The Reason for the Season?

A week or so ago, I drove past a Unitarian church in Winston-Salem who had a message on their sign: "Solstice is the Reason for the Season." Others who had seen the sign expressed their outrage to me about it, but I had to confess that in one sense they are right. Christians only embarrass themselves in the eyes of the secular world by ignoring the origins of what we call "Christmas" today. Most of the traditions and symbols of Christmas have their origins in the ancient pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice called Saturnalia. In fact, it was the fifth century before Christians began to claim "Christmas" as their own holiday. Why did it take 400 years for Christians to begin to celebrate the birth of Christ? Well, on one hand it didn't -- Christians celebrated the unified reality of incarnation, atonement, and resurrection daily and weekly as they gathered together to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. On the other hand, dedicating a particular day to observe Christmas was a matter of convenience rather than conviction for the early empires of "Christendom." The word "Christendom" refers to the uneasy marriage of church and state that began to occur during and following the reign of Constantine. Most of the embarrasing moments of church history flow from this union that God never intended.

As Christian "empires" began to expand into territories dominated by pagans, the rulers of those earthly powers deemed it expedient to allow the pagans to continue their practices and found ways to "baptize" them with Christian vocabulary. Thus, Saturnalia became Christmas, and legends and stories began to arise shifting the pagan symbolism to have Christian significance. But this was not always the case for the early church. No one was more outspoken about the need for Christians to distance themselves from these pagan celebrations than the Church Father Tertullian, who wrote most of his works in the latter second and early third centuries.

Tertullian's comments about the winter celebrations of the pagans are very instructive for us in this day and time. Addressing the pagans, Tertullian wrote in 197 AD:
"On your day of gladness, we [Christians] neither cover our doorposts with wreaths, nor intrude upon the day with lamps. At the call of public festivity, you consider it a proper thing to decorate your house like some new brothel. ... We are accused of a lower sacrilege because we do not celebrate along with you the holidays of the Caesars in a manner forbidden alike by modesty, decency, and purity."

Writing to Christians in 200 AD, he said:
We must now address the subject of holidays and other extraordinary festivities. We sometimes excuse these to our wantonness, sometimes to our timidity--in opposition to the common faith and discipline. The first point, indeed, on which I will join issue is this: whether a servant of God should share with the very nations themselves in matters of this kind--either in dress, food, or in any other kind of festivity. ... "There is no communion between light and darkness," between life and death. Or else, we should rescind what has been written, "The world will rejoice, but you will grieve" [John 16:20]. ... When the world rejoices, let us grieve. And when the world afterward grieves, we will rejoice. ... There are certain gift days, by which some adjust the claim of honor; or with others, the debt of wages. ... If men have consecrated for themselves this custom from superstition, why do you ... participate in festivities consecrated to idols? As for you, there is no law about a day (short of the observance of a particular day) to prevent your paying or receiving what you owe a man, or what is owed you by a man.

He goes on:
The Saturnalia, New Year, Midwinter festivals, and Matronalia are frequented by us! THere are New Year's gifts! Games join their noise! Banquets join their din! The pagans are more faithful to their own sect. ... For, even if they had known them, they would not have shared the Lord's Day or Pentecost with us. For they would fear lest they would appear to be Christians. Yet, we are not apprehensive that we might appear to be pagans! ... Nowadays, you will find more doors of heathens without lamps and laurel wreaths than Christians. ... If it is for an idol's honor, without doubt an idol's honor is idolatry. Yet, even if it is for a man's sake, ... let us again consider that all idolatry is worship done to men.

I know that it sounds awfully Scroogish of me to be bringing these thoughts to mind here just a few days before we will celebrate Christmas, but this year I have not been able to escape these thoughts. We claim to offer to Christ a celebration that He never instituted, and the Apostles never encouraged, and the Fathers absolutely shunned. And then we complain that the world is taking Christ out of Christmas, when the historical fact of the matter is that the church of Christendom shoved Christ into Saturnalia, and perverted the customs of the pagans in order to Christianize them.

We talk of redeeming Christmas, but can it be redeemed? Redemption is possible for something that God created for His own purpose. Thus, we can speak of redeeming humanity, redeeming the created order of the physical world, redeeming the arts, redeeming sexuality, etc. All of these were created by God for His purpose and were corrupted by the depravity of man. But that which originates in the depraved mind of man apart from the purposes of God cannot be redeemed, but instead must be rejected, shunned, and discarded.

But there is much to fear. We fear other Christians who would oppose our efforts to purify Christian traditions because Christmas is "special" to them. This would no doubt lead to many a church split and many a pastor's termination (and at the holidays, even!). We fear offending family members who make much over the holidays. But do we fear men more than God? A casual glance at Church History would indicate that indeed we have for centuries.

Now, I will offer a disclaimer in effort to keep the peace, and perhaps as my own subconscious submission to the fear of man. Is a Christian wrong for celebrating Christmas? Is it wrong to celebrate the birth of Christ? No, but what are we celebrating? There is a difference between celebrating Christmas and celebrating Christ. What do iPods, Barbies, Wiis and PS3s have to do with the incarnation? The only tree Christ adorned was the one on which He hung to die. He was the ornamentation, His blood the crimson garland that flowed down, His love the only light that trimmed that horrid scene. If we celebrate His birth, why is it that we make ourselves debtors to the consumer industry in order to give everyone but HIM fine gifts? If we do it as a cultural celebration, then let us call it a cultural celebration, but if we do it for Christ, then let it be for Christ and for Him alone.

I do not write this to judge the traditions and celebrations of other Christians. In fact, you would be happy to know that my Christmas celebrations are much like those of your family and the unchurched up and down my street. I don't like it, I wish I could do something differently, but perhaps it is that fear of man thing snaring me once again. So, no I am not writing out of a hypocritical, Pharisaical, judgmental spirit. And it is not just me being a Bah-Humbug Scrooge. I confess I am that, but I don't want to be. I really do want this to be a joyous time of the year for myself, my family, and my church. But I can't escape these realities. I can't stick my head in the sand and pretend they don't exist. I can't tolerate Christian revisionism any more than I can tolerate it from the secular perspective. I guess what I am trying to say is that I am burdened. I am burdened over the need for Christians to change the way we observe this season, and left without any notion of how to do it. But I know this -- we cannot expect to see real change in our churches, in our own spiritual discipline, and then as a result in our communities, until we are willing, as God's people, to purge the pleasant paganisms that we tolerate in our own lives, our holidays, and our traditional celebrations. Maybe it is too high a cost for us to pay, but I pray that in my lifetime we will see a change in how Christians approach this time of year.

God help us!

The quotations from Tertullian above were taken from a wonderful resource: David Bercot, ed., A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs. Tertullian's works, and the rest of the Church Fathers, can be read in their entirety online for free at www.ccel.org.