Why Church Services for Christmas and New Year?

By The Venerable Dr. Ifechukwu U. Ibeme

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Merry Christmas!
Royalties are celebrated annually by their subjects TO MARK THE YEARS OF
THEIR REIGN, even though they remain potentates daily and at all times as long
as they live. Annual events are meant to COUNT THE YEARS and REJOICE FOR
SURVIVAL OF ANOTHER CYCLE OF MAN on earth. Though Christ’s
Incarnation and Crucifixion must remain daily mention and meditation in the
Church’s teaching and life, yet special public commemoration of these Great
Saving Works annually with evangelistic proclamation in a festal holiday
programme is a step toward fulfilling the Great Commission to the nations and
gratitude to God for sustenance for another year.

When Christ was born, His royalty was celebrated with solemn gladness by
heaven and earth, great and small, Angels and stars, intellectuals and shepherds. As
long as Christ reigns, He shall be celebrated and honoured continually (daily,
weekly and annually) by His Church because He is the King of Kings and the Lord
of Lords. In fact, the Church reckons the years of their calendar as THE YEARS
OF THE LORD beginning with the marking of Christ’s birth on 25 th December and
His circumcision on 1st January.

THE FEAST OF NATIVITY OF OUR LORD (which the street calls Christmas) is
not a cultural street fanfare or carnal party revelry, but simply the Church’s
scriptural WORSHIP SERVICE for the commemoration and celebration of the
birth of CHRIST as the Angels did. According to the testimony of the Prophets and
Angels, Christ came from God and was born to be our Saviour, King and
Lord. Our annual survival to see such an annual season again is worthy of
celebration, just as the fact of such great saving event at such a season is
worthy of commemoration and celebration.

Note that Christ’s Nativity has nothing to do with such extraneous matters as Yule
log and fire, Christmas Tree and Lights, Santa Claus or Father Christmas, Bells,
Buntings and pagan festal extravagance and carnival revelries. These have no
biblical significance whatsoever, except that they are what people enjoy doing
when they are happy – some out of innocence, some out of ignorance, some out
of irreverence, some out of incontinence and even wicked decadence. Rather,
the Christmas story in the Bible had something to do with such biblical matters as
Glory of Angels, Heavenly Carols, witness of the Shepherds and the Bethlehem
Star, homage and generosity of the Wise Men, Worship, Sheep or Donkeys and
their Manger, Baby, Joy and Peace, Good Will, Glad Tidings, Special Gifts. The

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reason for Christmas is NOT to innovate or imitate pagan ways of expressing
gladness BUT to join and imitate biblical and Angelic ways of expressing gladness
to celebrate the birth of Christ as King, Saviour and Lord Who has changed the
course of human history, by bringing us pardon, purity, power and peace.

No one should dare to fault celebrating what even the Angels came down to the
earth to celebrate. The Angels were the first and are the best ever to celebrate the
birth of Christ with gospel proclamation and carol singing as recorded in Luke 2:9-
14.

Luke 2:9-14
(9) An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone
around them, and they were absolutely terrified.
(10) But the angel said to them,

"Do not be afraid! Listen carefully,

for I proclaim to you good news
that brings great joy to all the people:

(11) Today your Savior is born

in the city of David.
He is Christ the Lord.

(12) This will be a sign for you:

You will find a baby
wrapped in strips of cloth
and lying in a manger."

(13) Suddenly a vast, heavenly army appeared with the angel, praising God
and saying,
(14) "Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among people
with whom he is pleased!"

Due to difficulties of uncertain confusing dates and multiple conflicting calendars

of the ancient world, several dioceses of the early patriarchal and persecuted
Churches had used several and differing dates all through the year to remember the
birth of Christ after the example of the Angels, the Shepherds and the Magi. Many
of these ancient Churches could only mention and commemorate Christ’s
conception and death mostly about the time of Spring Equinox, while others also
added His birth nine months later about the time of Winter Solstice. These were
done independently and irregularly as each local Church would. As early as time of
Saint Hippolytus of Rome (c. 200 AD), some Churches were holding special
worship services to celebrate 25 th December as Nativity Day (Luk 2:1-7) and 1st
January as the Naming and Circumcision Day (Luk 2:21) of Christ, Who is the
Reigning Lord and King over all. Earlier before 190 AD, Clement of Alexandria
had it that some Churches of the East and Africa also marked 6 th January as

