What is Christmas all about? We shouldn’t be surprised when non-Christians fail to grasp the real meaning of Christmas as celebrating Jesus’ birth. But even genuine Christians have often been divided on how—or even whether—we should celebrate Christmas at all.
For example, the earliest Church Fathers and first Christians did not celebrate Christmas. Instead, they focused on Easter and Jesus’ Resurrection. As far as they were concerned, celebrating birthdays, including Christ’s, were seen as “pagan practices” and thus not appropriate for Christians. After all, there is no verse of Scripture that teaches or even suggests we should celebrate Jesus’ birth. The so-called regulatory principle, that many Christians have tried to implement, teaches us that our worship should be limited to things clearly commanded in Scripture. Then too God has not chosen to reveal to us the actual date of Jesus’ birth. The emerge of December 25th as the date for His birth took place only in church tradition beginning in the 4th century.
Various groups of Christians down through the centuries have for various reasons chosen not to celebrate Christmas. The Pilgrims, for example, chose not celebrate Christmas. Instead, they viewed it as a man-made, “unbiblical holiday” with pagan roots, often associated with excessive drinking and revelry. For these reasons, the Pilgrims in America consequently banned it in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1659 to 1681. Anyone caught celebrating Christmas at that period of time was fined. Many of the Puritans in England held a similar view. In 1647, the Puritan-led English Parliament voted to ban the celebration of Christmas; they replaced it with a day of fasting. Their reasoning they gave was that Christmas was “a popish festival with no biblical justification” and a time of wasteful and immoral behavior.
Even today, it is often only too easy for us to fall into the popular materialistic practices about Christmas that we often see all around us in the broader culture with its focus on giving expensive gifts. For many, the original meaning of Christ’s birth gets lost along the way.
The real meaning about Jesus’ incarnation really isn’t about us at all or anything we can do. Ultimately, it is s story about God and what He has done in working out His redemptive plan to create a people for Himself where He would be their God and they would become His people.
1. The real meaning of Christmas is about God and how He took the initiative in sending His Son to redeem us through His love and grace.
John 3:16, describes the Christmas story this way, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
We can see another aspect of Christmas in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”
Or consider the Christmas story in God’s call to Mary the mother of Jesus through the angel Gabriel, or God’s preparation of Joseph through another angel to encourage him to accept a pregnant young Mary as his wife, or how God sent a host of angels with good news of great joy to a group of lowly shepherds to ask them to go see the baby Jesus for themselves, or how God prompted a group of wise men to travel great distances to worship the newborn King of the Jews.
2. Christmas is a gift from God to spiritually needy people, but it requires a response on our part.
What would have happened if Mary had said “no,” or if Joseph had declined God’s word to him to take Mary as his wife, or if the shepherds or wise men had chosen not to go see the baby Jesus. (Remember the Jewish leadership wasn’t interested in seeing Jesus even though they knew He was to be born in Bethlehem, and King Herod went so far as to try to kill the baby Jesus.)
Or what would happen to us today if we are too busy with other things—even pursuing our own cultural adaptations of Christmas—to recognize the strategic importance of Jesus’ incarnation in God’s plan of redemption and give Him the worship He deserves?
3. We can understand the real meaning of Christmas only through faith in what God has told us in His Word about His Son, Jesus.
Remember it took faith for Mary to believe the impossible thought that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and she would bear a child who would be “the Son of the Most High… [and] reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33). Yet God gave her the faith to believe this. Likewise, it took faith in God for Joseph to go against his own natural understanding and the cultural pressure of his day and take Mary to be his wife, or for the shepherds to leave their sheep unguarded and go and see the baby Jesus, or for the wise men to travel so far following a star that they saw in the sky to worship the newly born King of the Jews.
Earlier I had raised the question as to how, and even whether, we should celebrate Christmas ourselves. The reason why I celebrate Christmas is twofold. First, I am reminded of the story of the shepherds in Luke 2:8-20, where we can read in verses 9-11, how “an angel of the Lord appeared and said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” So, the first reason for celebrating Christmas is to rejoice at the great gift of a Savior who is Christ the Lord. This story of the shepherds continues on in verse 17, “ And when they saw [the baby Jesus], they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.” The second reason for celebrating Christmas, at least in our present culture is that it gives us special opportunities to speak about Christ and what He has done for us. It is a reasonable way we can point others to God and what He has done for us in sending His only Son.
Thus, the Christmas story is a call from God to us today to love and worship a God who has sent His only Son into this broken world in order to meet the deepest needs of a sinful and disobedient people.
How could we invite Jesus to be the central part of our Christmas celebration this year? Here are some suggestions to consider as you pause and reflect on how God might want you to celebrate Christmas this year.
- Rejoice afresh in God’s goodness and grace to us this year.
- Read the Christmas story: Luke 1:25-38; Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 2:1-20; Matthew 2:1-12.
- Enjoy, listen to, and sing Christmas carols and other music.
- Share Christmas cookies and other treats with neighbors.
- Look for special opportunities to point others to Jesus.
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