Because the Christmas celebration has been so ingrained into Western society in various forms for nearly 1,500 years, the origins of Christmas are complicated to unravel. As one scholar summarizes,
The evidence for the origins of Christmas and the several centuries of pondering that evidence has resulted in . . . spurious texts, ambiguous evidence, lengthy speculation, trivial dead-ended issues, an amounting pile of reasonable-sounding good guesses. We don’t know when Christmas started. We don’t know who, individually or collectively, started it. We don’t know exactly where or why, or how they got the date, though our guesses are probably not too far from the mark.
This assessment might cast doubt upon our ability to celebrate Christmas at all. But instead of doubt, the complications surrounding the origins of Christmas should give us a sense of humility as we approach the topic. And they should cause us to narrow our search, looking for what we can truly know about the history of Christmas.
Assuming that Christians in the early church let their religion be co-opted by pagan rituals makes at least two uncharitable claims: 1) These Christians were easily duped into celebrating a pagan holiday, or 2) The early church purposely sought to enmesh Christianity with paganism. But, as history would have it, these cynical assumptions about our Christian forefathers are unfounded. While we don’t know whose idea it was to begin celebrating the birth of Christ, we do know that early Christians were careful not to incorporate pagan rituals into the practice of the church. In fact, some philosophical sects in the 3rd and 4th centuries accused Christians who celebrated Christmas as secretly worshipping the sun and the moon as some pagans did in the winter, but Christians like Ambrose of Milan (c. 339–397) and Leo the Great (c. 400–461) refuted these accusations. The early church was greatly offended by claims that they were doing anything “pagan.”
A humble posture would have us assume that these early Christians knew what they were doing and, perhaps, that they even had good reasons for celebrating Christmas.
So, if the early church didn’t borrow Christmas from neighboring pagans, has it now been borrowed by modern day pagan society? Perhaps. Pop-culture Christmas is entirely focused on ourselves and our ability to earn gifts or not. But this doesn’t mean we must throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Consider how God chose to reveal himself to humanity: through his word. In his good providence, God chose to communicate to man intermediately through the Scriptures—texts which can be misinterpreted or interpreted differently by different people. Why would God reveal himself that way? We can’t definitively say why, but God knew very well that some people would twist the Scriptures and take them out of context and some would come to different conclusions about them. But their abuse doesn’t mean we should dismiss them altogether. God doesn’t override our human faculties and zap us with divine knowledge. Rather, he accommodates our ability to read, interpret, and reason as he speaks and reveals himself to us.
In Scripture, God also ordained that certain festivals and feasts be observed so that his people could have a hint at what the new creation would be like. As it is with fallen man, he can turn even good festivals into parties of vanity and debauchery (Eccl. 2:1-3:22)—occasions where man fills his belly while ignoring the hungry and downtrodden (Prov. 23:20-21). These are the most challenging aspects of Christmas for Christians today. Even still, we need not let worldly pitfalls keep us from enjoying the Christmas season. The gospel is so profound and otherworldly that even in a highly commercialized holiday, the strange wonder of God being wrapped in human flesh, coming to the world as a helpless babe to redeem man, can’t be muffled, no matter how crowded the mall’s parking lot is and how obnoxious the online ads are.
Whatever your posture toward Christmas—whether you’re a Scrooge or a Cratchet—Christmas poses a profound challenge to the modern person. Traditional religion is often pushed aside in western society. When it’s allowed to be seen in public around the holiday season, it’s only used for sentimental purposes. However, the message of Christmas still stands out amidst the trimmings and trappings of the holiday. For even when Christmas is used superficially, we’re still confronted with the strange and wonderful concept of Immanuel: God with us. In Christmas we see that God is not an indifferent spiritual being who lets humans go about their lives unbothered. Rather, in Christmas, God has come as a man, to save man. This isn’t a fairytale; it’s “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10).
Christmas is the confession that God really did come into human history; to save man from the darkness of the world and the coldness of our hearts. And this confession, even in the bleakest, or overly commercialized seasons, is our hope and stay.
______________
This is an excerpt from Core Christianity’s Guide, 5 Reasons Christmas Is Not a Pagan Holiday. It is available for FREE here: 5 Reasons Christmas Is Not a Pagan Holiday
Footnotes
Susan Kroll, Toward the Origins of Christmas (Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1995), 223.
Kroll, Origins of Christmas, 63.