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Epiphany Day or Theophany Day for combined celebration of Christ’s
MANIFESTATIONS by several heavenly signs to the Shepherds (Luk 2:8-15)
and the Eastern Wise Men (Mat 2:2, 12) at His BIRTH, to the Jews at His
BAPTISM (Mat 3:16-17), and to the Apostles at His TRANSFIGURATION (Mat
17:1-6). These were long before Emperor Aurelius brought Sun worship to Rome
in 271 AD (then celebrated on August 28 th) and of cause centuries before 1 st
January became uniformly adopted as the New Year Day by all modern nations of
the world.

To ensure effective commemoration and teaching of biblical saving events and

saving truths of the Gospel, The Church has two programme planning options:
1. either to use annual FIXED PROGRAMMING with UNIFIED and recurrent
dates as was done universally by the ancient Ecumenical Church long
before the split between the Eastern Greek and Western Roman divisions;
2. or to use OCCASIONAL PROGRAMMING without unified or recurrent
dates as is done independently in some modern denominational,
congregational and personal or proprietary Churches today.
Annual fixed programming makes steady teaching certain and makes unity and
public holidays possible, while unfixed programming makes steady teaching
uncertain and makes unity and public holidays impossible. This was the wisdom in
developing the unified fixed liturgical year by the free licita Ecumenical Church
since the 4th Century, which wisdom was learned from the example of divinely
appointed annual feasts in Israel as found in the Scriptures.

According to Moses in Exodus 12, God began to appoint annual feasts to

commemorate and celebrate His saving acts amongst His people in order to create
unified recurrent memorable occasions for teachings and testimonies on such
saving acts.
Exodus 12:25-27
(25) And it shall come to pass, when you are come to the land which the
LORD will give you, according as he has promised, that you shall keep this
service.
(26) And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What
mean you by this service?
(27) That you shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD'S Passover, who
passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the
Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and
worshiped.

Celebration of New Year Days by Bible Believers:

The age-old observation, especially noticeable in the temperate regions that the
path of the sun in the sky dangles from north to south and back again in relation to
the seasons, has taught most cultures that there are cycles of solar/seasonal years
from ancient times. The moon phase cycles observable by all gave rise to the idea
of months. This calendrical purpose was clearly made known in the Scriptures as

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God’s intention for the fourth day creation and positioning of the great lights (Sun,
Moon and even the Stars) in the firmament Gen 1:14-19.

Genesis 1:14-19
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the
heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for
signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light
upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and
the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light
from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

The heavenly bodies are not meant for ASTROLOGY, divination, devotion or
other rituals (as done in mysticism, idolatry, primal and nature religions Deut 4:19)
but natural lights to illuminate the sky simply meant to serve as timing signs for
CHRONOGRAPHY to calculate and estimate days, seasons and years. At time of
The Flood, Noah counted the months as having 30 days each so that the year was
counted as 360 days while in the Ark (Genesis 7 and 8) but today we know the
solar years is exactly 365¼ days. The famous Dial of Ahaz was a circular
chronograph for monitoring the movement of sun shadow in degrees (2Kin 20:8-
11; Isa 38:8). Such chronographic usage of the Firmament Lights or Heavenly
Bodies would help humanity plan for seedtime and harvest time, “while the earth
lasts” (Gen 8:22). Space technology has shown that no other planet under the sun
has seed and harvest times.

1. The Ancient Israel proclaimed the Civil New Year with the blasts of the
Trumpets, with offerings and with purification (Lev 23:23-25; Num 29:1-6) in the
seventh sacred month of Ethanim (1Kin 8:2) later called Tishri (September-
October or Autumnal Equinox), corresponding to the beginning of the Egyptian
(HAMITES) solar or tropical calendar of their place of sojourn. Ancient Jews
counted royal accession and Jubilee by the civil calendar such that the Sabbatical
and the Jubilee year began in this month (Lev 25:8-10). Some argued that the
Autumnal Equinox should be the time when creation began instead of the Spring
(Vernal) Equinox, since this was the fruit maturity month and all the trees were
believed to be probably mature-fruited at creation (Gen 1:11-13).

