Ralph Woodrow - The Winter Festival.pdf

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CHAPTER TWENTY
:JJ,,e Winter :Je~livaf
~HRISTMAS-DECEMBER 25th-is the day desig-
~nated on our calendars as the day of Christ's birth.
But is this really the day on which he was bom? Are today's
customs at this season of Christian origin? Or is Christmas
another example of mixture between paganism and Chris-
tianity?
A look at the word
"Christmas"
indicates that it is a
mixture.
Though it includes the name of Christ, it also men-
tions the "Mass." When we consider all of the elaborate cere-
monies, prayers for the dead, transubstantiation rites, and
complicated rituals of the Roman Catholic Mass, can any
truły
link this with the historical Jesus of the gospels?
His
life
and ministry were uncomplicated by such ritualism.
As
Paul,
we fear that some have been corrupted "from the
simp/icity
that
is
in Christ" (2 Cor. 11:3) because of pagan influence
upon such things as the Mass. Looking at it this way, the
word "Christ-mass"
is
self-contradictory.
As
to the actual date of Christ's birth, December 25th is to
be doubted. When Jesus was bom, "there were in the same
country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over
their flock by night" (Luke 2:8). Shepherds in Palestine did
not abide in the fields during the middle of winter! Adam
Clarke has written,
"As
these shepherds had not yet brought
home their flocks, it is a presumptive argument that October
had not yet commenced, and that, consequently, our Lord
was not bom on the 25th of December, when no flocks were
out in the fields ... On this very ground the nativity in Decem-
ber should be given up. "
1
While the Bibie does not expressly tell us the date of Jesus'
birth, there are indications it was probably in the
fali
of the
149
Shepherds in Judea.
year. We know that Jesus was crucified
in
spring, at the time
of the passover (John 18:39). Figuring his ministry as lasting
three and a half years, this would place the beginning of his
ministry in fall. At that time, he was about to be thirty years
of age (Luke 3:23), the recognized age for a man to become
an official minister under the Old Testament (cf. Numbers
4:3).
lf
he turned thirty in the
fali,
then his birthday was in
the
fali,
thirty years before.
At the time of Jesus' birth, Joseph and
Mary
bad gone to
Bethlehem to be taxed (Luke 2:1-5). There are no records
to indicate that the middle of winter was the time of taxing.
A more logical time of the year would have been in the fall,
at the end of the harvest.
lf
this was the case, it would have
been the season for the Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem
which could explain why
Mary
went with Joseph (cf. Luke
2:41). This would also explain why even at Bethlehem
"there was no room in the inn" (Luke 2:7). According to
Josephus, Jerusalem was normally a city of 120,000 inhabit-
ants, but during the feasts, sometimes as many as 2,000,000
Jews would gather. Such vast crowds not only filled Jeru-
salem, but the surrounding towns also, including Bethlehem,
150
which was only five miles to the south.
If
the joumey of
Mary and Joseph was indeed to attend the feast, as well as
to be truced, this would place the birth of Jesus in the
fali
of the year.
It
is not essential that we know the exact date on which
Christ was bom-the main thing being, of course, that
he
was borni
The early Christians commemorated the
death
of Christ (1 Cor. 11:26), not his birth.
The Catholic Encyc-
lopedia
says, "Christmas was not among the earliest festivals
of the Church. lrenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists
of feasts."
2
Later, when churches at various places did begin
celebrating the birthday of Christ, there was much difference
of opinion as to the correct date.
It
was not until the latter
part of the fourth century before the Roman Church began
observing December 25th.
3
Yet, by the fifth century, it was
ordering that the birth of Christ be forever observed on this
date, even though this was the day of the old Roman feast of
the birth of Sol, one of the names of the sun-god!
4
Says Frazer, "The largest pagan religious cult which fos-
tered the celebration of December 25 as a holiday through-
out the Roman and Greek worlds was the pagan sun worship
-Mithraism ... This winter festival was called 'the Nativity'
-the 'Nativity of the SUN'."
5
Was this pagan festival respon-
sible for the December 25 day being choscn by the Roman
Church? We
will
let
The Catholic
Encyclopedia
answer.
