Christmas History


	His Word and Mine

Bible Stories
Christmas History, inspired by Luke 2:1–20 and Matthew 2:1–18
Every Christmas, we shop for presents, deliver gifts, send cards, set up a tree with ornaments and lights and garlands, decorate the inside of the house, decorate the outside of the house, decorate the lawn, and some people even decorate their cars. Then, of course, we have decorated cookies. Besides that, we invite family or friends over for a dinner that competes with the Thanksgiving dinner we ate only about four weeks earlier. We go so all-out for Christmas that most of the world now knows about Christmas. Some cultures have their own version of Christmas now, even though they aren't Christian. They exchange cards and gifts and go through other Christian rituals. They wouldn't necessarily include a nativity scene, or créche, as we will call it today. But they have seen them. A créche typically shows baby Jesus in a manger surrounded by his parents, some shepherds, some kings, and a few sheep, donkeys, and oxen. This would be a hard scene to interpret without the biblical stories to back it up. I wonder what stories non-Christians tell about Christmas. What story would our own Christian children tell about Christmas? For that matter, what story would we tell about Christmas, if asked? We have three Christmas stories to consider: pagan, traditional, biblical, and the truth. Most of us believe the traditional story. Some of us support the pagan story. Many of us don't know the biblical story. And, as of this writing, painfully few people are aware of the truth behind Christmas. The following is the Pagan Christmas Story. Pagans would have us believe that Christians during the Middle Ages timed Christmas at the annual Yule celebrations. Supposedly, this was to destroy pagan celebrations or to lure pagans to Christianity. This is a popular but unlikely myth touted by pagans and Christians alike. The truth, which we'll get to later, shows that Christmas never fell on top of Yule and was never intended to usurp a pagan celebration. Yuletide, which is a Winter Solstice celebration, is celebrated eight days starting on December 20. Why eight days? People had no refrigeration in the Middle Ages. They would slaughter an animal, invite friends and relatives, and devour it within eight days, because that's about how long the carcass would last. Farmers with large herds sometimes held a second feast after the first one. Winter Solstice was a celebration of longer days evolving into the more profitable season of Spring. Farmers were home and had time on their hands. The grain for the animals was stored and had to last until animals could return to grazing in late Spring. They couldn't add to the grain at Winter Solstice, so, to decrease the need for feed, they had to reduce the herd. They did this with an annual celebration feast feeding a large crowd who sometimes traveled to the farm from the cities. Though pagans tend to hold that the Winter Solstice belonged only to them, many Christians celebrated it, too, much the same way people of all faiths and beliefs celebrate days like Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving. Next, we have the Traditional Christmas Story. This story is gleaned from hearsay, créches, Christmas carols, and Christmas cards. Many Christians today earnestly believe that three kings from the east followed a star to the stable where they found shepherds visiting baby Jesus. This stems from almost every créche displayed in stores, homes, and church lawns. Here is the Biblical Christmas Story. It's enhanced only by known cultural and geographical information in order to complete the story. The biblical Christmas Story that includes the shepherds and wise men comes from a combination of Luke 2:1-20 and Matthew 2:1-18. In Luke, angels greet shepherds at night and tell them of the birth of the Christ. They hurry to Bethlehem and find the newborn in a manger with his mother and father. The story picks up again in Matthew when the wise men (magi) visit. First of all, no known Bible version refers to them as kings. They are either wise men or magi; and the Message version calls them scholars. Careful reading indicates that they visited Jesus in a house (verse 11) and he was probably about two years old (verse 16). When the wise men knelt down to worship him, Jesus was not in a manger but most likely playing on the floor. In those days, the common belief of Eastern culture was that a new star or constellation meant the birth of a powerful new king. These wise men had been traveling at least several days, weeks, or months in search of this new king. They followed the star to Israel. They didn't have maps or GPS systems, so when they came to Israel, they would have to ask where the capital city was, because the new king would surely be there. When they arrived in Jerusalem, they would surely have asked where they could pay homage to this new king. But the Israelites hadn't heard of such a king. They asked their friends and neighbors about it, and the buzz about this new king spread to King Herod. Herod wasn't a nice king, and he was in constant fear of losing his power. So he consulted his biblical scholars to find out what the prophets had said about the Messiah. The scholars told him the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. Herod then summons the wise men, tells them to find the child king in Bethlehem, and then asks that they report back to him—presumably so he could worship him, too. However, verses 13-18 indicate otherwise. The wise men go and find Jesus in Bethlehem and immediately worship him—though he was only a small child, and they present their gifts, gold that represents royalty, frankincense that represents prayer and the Holy Spirit, and myrrh that represents Christ's ability to conquer death. Mary would have then provided these men a place to bed down for the night. A dream warns the wise men that returning to Herod would jeopardize this child. So they go home by another way. This other