However, during the Exodus, God directed that as a nation and in their
homeland of independence the Sacred First Month was to become Abib (Exd
12:2) later called Nisan (Est 3:7) i.e. March-April or Spring Equinox, to mark their

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national rebirth and deliverance from Egypt (Exd. 12:43-13:10). Later, this was
also to become the month of their post-exile independence under Nehemiah (Neh
2:1-10), corresponding to the beginning of the Chaldean (SHEMITES) lunar
calendar of their place of origin and exile.

2. The Primitive Christian Church in the Greco-Roman empire was met with so
many Calendars and so many New Years. So they faced the dilemma of celebrating
the New Year with any of these most prominent options:
 with the ancient Chaldean and Jewish (SEMITES) Religious lunar calendar
in March (Spring Equinox) Feast of Passover or
 with the ancient Egyptian (HAMITES) and Secular Jewish (SEMITES)
solar calendar in September the (Autumnal Equinox) Feast of Trumpets or
 with the ancient republican Romans (JAPHETHITES) lunar calendar in
March (Spring Equinox) or
 with the ancient Greeks (JAPHETHITES) in June (Summer Solstice) or
still,
 with the NEW Roman Caesars in January according to the Julian Calendar
since 45 BC.

Northern Hemisphere’s Seasonal Configuration for Earth and Sun.

Note that apart from the religious year calendar of the Torah that began in March
(Abib), the pre-exile Israel also had their civil year calendar which began with the

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Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles corresponding to the ancient
Egyptian New Year held during the Autumnal Equinox in September (Tishri).

The early Church, many of whom were initially Jews, believed that The
Passover/Exodus season of March 25th being the Spring Equinox (corresponding to
Nisan or Abib Exd 13:4) was the date God created the universe with the earth,
moon and sun in equinox alignment. This is because through Moses (Exd 12:1-2),
God specifically directed that this same period should be marked as the beginning
of the year to the Israelites (Old Testament Exodus from Egyptian bondage) and
happens to also be the time when Christ was believed to be conceived at the angelic
annunciation to Mary, as well as the season Christ died for the sins of the whole
world and resurrected from the dead (New Testament “Exodus” from sinful and
satanic bondage).

From the time of Moses, God fixed the dates of Israelite feasts based on calendrical
reckonings which agreed with the years, the seasons and the months, as determined
by astronomical relationship between the equinoxes, the solstices and the lunar
phases. These astronomical phenomena had also been used by both Babylonians
and Egyptians and obviously Abraham’s household who migrated between the two
civilizations long before Moses. However, the pagans did not use astronomical
phenomena and seasonal variations only RIGHTLY for chronological reckoning or
chronographic dating purposes (Gen 1:14-19) as God did with Moses, but also
WRONGLY for astrological mysticism and idolatry (Deut 4:19) which God
warned against. Astronomy (a true science) is mathematical calculation about
seasonal motions of celestial bodies, while Astrology (a false science) is mystical
superstition about spiritual powers of celestial bodies.

Calculations by early Christian chronologists in Western Europe showed that Christ

died on Spring Equinox, which fell on 25th March in 30 AD. Early Christians
believed (apparently by information from Christ’s family) that Christ, BY HIS
PERFECTION died (put off flesh) on the same date and season (Autumnal
Equinox) as He was conceived (put on flesh). This makes the dates of the
Annunciation visit by Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:26-38) and the
Crucifixion to be 25th March. By these calculation and conviction, Christ’s
Nativity (Christmas) must have been nine months later i.e. 25th December. (In the
primitive Eastern and Egyptian Churches, Christ’s death was alternatively
calculated with the Macedonian and Egyptian calendars to be on 6 th April in 30
AD which therefore puts the Epiphany nine months away on 6 th January). John
the Baptist had been conceived six months earlier (Luke 1:26, 36) in October
during the second turn of priestly ministry of the Abijah lineage to which Zachariah
belonged (Luke 1:5-9). Since the time of David (1Chron 24:3-5), the Aaronic
family has been divided into 24 families to take weekly turn of duty every six
months at the Temple beginning with the month of Abib (March) in which Abijah
was the eighth family (1Chron 24:10).

