Christians find themselves in the December dilemma -"how to celebrate Christmas." In the end, to try to ‘put Christ back into Christmas' is an ill-founded concept. To put the incarnation of the Son of God into what we commonly call Christmas, with all its parties, spending sprees, not to mention the legendary fella from the North Pole, dishonors Christ.
In our increasingly secular society, what was once called Christmas has been turned into a "Winter Festival" that combines Kwanza, Ramadan, and the Incarnation of Christ into a single package.
For 200 years after Christ's birth the church did not celebrate Christmas. But the Romans of that day had a huge late December celebration which they called "Saturnalia." It was a wild celebration filled with debauchery and excesses. It was a religious celebration directed to their god of agriculture.
To counteract this pagan custom the bishop of Rome, in the fourth century, officially set December 25 as the date to celebrate the birthday of Christ. It was to be different than the Roman celebration-a protest to replace Saturnalia. It was to be celebrated with deep spiritual joy. Did it work? Actually, what happened was that the heathen celebration invaded the Christian celebration. Secularism and superstition soon invaded the Christmas celebration. Saturn was replaced by Santa and all the trimmings. It has evolved to today's idea of Christmas where the truth of the incarnation of Jesus Christ hardly has a place at the inn. Some families are so involved in family gatherings and gift exchanges that they have no time to worship God to celebrate our Lord's birth.
Should we celebrate Christmas? Some Christians have decided that the church should not be holding a special worship service for Christmas. While we can respect that decision, it may not be the witness that the world needs to have. After all, should not all Christians pause to give thanks to God for the miracle of Christ's birth? He was born of a virgin! Biologically, it is impossible. Theologically, it is essential. For the mediator between God and man to come to earth to bear our sins, He must be fully God and fully man-conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of Mary. It took an angel from heaven to explain this to Joseph. It takes the preaching of the Gospel to declare it to the world. God's people and the whole world need to hear this testimony. It can only be received and celebrated by faith.
We can celebrate the incarnation without celebrating Christmas, as we know it. The unbelieving world will never get it. But we do. Rev. Peter Eldersfeld (Back to God radio minister for many years) once wrote, "As someone has said, they never see the greatness of God in a little Child-a child without a mother in heaven or a father on earth; Lord of all flesh, and then born of it; Maker of the earth, and then living upon it; the Word of God, but now a speechless Babe; Creator of the world becoming a creature; ruler of the world becoming a subject; Omnipotence laid in a manger and later nailed to a cross; King of kings born in a barn and later crowned with thorns; the sinless One living with sinners and dying for them! God with us, for us, and in us!" (Eldersfeld, Nothing But the Gospel, p. 76) This is worthy of celebration!
Clearly the world is trying hard to squeeze Christ out of the celebration of His own birthday. It has been pretty effective in some circles. But here is where the Christian Church needs to push back by making it clear-shouting from the housetops-"there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!"
The birth of Christ brings hope to the hopeless of this world. It does little good to just celebrate His incarnation unless we also call all men everywhere to repent and believe in this only Savior. We lose our witness if we bow to the worldly celebration, and do not bow to the Lord of lords.
We should not feel comfortable celebrating as the world around us does, and we should not try to combine the celebrations in some dualistic way. But, we do need to celebrate the coming of our Savior-His incarnation-even as the humble shepherds did, "glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen."
Celebrate the incarnation, for "to us a child of hope is born, to us a son is giv'n, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the mighty Lord of heav'n." (J. Morrison)
