Jesus, NOT the reason for the season

So it’s that time of year again where most people are taking a break from their busy lives and instead will spend some quality time with family and friends. For that to happen many will need to first brave the packed out shopping centres, survive the battle of the car parks and spend lots of money on presents. Christmas!

For Christians this is a pretty important time (that’s an understatement) on our calendar, as it’s when we celebrate the birth of God in the flesh. On one hand we look no different to the rest of the world that is celebrating, and on the other its the opportunity to look and act a little bit different while celebrating Jesus’s birthday.

In the last week I have found myself for the first time ever wondering about the origins of the Christmas season. Questions like when was Jesus actually born, why December the 25th, is Jesus really the reason for the season and does any of this really matter caused me to do a bit of reading. I gotta tell ya I was pretty shocked, but more disturbed that I had never actually thought about any of this stuff . What about you, have you spent any time reflecting on these types of questions and if not why not?

• Indeed Christ was born! But no one knows the exact date of the birth of Jesus.
• December 25th and surrounding dates was a time of a number of celebrations by the Romans. One of the main celebrations was for the birthday of the unconquered sun. This festival was on the 25th December. After Emperor Constantine became a Christian and through the influence of other Christians, over time Christian celebrations blended in with what was already.
• You will often hear Christians announce during this time of the year that Jesus is the reason for the season
• Christmas or Christ’s-mass was a special catholic church service celebrating the birth of Christ sometime in the fourth century.

It would seem that todays Christmas season is a melting pot of many different reasons for celebrating. Because of this, is it helpful for Christians to continue to say that on this day Christ was born or that Jesus is the reason for the season? I say no it’s not, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot celebrate at all during this time. Having a break from work and the opportunity to hang out with the people we care about is awesome, and it reminds many of what is important.

I wanted to end this post by suggesting that Jesus is not the reason for this season, and we are extremely lucky as Christians because we believe God so loved the world and in John 1:14 we are told that the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. This means we don’t have to wait until December each year to celebrate. We have the opportunity to be thankful all year round.

Thanks for reading. If you have found this post helpful or would like to add anything, please leave a comment.