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The ancient Church’s desire to have their own ecumenically shared steady calendar
of annual reckoning of events remained a mirage till the end of the Roman
persecution in the 4th Century. In ancient, times, calendars were multiple, tenured
for each ruler, complex and irregularly shifting against the seasonal Equinoxes and
Solstices. Chronologists could approximately harmonize those many ancient
calendars only by means of times of Equinoxes and Solstices. Initially when the
Church was under persecution, some Church dioceses in the East commemorated
only Epiphany (Manifestation of Christ’s Glory from heaven to the Shepherds and
the Magi at His Birth, to Israel at His Baptism, and to the Apostles at His
Transfiguration) on 6th or 10th January. In the West, dioceses also commemorated
Christmas (Nativity of Christ) independently WITHOUT UNIFORMITY on the
day of its celebration which ranged from March to April to May to September to
November to December. It was only when the Church became free in 313 AD, that
they were able to harmonize the UNIFORM CALENDAR to work together with.

Under Pope Julius (c. 350 AD), the Churches agreed to celebrate their
Ecclesiastical New Year on the Annunciation Day (25th March – the then Spring
Equinox), when Christ must have taken up flesh (Incarnation) in His mother’s
womb. Incidentally, this same date also corresponds to the date when Christ was
crucified, died. He was burial but rose to begin the New Creation. Nine months
from this date is 25th December when Christ should have been born. This means
that the time of Israel’s Exodus from Egyptian bondage through the slain Passover
Lamb (Exd 12 and 13) corresponds to the time of Christ’s Crucifixion,
Resurrection as well as His Incarnation. Therefore, this is also the time of the
Church’s New Exodus from bondage of sin and Satan by the blood of the crucified

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Lamb of God Luke 22 and 23)! (In England however, the Nativity of Christ on
December 25th was preferred as New Year Day till the 14 th century when it was
moved to 25th March of the old Julian Calendar; but in 1752 it was finally moved to
January 1 of the Church’s new Gregorian Calendar.)

Later, after 525 AD the Church introduced BC/AD (Before Christ/Anno Dominie)
reckoning (popularized by Venerable Bede about 700s AD) and adopted the Julian
Calendar of the Roman Empire because of its seasonal consistency. The Julian
Calendar came into use on January 1, 45 BC under Julius Caesar who invited
Sosigenes an expert astronomer and mathematician (not the other Alexandrian
Sosigenes the Peripatetic the 2nd century philosopher) from Alexandria to work out
a seasonally consistent calendar for the empire in place of the ancient lunar
calendar of Rome. In the Julian Calendar, the New Year was on 1st January. But
the Church Year of Incarnation/Crucifixion falling on 25th March meant the
Nativity should be on 25th December. This coincidentally made
Circumcision/Naming of Christ, when He entered the citizenship covenant of
Israel and the royal covenant as the Son of David, fall on 1 st January.

Notice that, although 1st to 3rd Century Roman almanacs had about 120 different
annual feasts and games with 57 of them as holidays in one year (i.e. average of
more than two feasts with one holiday per week!), the Church did not adopt any of
these feasts (as is often adduced in anti-Church criticisms and speculations). The
Church only adopted the secular month names of the old Julian Calendar.
Christmas (as well as all other Church feasts) was derived purely from biblical
redemptive events and Jewish reckonings. The fixing of Pascha (i.e. Easter) which
was related to Jewish Passover reckonings had to be made movable but in such a
way that it would always fall on a the Lord’s Day (i.e. Sunday). It is worthy of note
that the British Church however continued to mark December 25 th Nativity as her
New Year till 14th century.

This is a Julian Roman calendar. As from 1st January of 45 BC, Julius Caesar introduced his Julian calendar in which the
intercalary month (“INTER”) was removed and Quintilis (“QVI”) was named July (“IVL”) in his honour. The lengths of January

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to December were increased from 29, 28, 31, 29, 31, 29, 31, 29, 29, 31, 29, 29 days each to 31, 29, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31,
30, 31, 30, 31 days.
Notice that there is NO DECEMBER 25TH FEAST as often touted by many contentious speculators today.