way home wouldn't have been a spontaneous decision. You see, the fastest and best road heading east was through Jerusalem where they would have been escorted back to King Herod. Jerusalem, too, would have been the best place to grab provisions for the journey home. All other towns were small rural villages. But the wise men wanted to protect the child. So they took the more difficult back roads either around Jerusalem or all the way around the Dead Sea. This Scripture reminds Christians to choose the way that protects Christ in our life. We must prevent Christ from getting lost in all the hoopla of Christmas today. However, as we'll see in the next segment, the hoopla originally had a purpose. Here comes the truth about Christmas, which was not celebrated in Year 2 A.D. or even in Year 100. The part that pagans get right is that Christmas was never celebrated until the Middle Ages. But that's about the only part they get right. The reason our créches have kings in them is a mystery today. Folks of the Middle Ages didn't record much, mostly because most couldn't read. The Bible was still hand-written and distributed usually one to a church. So some information got lost in the shuffle if one generation didn't pass it down to the next generation. So, how did we go from a quiet manger scene with a family of Mom, Dad, and an infant Son to Christmas carols, lights, visits with extended family, candy, and tons of food? It starts with the celebration of the Day of Epiphany. This was a huge Christian holiday that fell on January 6. Christmas wasn't celebrated in those days at all. Christ's birth was mentioned each year in church around December 25, as was the St. Stephen's Day on December 26, but neither was celebrated. The Day of Epiphany celebrated three occasions when humans recognized the uniqueness of Jesus. It was believed that these three occasions fell on the same day, but different years, in Christ's lifetime. The first occasion was the visit by the wise men; this was the first time that foreigners and Gentiles met Jesus and immediately recognized him as someone to worship, though he was just a toddler at the time. The second occasion was when Jesus was baptized, and the heavens opened up, and all the people who witnessed Christ's baptism heard God say, "This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased." The third occasion was at the wedding in Cana where a crowd witnessed Jesus performing his first miracle of turning water into wine. This celebration of family and feasting began on January 6 and lasted eight days, again because this was before refrigeration. Families prepared cakes, cookies, and invited friends and families. This celebration was at least as festive as Winter Solstice. So, during the Middle Ages, the big event of the season came not to recognize the birth of Christ on earth, but the birth of Christ in us. Consider now that we had an eight-day celebration of Winter Solstice that went to December 28. And then we had another Christian holiday that went from January 6 until January 14. With a 9-day break between the two feasts, some were looking for a steppingstone that would link them together. This way, Christian guests wouldn't have to leave and come back. Two as yet uncelebrated Christian events fit that bill. One was Christmas on December 25, and the other was St. Stephen's Day on December 26. Some churches favored one or the other, so they wrote songs to promote their favorite. Songs promoting Christmas won out. However, Christmas and Epiphany were 12 days apart. Somehow they had to make it last beyond the usual eight days until the Day of Epiphany. Hence, the still-popular song, The Twelve Days of Christmas. Because these songs were promotional songs, the Church declared them too blasphemous to be sung during church services. That is, not until St. Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene. In his quest to bring Christ to people, he recreated the original manger scene using real people in the first créche. He created this créche in a cave much like the cave-stable historians believe Christ was born in. It was beyond city limits, so he lit it up and decorated it making it easy for his parishioners to find. He held a mass at the scene. Therefore, the first Christ-mass, or Christmas, was celebrated. This was the first Christian service in which Christmas carols were sung. This was also the first time Christ was called the Child of Bethlehem. We know God blessed this service because the souvenir hay from the manger that people took proved a remedy for sick animals and human plagues. This was the first miracle of Christmas, and the Christmas holy-day, or holiday, was borne. Now we can look at today's Christmas. If it feels like three celebrations rolled into one, it's because it is. Eventually, Winter Solstice, Christmas, and the Day of Epiphany were combined. Apparently 25 consecutive days of feasting proved a bit much even for the great partiers of the Middle Ages. This is why wise men are with shepherds in today's créches. All the cakes and cookies come from the feasts on either side of Christmas. That's the way people celebrated in the Middle Ages. The lights and decorations come directly from the first human créche which was lit and decorated so Christians could find their way to the Christ child. We may never know why the wise men in our créches look like kings. Yet, we needn't make our créches more Biblically correct. The traditional Christmas story works just fine with the kings and shepherds visiting the Christ child. The message of today's créche is that Christ came to earth for kings and shepherds, for foreigners and citizens, for scholars and illiterates, for wealthy and poor, for you and for me. Let's let the true miracle of Christmas live on throughout the coming year and future generations. Let's let this generation be one that strengthens Christian families. Share this story and take the Christ child and our faith into the next generation.
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