The True Meaning of Christmas

Web statistics for MadeByMark.com show a huge number of people are coming here after Googling the phrase, “Scriptural reasons for saying Christmas instead of holiday.”

That’s likely because fundamentalists, always eager to create a controversy where none really exists, have proclaimed in their pulpits that people like me (political and social liberals, gays and lesbians, and other non-fundamentalists) are participating in a deliberate plot to destroy Christmas, leaving nothing but a limp, generic “holiday” in its wake. Because I vaguely mentioned this in a recent post, and because Google loves me, people interested in keeping Christ in Christmas are being ferried here in record numbers.

So: for those of you looking for what the Bible has to say about keeping Christ in Christmas or preventing Christmas from becoming just another holiday, MadeByMark.com is proud to present an exhaustive list of Scriptures referencing Christmas, keeping Christ in Christmas, and the holiday season in general:

1.

2.

3.

4.

“But Mark,” you say. “Your list is blank!”

That’s the point. The word Christmas does not appear in the Old or New Testament. December 25th is never mentioned, and the date of Christ’s birth is not recorded. What’s more, there’s no directive anywhere in Scripture ordering Christians to remember, celebrate, or observe the birth of Christ in any way.

Modern day Christmas is a mish-mash of pagan holidays and traditions:

1. Scandinavia’s twelve-day-long celebration of Yule, which involved celebrations, feasting, and counting the sparks rising from the Yule log as a way of foretelling how prosperous the new year would be,

2. The end-of-year, generic feast days found in several European countries, which began when farmers slaughtered their cattle (and gorged on the meat) rather than try to maintain large herds all winter,

3. German observations for the god Odin, who flew through the air, spotted people on the ground, and awarded poverty or peace on the basis of who had been naughty or nice

4. Saturnalia, the Roman feasting holiday involving festivals, feasts, green trees lit with candles, the hanging of laurel garland, and the exchange of presents and “lucky fruits”

5. Juvenalia, the Roman holiday celebrating the birth of Mithras, the Sun god, on December 25th.

So where, exactly, did Christmas come from … and how did Christ get in it?

Historical evidence suggests early Christians didn’t celebrate the birth of Christ at all (they were more interested in that resurrection thing). Christmas (literally, “Christ’s Mass”) began as a Catholic thing, hundreds of years after Christ.

You have to remember that the early Christian church — what fundamentalists would call “idolatrous Pope worshippers” and what the rest of us would call “Catholics” — were the spiritual equivalent of Star Trek’s The Borg. Eager to expand its membership (and its wallet), the Church assimilated the cultures it encountered — and, given that the alternative to conversion from paganism was often death, resistance was futile.

As a result, the Church found itself with thousands of formerly pagan members who weren’t all that eager to give up their pagan holidays — including celebrations like Saturnalia. Against the better judgement of the Church, ex-pagan members continued to celebrate the Winter solstice with feasts, the giving of gifts, garland, and lights. In a move generally believed to be an effort to Christianize the Saturnalia festival, Pope Julius I declared “The Feast of the Nativity” would be held on December 25th.

At first, the “feast” was declared to be a sober recollection of Christ’s birth, but by the Middle Ages, it had become a sort of Mardi Gras in December, complete with a sober church service followed by drunken feasting. Following traditions that dated back to Saturnalia, each town’s poorest citizens would go door to door, demanding treats and gifts from those who were better off.

In 1645, the Puritans, vowing to purify religious observances, actually cancelled Christmas, but, due to the outcry, Charles II reinstated it.

But surely, here in America, our founding fathers celebrated Christmas? Nope. In fact, early America was so influenced by Christian thought, America didn’t celebrate Christmas at all — in fact, until almost the end of the 1600’s, Christmas celebrations were illegal in Boston! Christmas wasn’t even recognized as a federal holiday until 1781.

Christmas as we know it today, complete with chestnuts roasting over open fires and feelings of good will toward our fellow humans wasn’t a cultural staple until the 19th century. In fact, many of our modern traditions seem to reflect fictional events portrayed in Washington Irving’s popular book, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gentleman, published in 1819.

The truth, then, about Christmas? Christmas — never mentioned in the Bible — is a Catholic holiday specifically designed to Christianize existing pagan festivals and traditions. The contemporary American idea that Christmas is a long-treasured celebration of Christ’s birth is a misconception; in fact, most of our ideas about how Christmas should be celebrated come from the 1800’s, when Americans (relatively ignorant of an uninvolved with Christmas, but wild about Dicken’s A Christmas Carol) turned to the churches of European immigrants to learn how Christmas “should be” celebrated.

As for all the talk about keeping Christ in Christmas:

1) the Bible doesn’t put Him there

2) the earliest Christians didn’t celebrate Christmas

3) Christ wasn’t in Christmas until the Pope put Him there

4) the Christmas American fundamentalists are so passionately defending is a relatively modern invention, dating back no further than the 1800’s.

If, as Christians, we want to celebrate December 25th as the birth of Christ and see Jesus “as the reason for the season,” that’s great! But honesty dictates we also embrace the fact that the Bible neither dictates nor defines this observation.

As usual, fundamentalists are more interested in lurid fantasies about their own persecution (I actually saw a reference to the “War on Christmas” the other day!) than they are in the facts.