Calendar Reforms by the Church:

In the 4th century, Emperor Constantine I (d. 337 AD), had modified the Julian
Calendar from the Roman traditional arrangement of irregular fortnightly kalends,
ides, nones, etc to the regular Semitic Sunday-Saturday weeks pattern. The
collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5 th century and the emergence of Roman
Christendom, led to the need to again revise the Julian Calendar which had
numbered years from the founding of Rome and consular accessions. The Church’s
interest in devising a simple way to calculate Easter date with seasonal
consistency led the astronomer and mathematician Victorinus of Aquitaine to
innovate the Great Paschal period of 532 years (28x19, i.e. Solar cycle x Metonic
cycle). This began to be used for determining Pascha (Easter) dates under Pope
Hilarius in 463 AD. Easter date has the almost impossible task of consistently
reconciling the seven-day week, the 29½-day synodic lunar month, the 365¼-day
solar year, the Passover full moon and the Vernal (Spring) Equinox.

The first reform of the Julian Calendar by the Church was to replace the numbering
of years reference to Roman CONSULAR accession with years reference to
Christ’s birth (i.e. Christ’s MESSIANIC accession, since the heavenly carol Angels
proclaimed Him Christ and Lord the same day He was born Lk 2:10-12). This was
undertaken by Dionysius Exiguus (an accomplished theologian, canonist,
mathematician, chronographer and astronomer) in 525 AD under Pope St. John I.

Dionysius Exiguus’ work gave rise to the BC/AD (Before Christ/Anno Domino)
system which is same as the modern BCE (Before the Common/Christian
Era)/CE (Common/Christian Era) system.

It is important though to note that recent discoveries and considerations have placed the birth
of Christ much earlier than the BC/AD reckoning of Dionysius Exiguus, since the tax census
registration occurred shortly before Herod the Great died in 4 BC (Mat 2; Luke 2). According
to the calculations by Joseph Scaliger, the earliest epoch date (Anno Mundi or year of the
world) in the Julian and Gregorian calendars is 4713 BC, when the Church’s Great Paschal
Period coincides with the Roman fiscal indiction period. In 1583 Joseph Scaliger gave the
name “Julian Period” to the epoch period in honour of his father Julius Scaliger. This date is
still used for scientific computations in astronomy today. Later in the 1650s, Archbishop
Ussher did a chronological computation from the Bible which arrived at 4004 BC as the date
of Adam’s creation. More recent computations give about 4224 BC while the use of the
Hellenist Jewish calendar based on the Septuagint gives about 5500 BC. For Hillel’s (19 year
cycle) Jewish Rabbinical calendar, the earliest epoch date is 3761 BC.

During the Protestant Reformation, Pope Gregory XIII set out to improve on the
Julian Calendar in order to ensure the stabilisation of the Vernal Equinox to March
21. He achieved this by allowing century leap years only on century years divisible
by 400. This modern Gregorian Calendar was proclaimed in 1582 and has

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gradually spread from the Roman Catholic world to the British Commonwealth in
1752, and to the rest of the world because of its stable accuracy.

It is important to note that 11 August in the Church’s Gregorian calendar,

had correlated to 6 September in the Roman Julian calendar. SO 25TH
DECEMBER OF THE CHURCH’S CALENDAR TODAY, HAD
CORRELATED TO 21ST JANUARY OF ANCIENT ROMAN CALENDAR in
the past.

Recent conjectures, contentions and confusion:

There are recent conjectures, speculating that December 25 th was chosen to clash
with or replace the ancient Roman Saturnalia (17 th December) and much later
celebration of the birth of the Persian Sun-god Mithra (earliest recorded to be held
in 374 AD on 25th December by mithraistic cults but not as part of Roman
Calendar) which was introduced by Emperor Aurelian about 271 AD when it began
to be held in August 28 with games according to Roman Calendar. This anti-
Christmas conjecture is like claiming that since many Gospel musicians have gone
wild and worldly, therefore Church hymnody and Gospel music originated from
pagan music and was introduced to clash with or replace pagan music, after all we
do not have any biblical record of a Gospel musician in the Apostolic Church. Such
fallacious fables are conjectural absurdities.

In the antichristian culture of our days, it is not any wonder that people (even
misguided Christians) tend to give more credence to spurious speculations and
street fables of the heathens than they would give to sanctuary teachings and
scriptural testimonies of the Church. Claims that pagan religions celebrated
festivities on 25th December in Rome before the Church began Christ’s Nativity is
falsehood based on ignorance about (or disregard of) historical facts and the basis
for the development of the Church Calendar. Others ridiculously trace origin of
Christmas to Yule log and fir tree decorations.

The truth is that in the 4th and 5th century Rome, the importation of and rise of Sun
worship and wild Mithra cultism began to confuse the hitherto quiet and solemn
Nativity feast of the Church for a while, in the same way today’s end of year
consumerist festivities do, but the Church stood its ground with promulgation of
several anti-heathenish sanctions and denunciations to rescue its Christmas from
the Sun cult and wild heathenish cultural interference till the pagan feasts fell into
disuse, as we are trying to redo today. CHRISTMAS IS A CHURCH SERVICE IN
WHICH THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST IS READ FROM THE BIBLE AND
PREACHED ON not a street festivity. Church Christmas or Nativity
Commemoration worship is not same as Street "Xmas" carnival and frivolity.
Unfortunately, Gentiles will always use their pagan debauchery and culture to
corrupt any divine matter brought to them. I hope anti-Christmas critics and
Antichrist theorists will not soon trace the origin of Christmas to the Santa or the

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greeting cards, crackers, buntings and lightings which are confusing distractions
and interferences but not even part of the Church’s Christmas worship programme!

The fact is that it is almost impossible to fix a feast in the Roman Empire without
such a feast coinciding with one or more of the 57 annual festival or games
holidays. Many today do not know that ancient Roman Empire used backward
numbering system of kalends, nones and ides of their months, but did not have
weeks and weekend rests, so they used their many almanac festival and games
holidays for frequent rests from labour. The proximity of the Church’s Easter and
Christmas to some Roman feasts has made those feasts to be the only ones
remembered into the modern era, but many are unaware that there were similar one
or even two feasts every week in the Roman year!

True Christians cannot accept the superstitious thinking that any day belongs
to any pagan god. Christians can use any day for any biblical programme the
Church wants to hold. Christians know and worship only the One God and
reject all subjection to any gods (1Cor 8:5-6); nor does the Church regard any
pagan claim over any day as their holiday (Col 2:14-16). Christians work and
walk by the SCRIPTURES, not SUPERSTITIONS and SCRUPLES. No
Christian should ever fall into such a subtle snare and superstitious scruples of
relinquishing any day to any pagan deity! To attribute any day to any pagan
gods is idolatry and bondage!!!

The Apostles taught that no day belongs to any person or religion but to God alone,
and that persons or people reserve the right of choice to esteem any day regarding it
as their holiday to remark and celebrate any event for the glory of God (Rom 14:5-
6). To the Church therefore, Christmas is not ancient or modern heathen cultural
fanfare; CHRISTMAS is the Church’s specially appointed CHURCH WORSHIP
SERVICE (Mass) in remembrance of CHRIST’S NATIVITY as recorded in the
Scriptures. Christmas is a commemoration that seeks to remember and imitate key
actors of the original Scriptural nativity story and join in their response to the first
coming of the Christ Saviour. This reminder helps us fashion our own response in
preparation for His next glorious Second Coming. The Holy Family and the
Shepherds rescued their Christmas from the interference of Augustus’ census to
join God’s programme with His Son and His Angels, so must the Church rescue
biblical Christmas from interference of worldly heathenism.

Thank God for the Church, because the Gregorian Calendar has offered a
formidable instrument for reckoning time to the world. Before this time the Church
had also offered the university model of academia to the world (See
http://www.scribd.com/doc/61830033/Origin-of-Universities-and-Degree-
Honours). May the Church of our generation instead of conforming to and copying
error and darkness from the world, rather offer something of even greater value to
this groping and perishing generation.

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CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR SHOULD BE CELEBRATED ACCORDING TO
BIBLICAL DECLARATIONS AND DEMONSTRATIONS AT CHRIST’S BIRTH
(Mat 2:1-12 AND Luk 2:1-38)

Christmas is not about cultures but Scripture and the Christ. According to Matthew,
Christ’s birth was celebrated by the Stars in the heavens (Matt. 2:2, 9, 10); while
the Gentile Wise-Men (Scholarly Aristocrats) marked it on earth with a long,
star-guided journey or pilgrimage. On their arrival in Judea, King Herod
summoned Men of God together for biblical inquiry to ascertain the city where
Christ would be born. And on reaching the manger, the Wise Men worshipped and
presented expensive gifts to the infant King, Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Matt.
2:1-12).

