Those of you who have long been subscribers to Christian Chronicles know that we do not ordinarily produce a “Christmas” issue. Over the years, we have done one issue or two that dealt with Christ’s death and resurrection as much as with His birth, for the latter is meaningless without the former.

This year, we do want to address the notion of Christmas and the various aspects of it about which little is publicly written or spoken. Most everywhere, it is the human-to-human relationship that is paramount in the celebration of Christmas in the giving and receiving of gifts. Not much is said about the human-to-God relationship, or the God-to-man relationship that is inherent in this time of celebration.

Christmas has quietly been transformed in America. Indeed, if one should pick up an advertising brochure or watch televised commercials, no reference to Christmas is likely to be found. It seems that the Political Correctness Police have removed Christmas from the season altogether. It began some years ago, when Christ was replaced by an X. His name was crossed out of the celebration of His birth. Christmas became Xmas. But Xmas reminds us that something has been eliminated. It was that “mas” at the end that was troubling. Christ’s Mass, became Christmas, and Christmas became Xmas, and the “mas” was a stark reminder that we were supposed to be celebrating the birth of Christ. Now, that troublesome “mas” has been eliminated as well. We do not any longer celebrate a specific Person or day, but the “Christmas Season” has become the “Holiday Season.” I received a catalog this morning with the subtitle: “The Best of Holiday 2005.” That typifies the attitude of the American merchant. Our “Christian” nation has succeeded in pushing Christmas completely out of the merchants of America, replacing it with the more politically correct, “Holiday.” And so, CC will produce a Christmas issue this year.

Most Christians do not realize that we are not commanded to remember either Christ’s birth or His resurrection, but only His death. The closest we come to a memorial of His resurrection is in the raising of the believer from the water in baptism. Christmas and Easter were pagan festivals with which Christian themes were united under the Roman state religion, in the decades after Constantine the Great named Christianity the state religion of the Holy Roman Empire. Rather than insulting the various pagan religions that were part of the Roman Empire, Christianity was incorporated into their rites and festivals. Surely, Rome must have thought itself quite the clever manipulator of men to have so smoothly brought in Christianity to the winter celebrations already in place. Of course, the same is true of the spring festivals as well. But Rome did a disservice both to the pagans and to Christianity when they did this. Many pagans, surely, were converted by sincere Christians down through the ages since Pentecost. And many potentially devout Christians were diverted by worldliness and greed as it was so openly practiced in these celebrations and worship of idols and false gods.

We do usually give much thought to the time of Christ’s birth. Certainly, He was not born on the first Christmas Day. That is a fiction that was necessary to bring Christians into the Roman fold. Indeed, Jesus was not even born in 0 A.D. Most scholars agree that He was born between 4 and 6 B.C. Our calendar is off by that much. Most agree that Jesus was born somewhere from late November to mid-January. There is no way that we can pin down the exact date of His birth. Christmas was first observed in Rome, in 336 A.D. (http://www2.worldbook.com/features/holidays/html/history.htm). Even the name refers to the Roman Catholic “mass.”

Nor do we often consider in our daily lives that when the Word became flesh and dwelt among men, He split time clean in two. We now reckon time as Before Christ (B.C.) and in the Year of the Lord (Anno Domini, or A.D.). Today, a newspaper must carry reference to His birth (supposedly), or it is just another interesting social or political or human interest story. Contracts that are signed between men must bear reference to His birth. We reckon our own age from the time of Christ’s birth. And isn’t it just like the world to have the thing so close, and yet, have it all wrong. It is the way the devil handles the Scriptures too. He will quote a lot of Scripture, and then make his lie a part of it so that none of it is true. A little leaven...

The birth of the Savior of the world, the Word becoming flesh, the God-Man, Jesus Christ being born, is the most significant event ever to occur on planet earth. The devil wants us to see Christ two ways: a helpless babe in a manger or dead on the cross. Without His death, His birth is meaningless. And without the resurrection, His death is just another death. His birth and resurrection ought not be celebrated apart from His death. His resurrection gives His death the significance that overrides all our vain imaginings. For it is His resurrection that signifies the justification of all who believe in the sufficiency of His sacrifice to pay for our sins. If His death had not been adequate payment of the sins of the world, He would have remained in the grave. The article that begins on page three shows how we came to celebrate Christmas as we do. It is a sobering account of the paganization of Christianity. However, the article that begins on page five shows why we Christians rejoice over the birth of our coming King, our Groom, our Lord, our God. Let us enjoy the season of His birth, but let us do so without the trappings of pagans in our hearts. Joy to the world! Grace to you! Peace among men! Above all else, even so, come, Lord Jesus!

