftsmen.

00:04:13.500 | They decorate it with silver and gold.

00:04:15.860 | They fasten it with a hammer and nails

00:04:18.580 | so that it cannot move.

00:04:20.340 | Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field

00:04:24.300 | and they cannot speak, they have to be carried.

00:04:28.460 | So the point is it's absolute nonsense

00:04:33.460 | to make an idol out of a created thing like a tree,

00:04:37.300 | which you shape with your own ax,

00:04:39.380 | you decorate with your own hands,

00:04:41.140 | you carry it on your own cart,

00:04:43.340 | and then you fall down and worship it.

00:04:45.220 | I mean, the prophets thought this was absurd.

00:04:47.980 | This is indeed an implicit warning

00:04:51.160 | to believers of all ages,

00:04:53.600 | never to turn away from the living God

00:04:58.040 | to a created thing on Christmas day or any day,

00:05:02.240 | and treat it as an object of greater affection to you

00:05:07.240 | than you have in the living God.

00:05:10.660 | So I don't think any of those texts

00:05:13.300 | is an indictment of Christians

00:05:17.340 | choosing a day on which we make much

00:05:22.340 | of the incarnation of Christ.

00:05:25.580 | But the question then becomes,

00:05:27.740 | well, why December 25?

00:05:32.220 | And there's some mixed up stuff going on there.

00:05:35.620 | Now, as I survey and resurvey

00:05:40.420 | the historical opinions of scholars

00:05:43.460 | about why we celebrate Christmas on December 25,

00:05:48.140 | it seems to me that there is no consensus.

00:05:53.140 | So the suggestions that were made into question,

00:05:55.700 | maybe, maybe not.

00:05:57.640 | There are competing explanations.

00:05:59.620 | Let me mention two.

00:06:01.140 | One is that December 25 was a pagan holiday

00:06:04.340 | for celebrating the birth of the sun, S-U-N,

00:06:08.380 | and that Christians adapted and countered

00:06:12.660 | that pagan idea with the celebration

00:06:14.660 | of the true light of the world.

00:06:17.420 | That's one explanation.

00:06:19.100 | And that would be back in the Roman days,

00:06:20.700 | not just later in the Germanic time.

00:06:23.340 | Another explanation is that for various reasons,

00:06:28.340 | the church fathers believed that Jesus was conceived

00:06:34.620 | on March 25, around the date of his death.

00:06:39.620 | And that Christmas, therefore, as it so happens,

00:06:44.540 | when God does, makes babies,

00:06:47.260 | nine months later is December 25.

00:06:50.860 | So which of those explanations came first?

00:06:54.500 | Here's what the Oxford Companion to Christian Thought says.

00:06:59.140 | The hypothesis that December 25 was chosen

00:07:02.660 | for celebrating the birth of Jesus

00:07:04.900 | on the basis of the belief that his conception

00:07:09.020 | occurred on March 25, quote,

00:07:12.300 | "potentially establishes December 25

00:07:16.740 | as a Christian festival before the Aurelian decree,

00:07:21.740 | which when promulgated might have provided

00:07:25.580 | for the Christian feast,

00:07:27.020 | both an opportunity and a challenge."

00:07:29.460 | In other words, they're not sure which came first,

00:07:33.080 | the pagan or the Christian identification

00:07:37.220 | of this particular date

00:07:39.260 | as the celebration of the incarnation.

00:07:42.220 | So I don't feel, frankly, any freedom to be dogmatic

00:07:46.680 | about why Christians use December 25 as the day

00:07:51.680 | for a special focus on the incarnation.

00:07:56.780 | So that leaves me and us, perhaps,

00:08:01.300 | what principle should guide us?

00:08:03.660 | There is a massive difference

00:08:05.940 | between the way the Old Testament regulates formal worship

00:08:09.020 | with dozens and dozens of stipulations

00:08:12.620 | and the way the New Testament treats worship.

00:08:16.260 | You find almost no stipulations in the New Testament

00:08:21.020 | for what is mandated and what is forbidden

00:08:25.020 | in formal worship.

00:08:26.180 | There are some, but not many.