According to Luke, the Angels in heaven celebrated Christ’s birth with GOSPEL
PROCLAMATION of great joy for all people, peace and goodwill for the
whole earth and SINGING OF CHRISTMAS CAROL to glorify God in the
highest heaven (Luke 2:8-14); while the Jewish Shepherds on earth celebrated it
with great joy and a visit to the Baby Christ, EVANGELISM to all and
PRAISE to God (Luke 2:15-20). Later Adventist/Messianic Israelites like Simeon
and Anna who prayed and waited for the coming of the Messiah celebrated
Christ in the Temple with prophetic worship and preaching (Luke 2:21-38).

Israel’s blessed hope in the Messiah’s coming was that He would console and
redeem them from oppression and enemies, infirmities and iniquities (Luke 2:25,
38; 23:51; 24:21; Mark 15:43). They did not even know yet that the Messiah would
also bring the new birth and eternal life for heavenly heritage until later when
Christ made that known to Nicodemus in John 3. This is worth celebrating.

People of God, if redoing the events recorded in the Bible at the birth of Christ is
appropriate, then Christmas should be a celebration of the Nativity of Christ
marked by:
+ worship to God and carol singing about Christ (as is done by many
Churches and Choirs today),
+ presentation of offerings of great value to God,
+ proclaiming Jesus as the Christ of God, the Lord of all and the
Saviour of all,
+ great joy (for God’s great gift of a Saviour of all),
+ making peace with and among all people,
+ exchange of goodwill (as greetings, gestures and gifts),
+ biblical inquiry from God’s Word (Bible Teaching Retreat as done by some
Churches today),
+ travels for missionary/charitable visit and pilgrimage, and
+ evangelistic outreach preaching of the Gospel of eternal
salvation from sin through faith in Jesus Christ.

Christmas ought not to be a time for carnal joy of smoking, drugging and
drinking parties, rancour, violence, robbery, profiteering, sexual immorality,
carousing and rioting. Such carnalities cannot truly express the spiritual joy
proclaimed by heavenly Angels unto our holy God for His goodness.

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Christmas should be a time of remembering the Nativity of Christ, making peace
and sharing goodwill amongst all people, both Jews and Gentiles, Christians and
non-Christians – A TIME FOR ALL HUMANITY TO JOIN THE ANGELS IN THE
CAROL OF PRAISE TO GOD with great joy for God’s love-gift of the Saviour. But
more than merely celebrating the birth of Christ, we need to BELIEVE IN HIM AND
YIELD OUR LIVES TO HIM to save us from sin and damnation. In this way we will
be at peace with God and be instruments of God’s peace in the world.

Christmas is not about cultures but about Scripture. The problem is that
many seem to mistake the world’s “Christmas” cultures of trees, and
decorations and carnality as found on the streets as if it is same with the
Nativity of Christ programme which the Church marks with biblical
worship, goodwill and godliness as found in the Scriptures.

Concerning Christmas Day celebration, Leo the Great in his Sermon XXI, (c. 450 AD) said:
“Our Saviour, dearly-beloved, was born today: let us be glad. For there is no proper place for sadness,
when we keep the birthday of the Life, which destroys the fear of mortality and brings to us the joy of
promised eternity. No one is kept from sharing in this happiness. There is for all one common measure
of joy, because as our LORD the destroyer of sin and death finds none free from charge, so is He come
to free us all. Let the saint exult in that he draws near to victory. Let the sinner be glad in that he is
invited to pardon. Let the gentile take courage in that he is called to life.” – Early Church Fathers, Vol
XXXV, (Post Nicene Fathers Series II, Vol XII).

Today’s street culture of Christmas commercial consumerism, erotic carousing,

exotic decoration and riotous celebration are ungodly distractions which must
never be allowed to overshadow the enduring Church’s Scriptural acclamation of
the Christ (Who is the Lord of and Reason for Christmas) and the proclamation of
His saving mission to the world.

Updated December 20, 2018

by Ven. Dr. I. U. Ibeme
Copyright  © PriscAquila Publishing, Maiduguri, Nigeria.
Click here for
PriscAquila Christian Resource Centre
http://priscaquila.6te.net ; http://www.scribd.com/ifeogo

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