And the saga continues, and the plot thickens. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon bolted from the Party he started, the Likud, and has begun a new political party, Kadima, in which he is expected to be reelected. The hawk-turned-liberal has said that if he wins the general election, Shimon Peres “can have any job he wants” (http://www.onejerusalem.org). Peres, of course, is the most left-leaning major figure in Israeli politics.

With Sharon leading all other candidates, with approximately 60% of the voters polled, coming months may see radical changes in the region, specifically with more land being surrendered to the Palestinians. It is not strange that Sharon is pursuing the course he is on. He was seen as belligerent in past years, not because his political philosophy was different than it is today, but because there was great and deep personal enmity between Arafat and Sharon. Since Arafat’s death, Sharon has been moving steadily to the left. If Peres gets any farther to the left, he will be in danger of falling over the edge into mindless radicalism.

It has been interesting to watch the political landscape change since Sharon left Likud. The leading hawk, Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud, is fast being relegated to the list of also-rans in the Israeli political landscape. Depending upon which poll one uses, Bibi Netanyahu can expect to garner no more than thirteen to fifteen percent of the vote.

So, what does it all mean? For one thing, it says that the electorate in Israel prefers peace to war, commerce to terrorism, and friendship to enmity. The bulk of Israeli citizenry would like to see some treaty come to fruition so that the great expenditures for military/defense spending can be channeled into more fruitful directions. It also means that the bulk of Israeli citizens have little or no regard for the Biblical truth that none of the land that they are ceding to the Palestinians is Palestinian property. In Joel 3:2, God declares plainly that, although He has given Israel the title to the land, it is yet still His land. While Sharon began the Kadima party with the expressed intention to lead a more centrist party, and while his party is attracting voters from the center, it is clear that Kadima will be pursue a leftist agenda.

It remains to be seen what will happen to the settlements in the West Bank region. The security wall, or fence, is only about 35% completed. Rather than following the border established in 1948, this wall swings to the east of the border, taking in Jewish settlements in land that the U.N. granted to Palestine. Some believe that Sharon’s ulterior motive for the unilateral pull-back from Gaza was to keep those West Bank settlements inside Israeli borders under the terms of any Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement.

With the majority of Israeli citizens tiring of the bloodshed and constant conflict, Sharon has a couple of political reasons, at least, for removing the wall and returning the land to the Palestinians. First, every major player in the Middle East arena wants to be remembered in history as one of the great men of their times. Arriving at a workable agreement with the Palestinians, Sharon must believe, would give him that sort of historical stature. While he has for most of his life been known as a hawk, it is clear that he would prefer to move into history as a statesman. Second, while making peace with the Palestinians would give him his place in history, it would also satisfy the majority of Israelis who are tired of war and defense. To be sure, any direction Sharon decided to go in reference to the wall would have both proponents and critics, there would arise a groundswell of support from the majority who are willing to have peace at any price.

These certainly are exciting times in which to live as we watch the prophecies of ancient times begin to be fulfilled. The world sees the day-to-day events in the Middle East as either good or bad, but the Church sees it as all good, even though many suffer. Many more will suffer in the tribulation that is at the door. It is time to get it finished. Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Amen!

As Christians, we know “the reason for the season.” In our worship services and our gatherings for fellowship, we are careful to remember why it is that we celebrate our Lord’s birth, apart from all of the world’s trappings. In our hearts, we think of His death, and His birth is simply another reason to celebrate what He has done for us at Calvary.

This is true among the truly saved within professing Christendom. The unsaved who call themselves Christians and attend Christian services pay lip service to the celebration of Christ’s birth, but their hearts are not in it. But for many of them, their hearts would be glad to be in it if they only knew what it was all about. They know that Jesus died for their sins, because the most apostate of churches will say as much. But the professing church will not tell you, as the true Church does, what it means. The unsaved but professing Christian knows that Jesus died for him, but he does not know what that death accomplished.

As Gene Yancey stressed in his article, Christmas is a great time to get about the business of bearing witness, of sharing the word of reconciliation. Sharing it amongst ourselves is fun, but accomplishes little. But sharing it among those who call themselves Christian but are not can accomplish very much indeed. This is that singular time of the year when the professing church can be most broadly affected by the true Church. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing, by the Word of God.

This Simeon knew well. The glory of Israel is also light to the nations. Christ would bring revelation of the God of Jacob to the ignorant Gentiles. Why? “So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

The God of Israel sent His Servant, the King of the Jews, at that time of year that we celebrate as Christmas to save Israel and also draw the Nations to God.

Today one might ask, “Is not God the God of Jews also?” A faithful, Bible-believing Jew proclaimed the visible light of the nations at the first Christmas season. Simeon still echoes with Isaiah regarding the Christ Child Jesus!

For my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a Light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the Glory of Your people Israel.

When we think of Jesus, it is usually of His time on earth, the things that He did, the miracles that He worked, the many wonderful principles that He espoused. We think of His birth at Christmas, His death on Good Friday, His resurrection at Easter. Of the three, we celebrate the first and the last far more than the second. We do not celebrate Christ’s death. On Good Friday, we think it proper to feel a bit guilty, knowing that our sins drove Him to the cross. He would not have it so. Jesus would not have us feeling guilty and defeated by sin. He would have us accept with proper joy the gift that He gave to us. He did not give it to us at Christmas or at Easter, but on that Friday, when His life blood poured into the dust along the way from His scourging and crowning with thorns to the pool that accumulated at the foot of the cross as He hung dying. It is the Day that every Christian ought to most celebrate, not that He died, but that He proved His love for us in the most tangible way that one Man can prove His love for another man.

His blood was the greatest gift ever given by anyone, but it was not the full extent of the gift. We think of God the Father in very majestic lights. We contemplate how great His glory must be, and how terribly vast His power. Our minds cannot quite get around His omniscience, or His omnipresence. We think of the Holy Spirit in a very different light. We think of Him more as a Minister to us, the Servant who does not speak of His own things, but of the Son’s. We diminish the Holy Spirit in some ways that we ought not. He is as fully God as the other two Persons of the Trinity, and we ought not take Him for granted. He has all the attributes of the Godhead, and He prays to the Father on our behalf, and He receives the worship of men. But Jesus we think of in mundane terms; in terms of His earthly ministry, when He walked in mortal flesh. Even when we consider His return to the earth at the close of the tribulation, we think of Him returning looking the same way that He looked when he ascended into heaven after His resurrection and post-resurrection ministry.

The Christmas season is a perfect time for witnessing. It is so easy to bring up Jesus Christ, the reason Christians celebrate Christmas in the first place. Every time we leave our homes we should be mindful of opportunities to witness, and especially during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. For both are fixed in the professing Christian’s mind as times that they want to relate to the goodness of God. Many professing Christians, of course, are unsaved, so this is a rich and fertile ground for the implanted Word.

During this season, there are more people out and about, shopping and what have you. It is nothing to strike up a conversation with a stranger. “I love this time of the year, don’t you?” That sort of thing. From there, it is a small step to talking about the giving of gifts. And then a brief discussion about the free nature of a gift, how there is always a cost to giver of the gift, but never a price for the recipient. And from there, to the fact that God loves us so much that He gave His only Son to stand in our stead, accepting the full penalty for our sins, the greatest gift anyone ever gave, eternal life to all who simply believe on Him. Christmas is that time of the year to remember, not only the birth of our Lord, but especially that He came to die for us, to pay our sin debt! May every Christian be fruitful during this season this year!

A Brief History of Christmas

The birth of Christ was originally celebrated on December 6th in the Western world, until 336 A.D., when it was moved to December 25th, to coincide with the pagan Roman festival known as Saturnalia. Saturnalia celebrated the Roman god Saturn, the god of peace and plenty. Saturn was comparable to various other gods that pagans referred to as gods of agriculture around the world, also worshiped by their adherents mostly in winter. Among these were Mars (Roman), Chac (Mayan), Ceres (Hindu), Cronus (Greek and Roman), Eventus Bonus (Roman), and Osiris-Neper (Egyptian).

Saturnalia was celebrated from the 17th through the 24th of December, culminating in an exchange of gifts. Public places were decorated with flowers and candles, and both slaves and their masters joined in this celebration with great vigor. It was a time of debauchery. Slaves were temporarily freed, and wore the mark of freedmen for a week. It was a time of hilarity and excess. That is not altogether unlike today. The decoration of villages and towns and cities with candles harks back to a more ancient pagan tenet that held that candles warded off the gods of thunder, storm and tempest. The lighting of candles also made reference to the sun-worship in which some tribes engaged.

There were also other winter festivals celebrating other gods. For example, the birth of the Persian sun god, Mithras, was celebrated on December 25th. The veneration of Mithras dates back to about 2000 years B.C. It was associated with the Babylonian mystery religion.

The Scandinavians celebrated their winter festival, known as the Yule festival. Neo-Paganism today celebrates the winter solstice on December 25th. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule) states: “ What is certain is that Yule celebrations at the winter solstice predate Christianity, and though there are numerous references to Yule in the Icelandic sagas, there are few accounts of how Yule was actually celebrated, beyond the fact that it was a time for feasting. 'Yule-Joy', with dancing, continued through the Middle Ages in Iceland, but was frowned upon when the Reformation arrived. It is, however, known to have included the sacrifice of a pig for the god Freyr, a tradition which survives in the Scandinavian Christmas ham.”

Again, Wikipedia (see link above) says: “Many of the symbols associated with the modern holiday of Christmas such as the burning of the Yule log, the eating of ham, the hanging of boughs, holly, mistletoe, etc. are apparently derived from traditional northern European Yule celebrations. When the first missionaries began converting the Germanic peoples to Christianity, they found it easier to simply provide a Christian reinterpretation for popular feasts such as Yule and allow the celebrations themselves to go on largely unchanged, rather than trying to suppress them. The Scandinavian tradition of slaughtering a pig at Christmas (see Christmas ham), and not in the autumn, is probably the most salient evidence for this. The tradition derives from the sacrifice to the god Freyr at the Yule celebrations. Halloween and Easter are theorized to have been likewise assimilated from northern European pagan festivals.”

Just as Rome incorporated the religion that worshiped the fish-god Dagon into the Roman Catholic church, so, over time, have many pagan rites become so entwined in modern Christianity that rooting them all out would be practically impossible. The devil is very cunning. So very many Christians unwittingly pay homage to Dagon by putting that fish symbol on their automobiles, believing that it was a symbol of Christianity, marking their secret meeting places during the time of the persecutions. It has always been the symbol of Dagon. Though we do not mean it to be so today, God knows the roots of it, and must see the devil’s trickery as a most foul thing.

The celebration of the birth of Christ was moved from the 6th to the 25th of December in order to incorporate it into the whole tapestry of pagan winter festivals recognized under Roman rule. While their brand of "Christianity" was the national religion of the "Holy" Roman Empire, it was part Christian, but mostly pagan. The celebration of the birth of Christ originally had no part in the pagan festivals. Throughout the ages, however, there has remained a remnant of the Church which has guarded and sustained sound doctrine, and continues to do so today, in spite of the modern secularization of Christmas. You, dear Christian, are a part of that remnant today!

The Celts revered mistletoe and holly as symbolic of fertility, and these were used in the decoration of homes, especially during the winter festivals. The modern use of mistletoe in allowing one standing beneath a sprig of it to be kissed, is a veiled reference to the fertility aspect of the Celtic usage, the kiss being prefatory to greater intimacy. Mistletoe was considered sacred in the religion of the Druids, and it was considered an "all-healer" by the Scandinavians. Holly and ivy supposedly represented the male and the female, respectively, among the northern Europeans, with the stiff and prickly holly representing the man, and the clingy ivy representing the woman.

Santa Claus, of course, is a late American change of the name of Saint Nicholas, who was evidently Bishop of Myra in the late 4th century A.D. He is recognized by Rome as the patron saint of merchants, bankers, mariners and children. His jovial appearance surely smacks of the joy of merchants and bankers during this time of gift-giving.

The Bible speaks of certain wise men (Mt 2:1), whom the world has numbered three. The Bible does not reveal the number of the wise men, but, conveniently, three kings of mythology, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, recognized especially in France and Germany, went through the cities and countryside collecting gifts of money from each household. In Austria, what we celebrate as Christmas was known as “The Day of the Three Kings.” In France, it was called “The Festival of the Kings.” These three, supposedly, went about singing (from whence come our carolers today, and the token gifts these carolers receive from the houses before which they sing, usually in food and drink). These three kings were invoked in healing various illnesses by burying three nails in the earth. It is supposed that, because the gifts of the magi were three, the number of the magi were also three, but there is no Biblical confirmation of this. Today some people use the names of those three kings as the names of the “three wise men.” But there is no Scriptural foundation for this either.

Thus, we see that many of the elements of our modern celebration of Christmas spring from decidedly pagan roots. Christmas has pretty much always been somewhat controversial among Christian Conservatives. During and after the Reformation, Christmas was banned in parts of Europe, and some say that this ban led to the great revival in the latter half of the 19th century. In the last hundred years or so, fairly corresponding with the pervasive explosion of apostasy in Christendom, the controversy has become a weak ember, but it has also at times been a raging firestorm. Now, as we approach the end of the age, we find that, not Christians, but the world itself, has shoved Christianity aside, pushed Christ out of the winter celebrations, and has returned to its roots as a mixture of pagan celebrations. Saturn, the god of plenty, is the god of the modern holiday season.

Christians are ambassadors. We are not earthly creatures, but having been born again, our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20) and we are members of the household of God (Eph 2:19). Paul's second letter to the church at Corinth plainly states (2 Cor 5:18-21) that we are ambassadors from heaven to earth, charged with a single mission which we are to accomplish, the ministry of the word of reconciliation. If we send an ambassador to another nation, he will be expected to live among the citizens of that nation, participate in their local customs, but he will be responsible to represent his homeland's interests faithfully. Our earthly mission is singular. It is proper to participate in the customs of the lands to which we are "assigned," but we are to minister the word of reconciliation faithfully. That is, our responsibility is to preach the gospel: that Jesus Christ was crucified and arose again, the former being in full payment for the sins of the world (Jn 19:30); and the latter, because His death actually was sufficient to effect the reconciliation of man to God (Rom 4:25). God justly judged our sins in Christ as our substitute.

It is okay to celebrate the winter holidays, and indeed, we are charged with so doing, as ambassadors. But we should also be mindful of the roots of this pagan celebration, not becoming personally caught up in its spirit, which is demonstrably an evil one. Perhaps we ought to consider moving our celebration of Christ’s birth to a different date. It would be well to celebrate His birth, death and resurrection together, for His birth really has no meaning apart from His death and resurrection. It is fine to join in the gift-giving and well-wishing of the secular holidays, but it is also very right for Christians to truly celebrate Christ’s birth in a non-secular way. Our celebration needs to be separated from all the trappings of paganism that divert us from true religion during the world’s celebration of the winter solstice. Let the “Holiday Season” become the commercial event that it has always been, and let Christians decide upon a date for a celebration that excludes altogether that which is worldly.

What a wonderful time of the year! It’s Christmas! Or Christmas is near. Over much of the world there are songs about Christ. The music is happy, upbeat and tells a story about the only Savior of the world. At no other season is our Lord Jesus Christ so glorified and proclaimed as during the Christmas season.

The giving of gifts and the presents under the tree portray the greatest gift ever given to mankind. The tradition that we celebrate each year relates the story found in the book of John, chapter three, verse sixteen. The following is an amplified translation of that verse, with words added to clarify the context. “God loved you and me so much that He gave His uniquely born Son, so that if any one of us believes in Him, we will not perish, but we will have everlasting life.”

In the first part of second Corinthians, chapter five, Paul tell us as believers that if our bodies are destroyed, or if we die, we will go directly to heaven and we will “be present with the Lord.” There, each believer will appear and be judged for both good and bad works, and rewards will be issued for eternity. Some believers will have many crowns; some will have few.

This is the season to say Merry Christmas to all. And then be a faithful witness by saying, let me tell you what Christmas is really about: “Christmas is about God’s love for you and me, and how easy it is to spend eternity with God in heaven.” If we are involved in the task of loving others, our minds will not be on our troubles. And yes, Jesus Christ can even make our new year happy if we will only apply God’s Word and expand our love for others through witnessing during what the world now considers only a “Holiday Season.” We celebrate the birth of Christ because we celebrate His death and His resurrection.