Christmas – Its Origin And Its History

J.W. Deenick. Trowel & Sword. December 1963

Preamble: Once again the countdown has begun – “ONLY SIX WEEKS TO CHRISTMAS”. “Avoid the last minute rush and get your Christmas shopping done early”. Cost of living crisis? There’s no such thing when it comes to Christmas – that comes later when the credit card has to be paid off. For many people that’s Christmas in the twenty-first century. In the 1960’s the pressure was not quite so intense. Even so, Rev. J.W. Deenick considered it important enough to try to bring some perspective, and “sanity” to the celebration of Christmas. As Christians, it may serve us well in this pre-Christmas period to give some thought to how and why (if at all) we celebrate Christmas this year, and in the years to come.

Christmas – Its Origin And Its History

Christmas customs differ from country to country, from home to home. They are often pagan in origin, some are tasteless, some have been promoted by purely commercial interests. And we do not seem to be able to get rid of them. The Christmas card with a little romantic church in the snow complete with mistletoe and fir-tree seems to die just as hard as Father Christmas himself in his entourage of garlands and a blasphemous “Silent Night”.

Through the centuries the Christian Church has tried to do away with such popular misuse of the Christmas cycle. Two different methods have been used to that end. Mostly the Church tried to Christianise the celebration of the day. But sometimes the Church tried in disgust to abolish Christmas as a Christian celebration altogether. Neither method was very successful. In this connection it is interesting to study the history of Christmas.

Its Origin

It is difficult to establish in which way the celebration of the Lord’s birthday commenced in the early Church. It seems certain that it was comparatively late before people began to think of it. This is not so strange if we consider that no corresponding festival was presented by the Old Testament as in the case of Easter and Pentecost. Moreover the day and the month of the birth of Jesus are nowhere stated in the gospel history and cannot be certainly determined. Again, the Church concentrated first of all on the death and the resurrection of Christ, and made these the centre of the weekly worship and the church year.

Particularly the question of the date of Jesus’ birth gave considerable difficulty and gave occasion to a great deal of confusion. Clemens of Alexandria, who lived in the second half of the second century suggested as the date of the Lord’s birth the 18th of November. Others proposed the 24th of April or the 25th of May. The Eastern Church celebrated at the time a festival which they called the Feast of Epiphany, i.e. on the 6th of January. This was not meant however as a commemoration of Jesus’ birth in the first place, but rather of his “epiphany”, his public appearance and his baptism. In the Church of Armenia this festival is still celebrated instead of our Christmas.

How came the 25th of December to be considered as the date of Jesus’ birth?

This again is uncertain. Two explanations are offered, which do not actually exclude each other. There is an old tradition that reckons the 25th of March to be the day of Jesus’ immaculate conception. Now this date marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, and was also considered to be the day on which God created heaven and earth. The same date was chosen for the commencement of God’s work of recreation and redemption. The actual birth of the Saviour would then have occurred nine months later, on the 25th of December. A second explanation for this date points to the great pagan festival celebrated on the 25th of December, in honour of Sol Invictus Mithras, the invincible God of the Sun, whose victory over the darkness of winter was then commemorated. It is suggested that the Church, clashing head on with the Mithras religion, chose on purpose this date to place the message of the birth of Christ face to face with the inventions of heathenism. But both explanations make it quite clear that nothing is known about the actual date of Jesus’ birth and that the 25th of December was chosen for other reasons.

Its History

Although the date for Christmas was rather arbitrarily chosen the early Christian Church certainly did its utmost to have the day celebrated in a Christian style, and after Constantin’s conversion the civil magistrate assisted the Church wholeheartedly in this. Civil law demanded that the day be observed as a day of rest, even for slaves, and no fasts, no public or secular festivities were permitted. There is no doubt about the joy and sincerity with which the early christians observed their Christmas celebrations.

Soon Christmas was one of the main festivals of Christianity. It was called the feast of the nativity. In old French the “dies natalis”, the birthday of Christ came to be called “na-el”, “nou-el” or “noel”, which is still used in English today.

