This blog post is in response to many of our
family and friends that have asked us why we aren't celebrating Christmas, and
when do we celebrate Jesus’ birth. We had a lot of fun as a family putting it together. It's cool when your older kids have opinions and are able to contribute to spiritual discussions. I forgot that Abigail put a post on her blog last year about Christmas. We just reread it and Paul figures it's better than ours: http://consumedwiththecreator.blogspot.com/2012/12/christmas.html
Even though there is no way to know for sure when Jesus was born, Paul read a pretty convincing article that
theorizes when Jesus’ birth really was.
It traces when John the Baptist’s father Zachariah’s time of service was
in the temple:
Luke 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the
king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His
wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her
name was Elizabeth.
According to scripture (1 Ch 24:3, 1 Ch 24:10) and an explanation of how
the priests services worked by the historian Josephus, Zachariah served twice a year during the 8th service and John was conceived right
after Zachariah’s temple service ended.
The priestly services began at the beginning of the year which is in the
spring according to Exodus and Deuteronomy :
Exodus 12:2 "This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.
Exodus 12:18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening,
you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at
evening.
Deuteronomy
16:1
"Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to Yahwh your
God, for in the month of Abib Yahwh your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
Abib in Hebrew means tender or green as in barley at the earliest stage it
can be harvested. The spring of the
year.
Taking into account that all of the priests
served during Passover/Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, Zachariah’s service
would have been in the 10th week after the new year either May/June
and 6 months later in Nov/Dec. (The Gregorian calendar floats when you compare
it to God’s calendar. So every year the
days are a little different.)
Luke 1:23-31 So it was, as soon as the days of
his service were completed, that he departed to his own house. Now after those days his wife Elizabeth
conceived; and she hid herself five months, saying, "Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the
days when He looked on me, to take away my
reproach among people." Now in the
sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee
named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was
Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was
Mary. And having come in, the angel said
to her, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the
Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!" But when she saw him,
she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this
was. Then the angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb
and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS.
Luke 1:36 Now indeed, Elizabeth your
relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth
month for her who was called barren.
This verse was spoken to Mary just after she learned that she was pregnant
with Jesus.
John would have been born 6 months before Jesus and therefore, Jesus would have been born in either March/April
or Sep/Oct. Here’s a link to an article
that goes into great detail with sources listed http://bnaitsiyon.blogspot.com/2013/11/who-is-reason-for-season.html on
the timing of Jesus’ birth. Many (including myself) are convinced from
other prophecies, some of which are listed in the above article, that Jesus
would have been born during the Sep/Oct time frame and specifically at either
The Feast of Trumpets or The Feast of Tabernacles.
No one today knows for sure how Dec 25th
was chosen to celebrate Jesus’ birthday, but we do know that there were at
least two ongoing celebrations before Jesus’ birth, the Roman "birth of the
unconquered sun” and the Persian “Sun of Righteousness”, both having to do with
the winter solstice that occurred a few days prior. I’m guessing that the Christians at that time
did with Christmas what I have done in the past (but will no longer do) with
Halloween. I attended a fall “Harvest
Festival” on Halloween night with my Christians friends and we all had our
costumes on. I now think that that was
not pleasing to God and that instead of trying to Christianize pagan
celebrations, we should distance ourselves from them. God tells us as much in Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy
12:30 take heed
to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed
from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did
these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.'
Two of the
gospels give accounts of Jesus’ birth and, although we are not commanded to
celebrate Jesus’ birth, 2 Timothy says that:
2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness,
In my opinion, a better time to recount the
events of Jesus’ birth would be during the Feast of Tabernacles. It is one of the eight times that God
specifically set aside for us to celebrate special days for various reasons and
it is very likely the actual time of Jesus’ birth. I believe God has a plan that was set in
motion before the world began and He knew exactly what He was doing when He set
those times aside. Not only do I believe
that Jesus was born on the Feast of Trumpets or during the Feast of Tabernacles
(The Feast of Tabernacles starts 15 days after the Feast of Trumpets), but I
believe He will return for His bride the church on the Feast of Trumpets.