00:08:28.100 | And I've argued, I think probably on this podcast before,

00:08:31.240 | that the reason for this is that the New Testament,

00:08:35.900 | unlike the Old Testament,

00:08:37.780 | is a handbook for all the nations of the world,

00:08:41.920 | not a liturgical book for Israel or any one culture.

00:08:46.920 | Thousands of cultures all over the world

00:08:50.120 | are going to worship with their roots in the New Testament

00:08:54.780 | and details of the forms are going to be different everywhere

00:08:59.780 | because the New Testament doesn't specify

00:09:02.300 | the way the Old Testament did

00:09:04.620 | for how to go about our worship services

00:09:07.460 | or times or seasons.

00:09:09.780 | The principle that I would draw attention to is this,

00:09:12.980 | 1 Corinthians 10:25,

00:09:14.900 | "Eat whatever is sold in the meat market

00:09:17.060 | without raising any question on the ground of conscience,

00:09:19.940 | for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

00:09:23.840 | If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner

00:09:28.840 | and you are disposed to go,

00:09:32.500 | eat whatever is set before you

00:09:34.340 | without raising any question on the ground of conscience.

00:09:37.020 | But if someone says to you,

00:09:39.380 | this has been offered in sacrifice, like to an idol,

00:09:43.460 | then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you

00:09:48.160 | and for the sake of conscience."

00:09:50.140 | Now, the principle is this,

00:09:51.820 | in Christ, Christians are free to eat meat

00:09:56.800 | that has been offered to idols,

00:10:00.040 | provided there's no idolatry involved

00:10:04.100 | and provided we are not sending any clear messages

00:10:08.100 | to the pagan, to the world,

00:10:10.640 | that we worship what they worship.

00:10:13.640 | Now, that's a serious principle.

00:10:15.360 | So I think with regard to all the ways

00:10:18.440 | in which our life overlaps with culture,

00:10:21.160 | not just Christmas days, but all the time,

00:10:24.920 | there's just hundreds of ways that our lives,

00:10:27.280 | our lifestyles overlap with our culture.

00:10:30.840 | We should make every effort to live and to celebrate

00:10:35.840 | in such a way that we show

00:10:39.040 | that Christ is supremely valuable in our lives,

00:10:43.720 | not the world or the things of the world.

00:10:46.620 | Now, that's quite a challenge at Christmas time.

00:10:49.880 | Let me close with a reference

00:10:52.040 | to the way Noelle and I began our marriage

00:10:54.720 | and tried to think this through,

00:10:56.280 | not at all saying we got it perfect

00:10:58.800 | or that anybody should do it the way we do it,

00:11:00.960 | just the principle of thinking in a certain way.

00:11:05.120 | So we came to celebrate our first Christmas,

00:11:08.200 | and as a married couple,

00:11:10.200 | wanting to honor traditions that we'd got from our parents

00:11:13.960 | and wanting to do it the way our family would do it,

00:11:18.240 | we wanted it to be distinctly Christian as much as possible.

00:11:21.760 | Now, how would we bear witness to our children

00:11:25.280 | and to our community about Christ at Christmas?

00:11:29.680 | And I'll just mention three things.

00:11:31.000 | There were more than three things, but here's three.

00:11:33.840 | We never had a traditional Christmas tree.

00:11:37.880 | That was kind of weird for us.

00:11:39.620 | We both grew up with Christmas trees.

00:11:40.880 | I think all of our kids have Christmas trees.

00:11:42.540 | We visit people with Christmas trees.

00:11:44.520 | We've never had a Christmas tree of a traditional kind

00:11:47.520 | in our home at Christmas time.

00:11:51.720 | We instead said, let's make a big manger scene,

00:11:56.720 | the center on a table with a tablecloth,

00:11:59.040 | and under the table, we'll put the gifts,

00:12:01.800 | just to recenter everything toward Christ symbolically

00:12:06.100 | in the manger scene.

00:12:07.440 | So the second thing we did

00:12:09.240 | is we didn't have Christmas stockings.

00:12:12.080 | In fact, we never even mentioned Santa Claus.

