Should we celebrate His birth? Should we take part, God forbid, in this very Hollywood-style, sticky, pagan display? So I’m telling you, take an example for Jesus Himself. When Jesus came to Jerusalem on the Feast of Dedication, Hanukkah, He came to Jerusalem to speak, not about the Maccabees and not about Antiochus, and not about the Hanukkah, and not about the miracle of the oil, and not about the dreidel, and not about anything. He came to speak about Himself, who He is, what He was, what He came for. He is the reason for the season. And in the Feast of Lights, He talked about himself as the light of the world. In that Feast of Dedication, He was speaking about how He is indeed of the Father, with the Father, the Son of the Father.
Celebration is an expression of joy and thanksgiving, and I think that for us, the birth of the Messiah should be a reason for joy and thanksgiving anyway. So we could actually celebrate his birth any given day. Luke 2, “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill towards men.’” The birth of Jesus was the cause for great celebration, not only on Earth, but even in heaven
Amidst all the wonderful traditions surrounding the Christmas season, it is also a time for the annual visit of the naysayers who like to condemn as pagan all things about Christmas.
Jeremiah 10:3-5
“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. They are upright, like a palm tree, and they cannot speak; they must be carried, because they cannot go by themselves. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor can they do any good.”
The mention that “they cannot speak” and “must be carried” tells us that Jeremiah is talking about that of which Isaiah wrote years earlier. In Isaiah 44:15-18, God spoke of cutting down a tree, carving an idol out of it, adorning it with silver and gold, then bowing down before it saying, “This is my god!”
Jeremiah 10 and Isaiah 44 have nothing to do with Christmas trees and everything to do with an idol. Christians don’t worship the tree at Christmas, they decorate the home with it. The Christmas tree naysayers are just as guilty as the Santa Claus crowd at negating the real reason for the season.
Think about all that happened on that fateful night. Joseph and Mary, weary of travel in search of lodging, were turned away over and over until, finally, an innkeeper offered them shelter in a stable. There, Mary had the Christ child.
Matthew 2:1-2
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”
In their acts of worship, the wise men brought gifts to Jesus. We also give gifts to one another as expressions of love. Truth be told, Christmas is a wonderful example of how we should live all the time. We should always be thinking of and showing love for one another and always talking about Christ, which is what happens every time anyone says the word Christ-mas!
No, you wont find the command to “celebrate Christmas” in the Bible. However, if there is anything worth celebrating annually, the birth of Christ should top the list.
CS Lewis said: “The birth of Christ is the central event in history of the earth, the very thing the whole story is about.”
Lewis is right. The central event in the history of the earth is certainly a cause worth celebrating!
Merry Christmas,