If we change the date when we recount the
events of Jesus’ birth, we need to ensure that we leave the pagan traditions we
picked up from celebrations to false gods behind. When we moved to the Athabascan Indian village of Nondalton, they celebrated Christmas
according to the Russian Orthodox traditions. Many of their customs were strange to us and
seemed to be based more on superstition than anything else. So, we chose not to participate in those
customs. We were convicted to stop
celebrating Christmas a few years ago and the further we distance ourselves
from our old traditions the easier it is for us to see that many of the
traditions we were practicing were just as rooted in pagan practices as the
Russian Orthodox traditions that did not set right with our spirit. I have even found a few scriptures that,
although they do not specifically reference Christmas, they are described as
pagan and they remind me of some of our Christmas traditions:
Jeremiah 3:13 Only acknowledge your iniquity, That you have
transgressed against Yahwh your God, And have scattered your charms To alien
deities under every green tree, And you have not obeyed My voice,' says Yahwh.
Jeremiah 10:2-4 Thus says Yahwh: "Do not learn
the way of the Gentiles; Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, For the Gentiles
are dismayed at them. For the customs of
the peoples are futile; For one cuts a tree from the forest, The work of the
hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold; They
fasten it with nails and hammers So that it will not topple.
Isaiah 14:8 Indeed the cypress trees rejoice
over you, And the cedars of Lebanon, Saying, 'Since you were cut down, No woodsman has
come up against us.'
The context of this verse in Isaiah
is that Babylon has been defeated and the verse
is referring to the king of Babylon:
The following is taken from the Wikipedia post on
Christmas:
…The Parliament of
Scotland officially
abolished the observance of Christmas in 1640, claiming that the church had
been "purged of all superstitious observation of days".[72] It
was not until 1958 that Christmas again became a Scottish public holiday.[73]
In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England shared
radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from
1659 to 1681. The ban by the Pilgrims was revoked in 1681 by English governor Sir Edmund Andros, however it was not until
the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.[50]”
Instead of arguing whether or not we should be celebrating Christmas on the
25th of December, I think we would all do well as Christians to
concentrate on celebrating the appointed times that God put forth in scripture
for us to celebrate. He tells His people
to celebrate them forever. Whether I am
one of the lost tribes of Israel
or whether I am grafted into God’s people because of my love and obedience to
Him (1 John tells us that love and obedience are the same thing.), I am one of
God’s people. So, when He tells His people to celebrate His appointed times
forever, that includes me. They are laid
out in Leviticus 23 and they provide us with 19 days appointed by God to be set
aside to Him. With the exception of the
Day of Atonement, which is a day of solemn rest and fasting, they are days of
rejoicing and remembrance for what He has done and will do for us. Included in those eight appointed times is the
weekly Sabbath He commands us to observe, which gives us close to 70 days every
year set aside to Him. (Incidentally, Hanukah
is not one of the times God commands us to celebrate.) Because we don’t have Yahwh’s temple today
there are many aspects of His appointed times that we cannot observe. But, we can set these times aside and follow
God’s instructions as closely as we can.
As a family we have found that we have learned a great deal about past
and future events from scripture as we have observed His appointed times. Some of the events that we celebrate during
His appointed times are His deliverance of His people from Egypt, Jesus’ death and
resurrection and the pouring out of His Spirit at Pentecost. And based on the calculations made above,
Jesus’ birth. If, after you have made a
big deal out of these days, you still feel the need to celebrate some more,
don’t do it because everyone else around you is doing it. Do it because you’ve prayed about it and feel
that God is okay with it. To paraphrase
Paul in Romans and Colossians, don’t get mad at me if I don’t celebrate
Christmas and I won’t get mad at you if you do J
Romans 14:5-12 One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own
mind. He who observes the day, observes
it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the
day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who
eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to
the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks.
For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if
we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the
Lord's. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be
Lord of both the dead and the living.
But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your
brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written: "AS I LIVE, SAYS THE
LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL CONFESS TO
GOD." So then each of us shall
give account of himself to God.
Colossians
2:16-17 So let no
one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or
sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
The best way to learn about the shadow of things
to come, is to
Keep the Feasts!
Jesus did, Paul did and Paul told us to:
1Corinthians
5:8 Therefore
let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth.