00:12:14.960 | If the kids asked about Santa Claus,

00:12:16.520 | we said, that's not a real story.

00:12:18.360 | That's just a interesting story that people tell.

00:12:21.000 | There's nothing real about it.

00:12:22.200 | It has nothing to do with Christmas in its reality.

00:12:26.200 | Instead, we created this thing called shepherd's pouches,

00:12:29.520 | and the kids would, over the December month,

00:12:33.160 | do little jobs for no else.

00:12:34.760 | You'd pay them extra that they wouldn't ordinarily

00:12:37.000 | get paid for doing the dishes, helping with the laundry,

00:12:39.660 | and they were to put that money, little by little,

00:12:42.560 | in the pouches, knowing that the pouches

00:12:44.560 | would be laid before the manger,

00:12:46.120 | like gifts were brought to Jesus,

00:12:48.280 | and in the morning, those pouches would have

00:12:50.200 | little favors in them for the kids,

00:12:51.920 | and the money would be given to some cause

00:12:54.140 | that we agreed on together as a family

00:12:56.920 | for the good of the needy and in the name of Jesus.

00:13:00.460 | And the third thing we did was that I tried

00:13:03.680 | to make the house beautiful in the neighborhood.

00:13:06.160 | We live in a pretty,

00:13:07.160 | (laughs)

00:13:08.260 | it's not the most attractive neighborhood,

00:13:10.280 | and we're one of the front-end houses.

00:13:12.240 | The first house you see is you come across the bridge,

00:13:15.040 | across 9435 W, Ventura neighborhood,

00:13:19.560 | now used to be called Phillips neighborhood.

00:13:21.600 | What's the first thing you see?

00:13:22.600 | I didn't want it to be garish,

00:13:24.160 | and yet I did want it to say Christmas is here,

00:13:27.160 | so I used stars, I stars everywhere.

00:13:28.960 | This is the star house,

00:13:31.000 | with a Christian banner on the front.

00:13:32.820 | Anyone who wants to get close and see

00:13:34.760 | what all the stars mean,

00:13:36.880 | Jesus is the reason for the season,

00:13:38.680 | hanging on the front door.

00:13:40.480 | So those are three ways that we tried

00:13:44.600 | to just make our kids as happy as they could be

00:13:48.160 | in the celebration of one of the greatest events

00:13:50.680 | in the history of the universe,

00:13:51.920 | the incarnation of the Son of God,

00:13:53.400 | and yet do it with as much distinctly Christian effort

00:13:58.400 | as we could.

00:14:00.800 | - Amen, thank you for that word, Pastor John,

00:14:02.680 | I appreciate it.

00:14:03.600 | Well, speaking of Christmas Day,

00:14:04.920 | this is one of those moments to reflect on the mercy

00:14:07.160 | and the grace of God that has been shown to us,

00:14:08.840 | and we are tremendously blessed in Christ.

00:14:12.040 | That's an understatement.

00:14:13.240 | Incredible wealth and riches of spiritual resources in Him,

00:14:17.120 | and we are so richly blessed to have you

00:14:19.560 | along for the ride of this podcast as well,

00:14:21.700 | so thank you for another year.

00:14:23.680 | We are about to close out year number eight

00:14:26.200 | on the podcast, which is really incredible,

00:14:28.680 | and it's only possible because you are partnering

00:14:30.760 | with us financially, along with listening every week,

00:14:34.240 | carrying us along in your prayers,

00:14:36.000 | and sending us so many really great questions,

00:14:38.000 | like this one.

00:14:39.080 | This podcast really is possible

00:14:41.020 | because of the grace of God we get through your life,

00:14:43.360 | so thank you to each of you.

00:14:44.800 | Pastor John and I want to wish you and your family

00:14:47.480 | a wonderful, joy-filled, Christ-filled, Merry Christmas Day.

00:14:52.480 | I'm Tony Reinke, we'll see you back here on Monday.

00:14:56.120 | (upbeat music)

00:14:58.700 | (upbeat music)

00:15:01.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Is Christmas Too Pagan for Christians?

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