The Teaching Corner

    In the increasing secular culture of our world today many atheists, agnostics, and neo-pagans are very fond of pointing out the pagan origins of many Christian festivals, as if the fact that certain pagan traditions had been adopted and given new meaning by Christians somehow means the Christian celebration is invalid or not really Christian.  This is especially true with the holiday of Christmas, celebrated by most Christians on December 25th.

    While some Christians think of this day as Jesus’ birthday, the reality is that we do not know what month or even the precise year Jesus was born.  It is actually rather unlikely that Jesus was born in the winter, given that the shepherds in Luke’s narrative are spending the night out in the hills with their sheep.  (This would be more likely in the Spring, Summer, or Fall when the nights were a little less cold.)  Given the dates of the key figures related to us in the gospels (Augustus, Quirinius, and Herod the Great), it is most likely that Jesus was born somewhere between 7 BC and 2 BC.  (Which means the date given by Doc Brown in the ‘80s movie Back to the Future of December 25, year 0, probably wouldn’t get you to the right date to witness the birth of Christ; particularly since there is no year 0!)

In fact, to the earliest Christians the celebration of Jesus’ birth was not a particularly important celebration.  If it was celebrated at all in the first few centuries of Christianity it was lumped in with Epiphany and the celebration of Jesus’ baptism.   It wasn’t until after Christianity became an official religion of the Roman Empire that there emerged a strong desire to celebrate the Nativity of Our Lord as its own festival.  In the 4th century Christians began to celebrate Christmas (literally Christ’s Mass) on December 25th.  A few years later this date was made official by Pope Julius I.

December 25th happened to be the date of several pagan festivals related to the winter solstice.  This was a time of year when pagans celebrated the return of the sun as the days started to grow longer after the shortest day of the year.  What more appropriate time to celebrate the incarnation and the coming of the savior into the world?  Just as the darkest days are past with hope for new light and life to come, we celebrate the coming of Jesus “the light that has come into the world.”  Many pagan traditions related to the celebration of the solstice were easily reinterpreted and in some ways fit the celebration of Christmas even better than they did the celebration of the solstice.  For example:  Christmas trees which by their evergreen color are a reminder of new life with Christ and by their roughly triangular shape also make a symbolic reference to the Trinity.  

  So, Christmas is celebrated every year at a time of year when many of the important themes of the celebration of the coming of Christ into the world are echoed within the processes of nature around us.  This helps to reinforce the meaning of Christmas for us as we devote the twelve days before Epiphany to joyous celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord.