Seeing the Christmas Season Through the Lens of the Gospel

Introduction

1. What are some of your favorite parts about the Christmas season?

2. What is a tradition that your family does for Christmas?

3. What is your favorite Christmas movie to watch?

History of Winter Celebrations

Winter celebrations have been around for a long time 100’s of years before Jesus was even born.

a. In Germany they honored the pagan god Oden as they were terrified of Oden who was thought to decide who would prosper or perish on earth.

b. In Rome, a holiday called Saturnalia honored the pagan god of Saturn. During this holiday an entire month was dedicated where Roman social order was completely opposite of the norm as slaves would become masters and poor people were in control of the city. In Roman culture Dec. 25th was the birthday of a pagan god called Mithra.

Transition statement: Needless to say, many winter celebrations have their origins in pagan religions.

When Does Jesus enter the Picture?

So fun fact, the bible doesn’t actually say when Jesus was born. Some scholars have suggested that Jesus was born either in the spring or the fall because shepherds usually wouldn’t be herding sheep in winter.

Because no known date was recorded the early Christian church didn’t celebrate it. Easter was the main holiday for Christians not Christmas. In fact there was no such thing as Christmas for the early church.

It wasn’t until 300 years after the birth of Christ that a Catholic pope named Pope Julius I chose December 25th to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

This was most likely done to try to change the pagan cultural traditions of the current time. By celebrating the birth of Jesus around the already existing winter celebrations, the church leaders hoped that it would attract people to celebrate Jesus, but in doing so they had no way to manage how it was celebrated. So what resulted was you had people going to a church service in the morning then afterwards going out to the bars and getting drunk and partying similar to today’s Mardi Gras in New Orleans, LA.

Needless to say Secular Society watered down Christmas a lot. So much so that when Oliver Cromwell, who was a Puritan, took over in England in 1645, he cancelled Christmas until King Charles II was restored to the throne and with that also came back the holiday of Christmas.

Christmas was Cancelled...

When the pilgrims came to America in 1620 Christmas was not celebrated. So much so that from 1659-1681 the celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Boston and if anyone was celebrating it they were fined.

2. After the American Revolutionary War, English customs, such as Christmas were no longer viewed as important to early Americans. In fact Christmas wasn’t a federal holiday until June 26, 1870. Which is almost one hundred years after the Revolutionary War.

What Brought Christmas Back?

In the 1800’s poor, lower-class, people started rioted again on Christmas reverting back to what happened in England. So upper-class citizens wanted to stop the rioting and their solution was to promote Christmas as a positive, family-friendly, holiday to celebrate. An example of this would be when Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol.

Over the Next 100 years, Americans basically re-invented a holiday that includes decorating trees, giving gifts, and sending holiday cards.

It was later in 1881 that a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast soon became the accepted version of Santa Claus as we see today.

The Legend of Santa Claus

The legend of Santa Claus comes from a monk named St. Nicholas who was born around 280 A.D. in Turkey. St. Nicholas traveled around, giving away his wealth, helping the poor and sick.

St. Nick became popular in America when Dutch families in late 18 century gathered to honor the anniversary of the his death.

From there poems and stories were created about St. Nicholas and then afterwards cartoons were drawn of him and the fictional character that we know of today became infused into society with celebrating Christmas.

Transition statement: So after this crash course of Christmas history, I ask this question...

How Should We as Christians Celebrate Christmas?

There are two dilemma’s at hand to address as we answer this question.

1. If secular Christmas has pagan roots and seems to revolve around fictional characters in society (i.e. Santa, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, the Grinch), should we engage and celebrate along with society? Sound like Halloween 2.0 doesn’t it?

2. If we don’t know when Christ was born and when it seems unlikely that it was in December. Should we even be worried about celebrating the birth of Christ?

Now before everyone in here thinks Kent is a Christmas Scrooge and I go “Ba humbug” every Christmas I want to let you know that the Hinrichsen household celebrates Christmas and will continue to celebrate Christmas until Jesus comes back.

So how then should we as Christians Celebrate Christmas?

To answer the first question concerning the secularisms of Christmas, let’s turn to the bible and open to John 17:9-19

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 17

9 “I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours. 10 Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled. 13 Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. 14 I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

Read John 17:9-19. Here we see Jesus praying for his disciples before He would be taken away to be crucified. In this prayer we see this idea of being in the world but not of the world. What do you think it looks like to be in the world but not of the world?

Expound on this thought.

To answer the second question about should we celebrate Christ’s birthday if we don’t know the exact date?

It would be if someone was adopted but they didn’t know exactly when they were born. Does that mean that they don’t celebrate their birthday? No, it means that they select a day and they chose to celebrate their birthday then. It doesn’t mean that their day of birth is somehow changed. It means that whatever day they pick is now the day they choose to celebrate their birth.

So even though we don’t know when Christ birth is, the important thing here is that we do celebrate it. Now why is it important to celebrate Jesus birth?

Read Gal. 4:4-7

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 4

4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.

Conclude message here and pray.