Still Thinking – The Reason for the Season

In the ancient world it was not common to celebrate a person’s birthday.  It was more common to celebrate the death of famous or significant people.  It may seem strange to us but early Christians did not celebrate the birth of Jesus.  They had the narrative of his birth, particular from the Gospel Luke written around 85AD, but the early church fathers Origen (d.255), St. Irenaeus (d. 202), and Tertullian (d. 220) do not include Christmas or its date on their lists of feasts and celebrations.

While there was interest in the early church about the date of Jesus’ birth there was no celebration of it.  The  church father, Clement of Alexandria (150-215) tells us that certain theologians had claimed to have determined not only the year of the Jesus' birth but also the day; that it took place in the 28^th year of Augustus and on the 25^th day of Pachon (May 20^th) . He also added that others said that he was born on the 24^th or 25^th of Pharmuthi (April 19^th or 20^th)

Some modern scholars, using the details given in the Bible, suggest that Jesus' birthday was likely before October or after March.  So, although we don't know when Jesus was born, it seems quite unlikely that it was on December 25^th.  So how did December 25^th? The most likely explanation is that as the Rome Empire became Christian there was a movement by the Bishops of the church to “Christianize” the pagan celebrations.  So, in order to eclipse the winter solstice celebration of the sun god Mithras in the middle of the 4^th Century after Jesus' death, the newly converted Emperor Constantine declared December 25^th to be the official birthday of Jesus.

Within a few years, the altars of the temples of Mithra had been destroyed and the temples were quickly rededicated to the activities of the Church of Rome. So the winter solstice, which was perhaps the greatest celebration known to the ancient world, was transformed into a celebration of Jesus as the light of world and the one who overcame the darkness.

Over the centuries the celebration of Christmas has waxed and waned depending on the theologies and doctrines of the different wings of the Christian Church.  In the 17^th Century the emerging Free Church which included Separatists, Baptists, Congregationalists and Puritans, condemned the celebration of Christmas because its cultural pagan origins overshadowed the true biblical meaning of Jesus’ birth.  During this period, the English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas entirely, replacing it with a day of fasting and considering it, "a popish festival with no biblical justification", and a time of wasteful and immoral behaviour.  The army were even sent to raid homes and confiscate any cooked meat.  I wonder what they would think of our Christmas Celebrations today.

There has been a move in the modern church to emphasise the true meaning of Christmas.  I think the recent recovery of the celebration of Advent is a healthy corrective to some of our consumerist aspects of Christmas, while not retreating into pietism or “Scroogeism.”  It is interesting that one of the great social reformers of the 19^th Century, Charles Dickens highlighted Christmas as both a time of festivities with a reflection on the moral and social values in his book A Christmas Carol. 

Advent, with its focus on our commitment to hope, love, peace and joy, woven from the stories of John the Baptizers, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, give us a clearer sense of the “reason for the season.”  It is also a time of personal and collective reflection on faith and how a commitment to the one born in a stable is lived out in my life and within the world around me.

Christopher