The Truth About Christmas
December 22, 2005
It’s the Christmas season, time for cheer and goodwill, for families to get together, for giving gifts and letting others know how they are appreciated. It’s also time for many stores to make their largest profits of the year, an orgy of commercialism. Yet, most people seem not to lose sight of what the holiday is really about, the goodwill and cheer. And for Christians, it’s about celebrating the birth of the Hebrew Messiah (or Christ), Yeshua (or Jesus), who shed his own blood to provide atonement for the sins of mankind.
But if that is the origin of the Christmas holiday, then why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th? It’s a question few seem to bother asking, but it’s a question worthy of an answer, and there is one. The Bible explains the story of the birth of Yeshua in a stable in Bethlehem (often called the “nativity” story). It explains how the shepherds in the fields were met by an angel telling them of the birth of the Messiah, the anointed one.
Would shepherds be out in the fields with their flocks at night in the middle of winter? Most likely they would not. The fact is that we don’t know when Yeshua was born. The Bible doesn’t say. Nor is there any other documentation of the time of his birth. There is only the vague evidence provided by Scripture, which most probably rules out winter altogether.
But neither is the choice of December 25th completely arbitrary. While Christians today say this day is the birthday of the Son of God, it was historically the birthday of the sun god, Mithra. In fact, the time of the winter solstice was commonly considered the birthday for a great number of pagan gods. The days were at their shortest, and the nights at their longest. But from the time of the solstice, the days would begin to grow longer again. The god of the sun would be “reborn” or “resurrected”.
Pagan cultures celebrated the solstice in different ways, and the worship and revelry was not always directed at the various sun gods. There was a wide assortment of other gods to be worshipped at this time of year. There were various nature gods. One way the gods of nature were worshipped was by cutting down an evergreen tree, a symbol of life amid the “death” of winter. It was then erected again in their homes, or in their villages. It was “reborn” and decorated for the occasion. This custom for honoring pagan nature gods is extremely ancient, dating back far before the birth of Yeshua. In fact, the Scriptures make reference to the practice:
“For one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple. They are upright, like a palm tree, and they cannot speak; they must be carried, because they cannot go by themselves.” – Jeremiah 10:3-5
Why would a tree be able to speak or go by itself? The trees were worshipped as gods, or as symbolic of the gods. What did the God of the Bible, Yahweh, have to say about this practice?
“Do not learn the way of the Gentiles…for the customs of the peoples are futile…” – Jeremiah 10:2-3
So what does a Christmas tree have to do with Christ? Why, if it is a custom originating in pagan worship, do people today celebrate Christmas by putting a tree up in their house and decorating it? The answer is simple enough. It is because Christians adopted pagan customs. Most Christians are not so naïve as to not actually be aware of this fact, but few seem to really give it much thought.
If it were otherwise, Christians might ask: What did Yahweh say about pagan customs, and pagan forms of worship? Did he say his people should do the same, or did he warn his people away from such practices? Which was it? The answer from the Bible is that God warned his people not to be “ensnared” by the ways of the pagans, instructing them:
“…do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship Yahweh your God in that way; for every abomination to Yahweh which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.” – Deuteronomy 12:30-32
If confronted with the pagan origins of Christmas, many Christians answer that they aren’t worshipping pagan gods with these practices, they are worshipping the God of the Bible with them. It’s perfectly okay to adopt pagan rituals, in other words, just so long as you use the rituals to worship Yahweh and not any other gods.
But is that compatible with the commandment of God? Notice carefully what Yahweh, the God of Abraham, does not say. He does not say “Do not worship their gods in that way”. He says “Do not worship me in that way.”
What does this mean? It’s very simple. The pagans cut down trees and raise them and decorate them to honor their gods. So don’t cut down trees and raise them and decorate them to honor Yahweh. The God of the Bible makes it perfectly clear that he doesn’t feel honored by such “futile” rituals. And yet some might say, “There’s not harm in it.” Scriptures concur:
“For they cannot do evil, nor can they do any good.” – Jeremiah 10:5
Not that all pagan rituals were harmless. Some involved human sacrifice. The tradition of the burning of the “Yule log” stems from the pagan practice of taking a large log from the forest and keeping it burning for twelve days. On each of the days, a sacrifice would be burned upon the fire, sometimes human.
“…for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.” Deuteronomy 12:31
Today, this tradition is remembered in the burning of the Yule log. Yule, or Jul, is actually the name of a Norse god honored by this ritual. There is also the popular song about the twelve days of Christmas. If you’ve ever wondered just what that song was referring to, it is to this ritual.
Wreaths were fashioned in pagan cultures, with the belief that the shape endowed the branches with magical powers. Mistletoe was believed to have magical powers over women, and was used in casting spells to make a woman fall spellbound with a man. Hence the tradition that a woman must allow a man to kiss her if she is found standing under the mistletoe.
Virtually all of the rituals of contemporary Christmas celebrations have their roots in pagan worship, including the evolution of that jolly old elf, Santa Claus, who has had many incarnations in pagan myths throughout the ages.
Why, then, do Christians celebrate “Christmas”? What does it have to do with Christ? The answer is: absolutely nothing. You will find no reference to Christmas in the Bible (except, perhaps, in references to pagan rituals). That’s because the early disciples didn’t celebrate it. In fact, you won’t find any reference to any recognition of Yeshua’s birth at all. That’s because his birthday wasn’t celebrated. It’s not even known when he was born because it was never recorded. It was his death that was recognized by his disciples, not his birth, and remembered in the celebration of the Passover, just as his resurrection is remembered in the Feast of Firstfruits.
These, among others, are the holy days Yahweh commanded his people to observe, and those celebrated by the early Christians. There was no “Easter”, which is actually the name of a pagan god (early church figures made even less effort to hide the true origins of that holiday), or “Christmas” (Christ’s Mass) or “Halloween” (All Hallows Evening), or any of the other holidays Christians today call their own.
It wasn’t until many generations after the death of Yeshua and the original disciples that the so-called “church” adopted pagan practices, changing the names of the gods being worshipped (i.e. Jesus, the Son of God vs. Mithra, the sun god) and giving the rituals new names (although not even going that far with Easter). They believed that by doing so, they could attract pagans to their religion.
In truth, what really resulted was not a Christianization of pagans, but the paganization of Christians, as Edward Gibbon notes in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire; but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals.”
And so the truth of the matter is that Christmas has got nothing to do with the birth of baby Yeshua in a manger, or with wise men bringing gifts, or with angels greeting shepherds in their fields. Rather, it is a legacy of rituals honoring the sun and other nature gods, and of the Roman Church’s “fornication”, to borrow the Biblical term, with paganism.