11/30/22
“Witch Hunt in Tuscumbia.” Well, that caught my attention. Witches in Alabama? Or was “witch hunt” a metaphor for something else? Enquiring minds want to know! So, I watched the video.
It seems there’s a “new-age” shop in Tuscumbia, AL, that is sponsoring a Yule festival this weekend. Well, it’s a free country, so . . . whatever. The video featured clips from a city council meeting where members of the community (Christians), objected to the council granting the festival a permit . . . which is also fine, because we prize free speech and the right to protest in our country.
However, in her defense of the Yule celebration, one of the shop’s owners said, “We want to show the pagan roots of Christmas.”
That’s not fine.
There’s a TON of misinformation floating around about the pagan origins of our beloved celebration. True, the way we celebrate Christmas has accumulated centuries of traditions, but Christmas has no pagan origin. None.
It is an oft repeated myth that the celebration of Christmas was devised to coincide with the Roman celebration of Saturnalia or the Germanic season of Yule as a compromise for those converts who didn’t want to give up their pagan celebrations.
That is just not true. The earliest references to a celebration of Jesus’ birth go back to the 3rd century, a time when Christian leaders were doing everything they could to keep pagan influences out of our faith. It wasn’t until much later in the Middle Ages that Christians began to “sanctify” elements of pagan religion and practice to make Christianity more attractive to non-Christians. The popular notion that December 25 was chosen to coincide with a pagan celebration wasn’t suggested until the 12th century! The idea was popularized by writers in the 18th and 19th centuries, and most people seem to accept it as an established fact now.
I’ve mentioned Yule a couple of times . . . what is it? Yule was a winter celebration by the pre-Christian Germanic tribes. “Yuletide” lasted about two months, from mid-November to mid-January. In the mid-900s, King Haakan I of Norway converted to Christianity and gradually changed the pagan celebration to a celebration of Christ’s birth – centuries after Christians were already celebrating Christmas.
Saturnalia was a Roman celebration dating back to around 300 BC. It was also a winter festival in celebration of the god, Saturn, and involved all sorts of drinking, gambling, and sacrifices. Is there a connection with Christmas and Saturnalia?
Nope. The reason we celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25 had nothing to do with the pagan celebration. But, where did the date come from to begin with? Since there is no record of Jesus’ actual birth date, how did they come up with December 25?
Rather than looking for mythic Roman roots, let’s think about Christianity’s Hebrew roots. The Jewish calendar was marked by festivals that celebrated the goodness of God to His people. The pagan calendars were built around seasons of harvest and planting, and their festivals were in honor of the gods of fertility. The Jewish calendar was built around the acts of God. Passover celebrated God’s deliverance of His people from slavery. Pentecost, celebrated 50 days after Passover, commemorated God’s giving the Law on Mt. Sinai 50 days after delivering them from Egypt. Succoth (or Booths) recalled their time in the wilderness. Purim remembered God’s deliverance of the Jews recorded in the book of Esther. Hanukkah (the Feast of Dedication mentioned in John 10) celebrated God’s deliverance of His people and the dedication of the temple after it had been desecrated by the Greeks around 164 BC. The calendar gave the people an opportunity to remember and celebrate God’s grace.
The early Christians sought to do the same with their calendar. They began to organize what we now call the Church Calendar around events from the life of Christ. They knew when the resurrection happened – that was easy. Based on their calculations, Jesus was crucified on March 25 in the year 33 AD. The first celebrations of the resurrection were based around that date (Constantine changed that . . but that’s for another note).
The early church leaders based the date for Jesus’ birth on the day Jesus died. They believed that God began the redemption of humankind on the same date that it was accomplished – that Jesus was crucified during the same month and on the same date that Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and conceived Jesus. So, in their thinking, if Jesus was crucified on March 25th, then Jesus was conceived on March 25th. What is nine months from March 25th? December 25th! Which might seem like a stretch for us, but that’s how they came up with the date. Saturnalia or any other pagan festival had nothing to do with it!
So, no, Christmas is not rooted in paganism, no matter how loudly people scream it now. The early believers worked hard to keep their worship and beliefs free from pagan influences. Furthermore, the first mention of any date for Christmas dates to 200 AD and the earliest celebrations that we know about were by a Christian group called the Donatists around 250-300 AD - again, a period when Christians were not borrowing from pagan traditions.
How we celebrate isn’t as important as the fact that we celebrate, because to celebrate is to remember. Each year, we have a season set aside to remind us that God kept His promises. No matter what traditions have grown up around Christmas through the centuries (and I’ll write more about that next week), never forget the reason we celebrate: to remember how God fulfilled His great purposes for humanity by coming to earth in the form of a baby.
Blessings!
Pastor Terry