We’ve made it to December. I thought it would be fun to study this month some of the traditions we have at Christmas. Let’s look at where they came from and why they came about!
Day 1 – The Date of Christmas
“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.” Luke 1:30, 31
Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25th?
A very early Christian tradition said, that the day when Mary was told she would have a very special baby, Jesus, was on March 25th. Nine months after the 25th March is the 25th of December!
March 25th was also the day some early Christians thought the world had been made, and also the day that Jesus died on. They thought that Jesus was conceived and had died on the same day of the year.
Jesus died on Nisan 14 in the Jewish calendar which is the date of the Jewish festival of Passover. The Jewish calendar is lunar (based on the moon, rather than fixed dates) and so it moves around compared with dates on ‘fixed’ calendars like the Gregorian (or earlier Julian) calendar.
The main source for the dating, of the conception of Jesus being on the 25th March, was an early church historian called Sextus Julius Africanus (c160 – c240). In the year 221, he suggested this date as the conception of Jesus. However, much of the quotes/works of Sextus Julius Africanus come from later documents. Saint Ephrem the Syrian (306 – 373) taught that Jesus was conceived on Nisan 1. So, March 25th became a ‘fixed’ date to mark these ‘moveable’ dates on the Jewish calendar.
What day WAS Jesus born?
While we do not know the exact date Christ was born, early Christians had their ideas about it. We established this day, December 25th, based on the above ideas.
The first official recording of celebrating Christmas on December 25, is found in the year 336 during the time of the Roman Emperor, Constantine. It was not an official holiday yet but he celebrated they still celebrated it then.
Now 1,689 years later we are still enjoying this day as a way to celebrate that Savior Who came into the world to save us all from our eternal punishment and provide us a way out!
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