Still, no matter how sincere and strict early Christian observance of the day may have been, in later years various old pagan and superstitious customs, which had remained popular among nominal Christians and unbelievers, began to penetrate the church celebrations of the birth of Jesus and during the Middle Ages Christmas too often became a “Kermis”, a ball and fancy fair business, that gave the church authorities many a headache and against which the General Councils and the civil magistrates availed very little.

Calvin And Christmas

It stands to reason that the reformers were not very keen on retaining the many Roman Catholic festivals that had contributed so considerably to the decline of the Church and the decay of public morality. Luther for instance originally favoured the abolishment of all holy days except the Sunday. In 1520 he wrote: “I would that God gave that no holy days were left in Christianity and that all the feasts of the women and of the saints were held on the Sunday.” Later he changed his opinion and did away with all specifically Roman festivals alone and those not based on the gospel and the Apostles’ Creed.

In Switzerland Zwingli retained a few festivals apart from those based upon the Apostles’ Creed, but others did away with all celebrations apart from the Lord’s day. So did Farel and Viret at Geneva. When Calvin arrived at Geneva no Christmas or any other holy day was observed there and he did nothing to have them re-introduced. Later, when they had been re-instituted during the years of his banishment from Geneva, he did nothing to have them abolished. He himself writes about this in 1551 in a letter to Bullinger: “After my return, when through my influence I could have abolished whatever was established during my absence, I quietly acquiesced in the situation. I so restrained myself that I even kept back those who clamoured for the abolishment of these days. We accepted a middle road namely that people would keep their shops closed and rest during the morning, but that they would do their normal work after midday. This was so decided nine years ago. But even so the controversies did not stop.” Later the City Council abolished again all holy days but Calvin writes to Bullinger that this was not done at his request and that it was not fair that people blamed him for measures for which he was not responsible.

There is a story according to which Calvin never preached a Christmas sermon. That is not correct. There is for instance a Christmas sermon on the first half of Luke 2 which he preached on a Christmas day. But this Christmas day coincided with an ordinary Sunday and after the sermon the Lord’s Supper was celebrated. It is difficult to asses whether or not Calvin ever preached a Christmas sermon on a Christmas day that was not also a Sunday. Calvin preached every day of the week in the early morning service; 6 a.m. in summertime, 7 a.m. in the winter. We know that on the 25th of December 1555, which was not a Sunday, he preached on Deut. 21 and that he did not even mention Christmas in that sermon. He had preached his Christmas sermon on the Sunday before. But that was in 1555 when the authorities had abolished the Christmas day. From the fact that Calvin preached Christmas messages in the Christmas period we may well conclude that he preached on the message of Bethlehem on Christmas day when according to the ruling of the Council this day was still observed in Geneva.

In Later History 

In the years after the reformation there was little enthusiasm for holy days. The Reformed Church of Scotland allowed no other holy day but the Sunday. A century later the Westminster directory for public worship still stated, that festival days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued.

In the Netherlands the National Synod of 1574 decided that the message of Christmas was to be preached on the Sunday before. But four years later Synod ruled that where the authorities maintained the day the churches should instruct their people on the doctrine of Jesus’ birth. The National Synod of Dort 1616-1619 simply ruled that the Christmas day and two or three other days had to be observed. I would say that ever since the Dutch church. has celebrated the day as a special day for gospel preaching on the subject of Jesus’ birth, although neither Christmas day nor Ascension day were ever sanctified in the same sense or on the same level as the Sunday, the christian sabbath.

It is remarkable however that although the Reformed fathers of Dordt and the Westminster divines did not see eye in eye in this point they never broke up their fellowship.

Our Reformed Churches in Australia and in New Zealand follow the ruling of Dordt. We have our Christmas day and most of our people observe it with real joy. They are fond of the traditional Christmas services with the hymns and the sermon for the occasion. It is around the church services that the celebration of Christmas centres. It is the task of the sessions to see to it that the Christmas day is observed in good style, not in cheap sentimentalism, but in the strong and worthy manner of a church that has a message for the world, a message for every day, for every Sunday, for every Christmas: that Jesus Christ of Bethlehem lives.

J.W. DEENICK

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