I assume that you all know that Jesus was not born on December 25th. Constantine chose that day to commemorate the birth of Jesus because it was the date of Saturnalia, celebrated four days after the winter solstice (December 21, so four days makes it December 25) to celebrate the hope of spring eventually returning after the longest night of the year. He did that with Christmas and with Easter (used by followers of Demeter, the goddess of fertility, to celebrate new life).
Jesus was more likely born in the spring. You see, the shepherds outside Bethlehem would be watching their flocks by night only when the lambs were new - and they usually are born in February or March. The reason they had to watch the flocks was that the Bethlehem lambs were in hot demand for temple sacrifices at Passover time, which would happen in just a few weeks. It is likely that the Messiah, the Lamb of God, would be born around Passover time, which was in the spring of the year (March or April).
The quaint little stable crêches that we see, with Jesus set into a wooden manger in a wooden barn with a thatched or shingled roof. But stables in those days were caves, not constructed buildings. And mangers were made out of large rocks with openings in them, sort of like dugout canoes ... but made of rock instead of wood. When Jesus was wrapped in swaddling bands (strips of cloth intended to allow the baby's legs to straighten out when the cloth was wrapped tightly around the infant's body) and laid in the manger, He looked like a mummy laid out in a tomb, with only the face uncovered. The symbolism is hard to miss here.
And then there are the trappings of our traditional Christmas. The decorated evergreen tree comes from the Druid religion, some say. In the Dark Ages, these ancient Celts practiced animal and human sacrifices.
Mistletoe, garlands, lights on trees, wreaths, and so much more come from either Celtic or Norse mythology. There is nothing specifically "Christian" about them. (Don't even get me started on Santa Claus!) Yet we decorate our trees, adorn our lawns and homes with lights, hang mistletoe, set a wreath on our door, all without thinking about where the original ideas came from.
But regardless of their origin, or of the correct date (which would change every year because the Hebrew calendar is based on a 360-day year with a bonus year approximately every 50 years), we celebrate the FACT of Jesus' birth, and we believe that in that birth, God the Son was made flesh and became a human through a spiritual union with the seed of the woman. This "seed of the woman" is a reference to Genesis chapter 3, where Adam chose to eat of the forbidden fruit knowingly, and Eve, who gave it to him, was deceived (by the serpent) instead of rebellious.
Therefore that holy child was conceived without sin one summer around 7 BC, and the shepherds bore witness to His arrival less than a year later.
Why am I going on about this right now? Because I celebrate Christmas on December 25, regardless of when His real birth day was. Yet I and my family don't celebrate with a big display or with huge gifts or going into debt or getting trapped into this whole "outdoing one another" thing that people do in so many places during the holidays. In fact, for a few years now, we've been going without the evergreen tree with real or artificial needles - as our youngest cat is allergic and has seizures when she eats the needles in the night. And frankly, we are seriously considering replacing our (now) pre-lit birch tree with a nice nativity scene, very simple with only the main players present: Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and three or four shepherds with a couple of lambs, maybe a donkey and a goat.
_
No sages (they came over a year later); no fancy clothing. Just a simple carpenter with his young wife and a mystery baby squirming in what looked like mummy's wrappings, twisting gently like some developing butterfly... and shepherds speaking in hushed tones, wide-eyed with wonder, whispering about how the messengers they'd seen could be so accurate. All of them were huddled in the most unlikely of places: a cave used to house livestock and protect them from the rain and from wild animals.
No fanfare. No twinkling lights. No red carpet.
Just Jesus.
Jesus was more likely born in the spring. You see, the shepherds outside Bethlehem would be watching their flocks by night only when the lambs were new - and they usually are born in February or March. The reason they had to watch the flocks was that the Bethlehem lambs were in hot demand for temple sacrifices at Passover time, which would happen in just a few weeks. It is likely that the Messiah, the Lamb of God, would be born around Passover time, which was in the spring of the year (March or April).
The quaint little stable crêches that we see, with Jesus set into a wooden manger in a wooden barn with a thatched or shingled roof. But stables in those days were caves, not constructed buildings. And mangers were made out of large rocks with openings in them, sort of like dugout canoes ... but made of rock instead of wood. When Jesus was wrapped in swaddling bands (strips of cloth intended to allow the baby's legs to straighten out when the cloth was wrapped tightly around the infant's body) and laid in the manger, He looked like a mummy laid out in a tomb, with only the face uncovered. The symbolism is hard to miss here.
And then there are the trappings of our traditional Christmas. The decorated evergreen tree comes from the Druid religion, some say. In the Dark Ages, these ancient Celts practiced animal and human sacrifices.
Mistletoe, garlands, lights on trees, wreaths, and so much more come from either Celtic or Norse mythology. There is nothing specifically "Christian" about them. (Don't even get me started on Santa Claus!) Yet we decorate our trees, adorn our lawns and homes with lights, hang mistletoe, set a wreath on our door, all without thinking about where the original ideas came from.
But regardless of their origin, or of the correct date (which would change every year because the Hebrew calendar is based on a 360-day year with a bonus year approximately every 50 years), we celebrate the FACT of Jesus' birth, and we believe that in that birth, God the Son was made flesh and became a human through a spiritual union with the seed of the woman. This "seed of the woman" is a reference to Genesis chapter 3, where Adam chose to eat of the forbidden fruit knowingly, and Eve, who gave it to him, was deceived (by the serpent) instead of rebellious.
Therefore that holy child was conceived without sin one summer around 7 BC, and the shepherds bore witness to His arrival less than a year later.
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| Portrait of a Baby Sheep in the Farm by ponsulak at www.freedigitalphotos.net |
_
No sages (they came over a year later); no fancy clothing. Just a simple carpenter with his young wife and a mystery baby squirming in what looked like mummy's wrappings, twisting gently like some developing butterfly... and shepherds speaking in hushed tones, wide-eyed with wonder, whispering about how the messengers they'd seen could be so accurate. All of them were huddled in the most unlikely of places: a cave used to house livestock and protect them from the rain and from wild animals.
No fanfare. No twinkling lights. No red carpet.
Just Jesus.