"The well-known
solar
feast of Natalis Invicti"-the Nativ-
ity of the Unconquered Sun-"celebrated on 25 December,
has a strong claim
on the
responsibility for
our
December
date"! 6
As pagan solar customs were being "Christianized" at
Rome, it is understandable that confusion would result.
Some thought Jesus was Sol, the sun-god! "Tertullian had to
assert that Sol was not the Christians' God; Augustine de-
nounced the heretical identification of Christ with Sol. Pope
Leo I bitterly reproved solar survivals-Cllristians, on the very
doorstep of the Apostles' basilica, tuming to adore the rising
sun."
7
The winter festival was very
popular
in ancient times. "In
pagan Rome and Greece, in the days of the Teutonie barba-
rians, in the remote times of ancient Egyptian civilization,
in the infancy of the race East and West and North and
South, the period of the
w inter solstice
was ever a period of
rejoicing and festivity. "
8
Because this season wa<; so popular,
151
it was
adopted
as the time of the birth of Christ by the Ro-
man church.
Some of our present-day Christmas customs were influ-
enced by the Roman Saturnalia. "lt is common knowledge",
says
one writer,
"that
much of our association with the
Christmas season-the holidays, the giving of presents and
the
generał
feeling of geniality-is but the inheritance from
the Roman winter festival of the Saturnalia... survivals of
paganism. "
9
Tertullian mentions that the practice of exchanging pres-
ents was a part of the Saturnalia. There is nothing wrong in
giving presents, of course. The Israelites gave gifts to each
other at times of celebration-even celebrations that were
observed because of mere eustom (Esther 9:22). But some
have sought to link Christmas gifts with those presented to
Jesus by the wisemen.
This
cannot be correct. By the time
the wiseman arrived, Jesus was no longer "lying in a manger"
(as when the shepherds came), but was in a
house
(Matt.
2:9-11). This could have been quite a while after his birth-
day. Also, they presented their gifts to
Jesus,
not to each
other!
The Christmas tree, as we know it, only dates back a few
centuries, though ideas about sacred trees are very ancient.
An old Babylonish fable told of an evergreen tree which
sprang out of a dead tree stump. The old stump symbolized
the dead Nimrod, the new evergreen tree symbolized that
Nimrod bad come to life again in Tammuz! Among the
Druids the oak was sacred, among the Egyptians it was the
palm, and in Romeit was the fir, which was decorated with
red berries during the Saturnalia!
1 0
The Scandinavian god
Odin was believed to bestow special gifts at yuletide to those
who approacehd his sacred fir tree.
11
In at least ten Bibli-
cal references, the
green
tree is associated with idolatry and
false worship (1 Kings 14:23, etc.) Since all trees are green
at least part of the year, the special mention of "green"
probably refers to trees that are evergreen. "The Christmas
tree ... recapitulates the idea of tree worship ... gilded nuts
and balls symbolize the sun... all of the festivities of the
winter solstice have been absorbed into Christmas day
...
the
use of holly and mistletoe from the Drudic ceremonies; the
Christmas tree from the honors paid to Odin's sacred fir."
11
Taking all of this into consideration, it is interesting to
152
Decoration of the tree,
by
Ludwig Rich ter
(
1803 ).
compare a statement of Jeremiah with today's eustom of
decorating a tree at the Christmas season. "The customs
of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the
forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe.
They deck it with silver and with
gołd;
they fasten it with
nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright
as the palm tree, but speak not" (Jer. 10:3, 4).
The people in the days of Jeremiah, as the context shows,
were actually making an idol out of the tree, the word
"workman" being not merely a lumberjack, but one who
formed idols (cf. Isaiah 40:19, 20; Hosea 8:4-6). And the
word "axe" refers here specifically to a carving tool.
In
citing this portion of Jeremiah, we do not mean to infer
that people who today place Christmas trees in their homes
or churches are
worshipping
these trees. Such customs do,
however, provide vivid examples of how
mixtures
have been
made.
In
the sixth cen tury, missionaries were sent through the
northem part of Europe to gather pagans into the Roman
fold. They found that June 24th was a very popular day
among these people. They sought to "Christianize" this day,
but how? By this time December 25th had been adopted by
153

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