Photo by Alsu Vershinina on Unsplash
Ah, yes. That magical time of the year is upon us where we partake in all of our favorite Christmas traditions.
It’s time to trim the tree. Put up the stockings. Hang lights from your roof. Slay the goat in a circle of black candles.
All the traditions.
One of my favorite traditions that we get into every year is when people decide to “educate” us about how Christmas is actually a pagan holiday. Did you know that? I didn’t. Amazing the things you can learn online, which is always a host to such accurate and enlightening information.
For starters, let’s just put it out there. Christmas is not a pagan holiday. Christmas is entirely a Christian holiday. Okay? There is nothing pagan about a holiday where you put a tree up in your house and light it and keep hordes of candles everywhere. Why would you say that?
So while Christmas is not a pagan holiday, it would be more accurate to argue that elements of Christmas may have come from pagan traditions, perhaps. Starting with the date. That’s the biggest one that everyone points to.
Did you know that there was another holiday taking place around the winter solstice?
Similarly, did you know that Independence Day was created to co-opt the Muslim celebration of Eid Al-Adha since both take place in July when it’s hot outside? And the Muslim holiday existed long before Independence Day.
Or is it, perhaps, that there was an existing Muslim holiday, and then another event occurred to necessitate the creation of a new holiday?
So much of the pagan Christmas argument revolves around the notion that Christmas, which is currently celebrated on December 25, was placed on that day to dissuade pagan cultures from celebrating their own holidays.
The only problem with this notion is that the argument defeats itself when you realize the sheer number of holidays that exist around the winter solstice. Did every single culture try to outdo each other by having separate celebrations around the shortest day of the year?
Romans were supposed to be celebrating both Saturnalia (a two-week festival) and the birth of the sun god Mithra (specifically on Dec. 25). The supposition is that the early Christian church picked December 25 in order to do away with celebrations of Dies Solis Natalis Invictis, according to some sources.
You really gonna tell this guy he can’t celebrate Christmas whenever he wants to? (Photo by Bob Brewer on Unsplash)
As the above link mentions, however, Saint Augustine of Hippo (not the animal) declared that the winter solstice was obviously the birth of Jesus to symbolize how the light in the world increased after He was born, just like the days of the year were getting longer from that day forward. Personally, I don’t get it. But I am not the saint of large aquatic mammals that will happily eat your entire body without taking a gulp.
I’ve also heard before that Christmas is celebrated on December 25 because significant people tended to die on the date of their conception, and so the birth of Jesus had to occur approximately nine months after the death of Jesus. In true Wikipedia form…citations needed.
Much like the Romans, the Egyptians also celebrated the birth of the sun god on the winter solstice, oddly enough.
Now I will grant that the multiple cultures celebrating the birth of deities on or around December 25 is intriguing, while we also celebrate the “birth” of God on Christmas, but let’s keep things in a little perspective here. The Romans and Egyptians had a lot of gods hanging out in the temple. They were probably always celebrating one of their birthdays. Just like with the Duggars, there’s always a birthday to celebrate.
According to some other sources, several Christmas celebrations themselves have roots in pagan traditions. Things like singing and giving gifts. Nobody else could have thought up these things. It’s all the pagans.
That being said, I have no problem admitting that things like decorating the interior of a house with greenery and perhaps even aspects of Santa Claus come from multiple pagan traditions.
If I’m being honest, most of my defense here has been pretty tongue-in-cheek because, in truth, it doesn’t matter. It matters even less when you consider the ultimate nature of who Jesus Christ is.
Jesus Christ changes people. Jesus Christ changes the world.
“Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised.
I have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people.
He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!”
Luke 2:29-32 (NLT)
This is what an old, devout man named Simeon said immediately after meeting the baby Jesus. Then he looked over to Mary and said something else incredible.
Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them, and he said to Mary, the baby’s mother, “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, and many others to rise. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”
Luke 2:33-35 (NLT)
The gist of what Simeon says here is that, first and foremost, your child Jesus is the Son of God. Beyond that, whoever meets Jesus is going to have a strong reaction. Either they will oppose your child and fall, or they will come along side Him and be changed.
In one of his letters, Paul said this:
Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
2 Corinthians 5:14-17 (NLT)
When we come face-to-face with the reality of Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God who came to Earth in a human body and then gave Himself up as the sacrifice for our sins, we have two choices. We can choose to oppose Christ, or we can choose to believe and be changed by the fact that God loved us enough to do this incredible thing.
This is the whole reason we celebrate Christmas, for crying out loud. Because we recognize that Jesus changed the world and He has changed us. For the better!
So in a sense, yes. Christmas is the perfect pagan-to-Christian holiday because it represents exactly what Jesus does to each and every one of us. We were once “pagan” and doing things on our own. Then we met Jesus, and our lives were changed.
“Ugh. Sheep are so played out. Didn’t the Babylonians have a sheep thing back in 237 BC?” (Photo by Dan Kiefer on Unsplash)
So even if elements of Christmas come from pagan celebrations, who cares? There’s nothing morally wrong with putting a tree up in your house, even if it is a little bit crazy. There’s nothing wrong with singing Christmas carols to neighbors, unless the HOA forbids it. There is no moral reason why Christians or others can’t enjoy some of these supposedly pagan elements of Christmas.
Maybe some ancient pagan cultures used to do some of these things to celebrate the fact that days were going to start getting longer. Maybe they were going out singing because they were drunk. Who knows?
What matters is that these people heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and decided that they should start celebrating the miraculous, hope-filled birth instead. And they chose to bring some of their favorite morally-neutral traditions along with them. Because Jesus changed their heart. And that’s something worth celebrating.
That’s who Jesus is. That’s what Jesus does. He changes lives.
And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”
Revelation 21:5a (NLT)
And one day He will change everything. Again.
NOTE: As both of my linked sources, and every other website I visited when researching for this piece, said, the term “pagan” is not indicative of a specific group. It is a catch-all term for “Non-Christian Religions” that inhabited much of the ancient world. Some of these specific faiths are still around today, while many are not.
Interestingly enough, I happen to believe that this definition of pagan also invalidates much of the argument surrounding Christmas as a pagan holiday because you can’t just say, “You do stuff like literally limitless other groups out there.” When the pool to choose from is that large, then you can pick out pretty much any example you want. In essence, the argument becomes, “Different cultures adopted things being done by different cultures,” which is how culture works. There’s nothing particularly interesting about that fact.