Christmas Day
Why is Christmas Day on the 25th
December?
.
Christmas is celebrated to remember the birth
of Jesus Christ, who Christians believe is the Son of God.
The name “Christmas” comes from the Mass of Christ
(or Jesus).
A Mass service (which is sometimes called Communion
or Eucharist) is where Christians remember that Jesus died for us and then came
back to life.
The “Christ-Mass” service was the only one that was
allowed to take place after sunset (and before sunrise the next day), so people
had it at Midnight! So we get the name Christ-Mass, shortened to Christmas.
Christmas is now celebrated by people around the
world, whether they are Christians or not. It is a time when family and friends
come together and remember the good things they have.
People, and especially children, also like Christmas
as it is a time when you give and receive presents!
The Date of
Christmas
No one knows the real birthday of Jesus!
No date is given in the Bible, so why do we
celebrate it on the 25th December? The early Christians certainly had many
arguments as to when it should be celebrated!
Also, the birth of Jesus probably didn't happen in
the year 1 but slightly earlier, somewhere between 2 BCE/BC and 7 BCE/BC (there
isn't a 0 - the years go from 1 BC/BCE to 1!).
The first recorded date of Christmas being
celebrated on December 25th was in 336, during the time of the Roman Emperor
Constantine (he was the first Christian Roman Emperor).
A few years later, Pope Julius I officially declared
that the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on the 25th December.
However, there are many different traditions and
theories as to why Christmas is celebrated on December 25th.
A very early Christian tradition said that the day
when Mary was told that she would have a very special baby, Jesus (called
the Annunciation) was on March 25th - and it's still celebrated today on the
25th March.
Nine months after the 25th March is the 25th
December!
March 25th was also the day some early Christians
thought the world had been made, and also the day that Jesus died on when he
was an adult.
The date of March 25th was chosen because people had
calculated that was the day on which Jesus died as an adult (the 14th of Nisan
in the Jewish calendar) and they thought that Jesus was born and had died on the
same day of the year.
Some people also think that December 25th might have
also been chosen because the Winter Solstice and the ancient pagan Roman
midwinter festivals called 'Saturnalia' and 'Dies Natalis Solis Invicti' took
place in December around this date - so it was a time when people already
celebrated things.
The Winter Solstice is the day where there is the
shortest time between the sun rising and the sun setting. It happens on
December 21st or 22nd.
To pagans this meant that the winter was over and
spring was coming and they had a festival to celebrate it and worshipped the
sun for winning over the darkness of winter.
In Scandinavia, and some other parts of northern
Europe, the Winter Solstice is known as Yule and is where we get Yule Logs from.
In Eastern Europe the mid-winter festival is called
Koleda.
The Roman Festival of Saturnalia took place between
December 17th and 23rd and honoured the Roman god Saturn.
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means 'birthday of the
unconquered sun' and was held on December 25th (when the Romans thought the
Winter Solstice took place) and was the 'birthday' of the Pagan Sun god Mithra.
In the pagan religion of Mithraism, the holy day was
Sunday and is where get that word from!
The Roman emperor Aurelian created 'Sol Invictus' in
274. But the records of early Christian connecting 14th Nisan to 25th March and
so the 25th December go back to around 200!
The Jewish festival of Lights, Hanukkah starts
on the 25th of Kislev (the month in the Jewish calendar that occurs at about
the same time as December).
Hanukkah celebrates when the Jewish people were able
to re-dedicate and worship in their Temple, in Jerusalem, again following many
years of not being allowed to practice their religion.
Jesus was a Jew, so this could be another reason
that helped the early Church choose December the 25th for the date of
Christmas!
Christmas had also been celebrated by the early
Church on January 6th, when they also celebrated the Epiphany (which means
the revelation that Jesus was God's son) and the Baptism of Jesus.
Now Epiphany mainly celebrates the visit of the Wise
Men to the baby Jesus, but back then it celebrated both things!
Jesus' Baptism was originally seen as more important
than his birth, as this was when he started his ministry. But soon people
wanted a separate day to celebrate his birth.
Most of the world uses the 'Gregorian Calendar'
implemented by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.
Before that the “Roman” or Julian Calendar was used
(named after Julius Caesar). The Gregorian calendar is more accurate that the
Roman calendar which had too many days in a year!
When the switch was made 10 days were lost, so that
the day that followed the 4th October 1582 was 15th October 1582. In the UK the
change of calendars was made in 1752. The day after 2nd September 1752 was 14th
September 1752.
Many Orthodox and Coptic Churches still use the
Julian Calendar and so celebrate Christmas on the 7th January (which is when
December 25th would have been on the Julian calendar).
And the Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates it on
the 6th January!
In some part of the UK, January 6th is still called “Old
Christmas” as this would have been the day that Christmas would have celebrated
on, if the calendar hadn't been changed.
Some people didn't want to use the new calendar as
they thought it “cheated” them out of 11 days!
Christians believe that Jesus is the light of the
world, so the early Christians thought that this was the right time to
celebrate the birth of Jesus.
They also took over some of the customs from the
Winter Solstice and gave them Christian meanings, like Holly, Mistletoe and
even Christmas Carols!
St Augustine was the person who really started
Christmas in the UK by introducing Christianity in the 6th century. He
came from countries that used the Roman Calendar, so western countries
celebrate Christmas on the 25th December.
Then people from Britain and Western Europe took
Christmas on the 25th December all over the world!
So when was
Jesus Born?
There's a strong and practical reason why Jesus
might not have been born in the winter, but in the spring or the autumn!
It can get very cold in the winter and it's unlikely
that the shepherds would have been keeping sheep out on the hills (as
those hills can get quite a lot of snow sometimes!).
During the spring (in March or April) there's a
Jewish festival called “Passover. “ This festival remembers when the Jews had
escaped from slavery in Egypt about 1500 years before Jesus was born.
Lots of lambs would have been needed during the
Passover Festival, to be sacrificed in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Jews from all over the Roman Empire traveled to
Jerusalem for the Passover Festival, so it would have been a good time for the
Romans to take a census. Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem for the census (Bethlehem
is about six miles from Jerusalem).
In the autumn (in September or October) there is the
Jewish festival of “Sukkot” or “The Feast of Tabernacles.” It is the festival
that is mentioned the most times in the Bible!
It is when Jewish people remember that they depended
on God for all they had after they had escaped from Egypt and spent 40 years in
the desert. It also celebrates the end of the harvest.
During the festival, Jews live outside in temporary
shelters (the word “tabernacle” come from a latin word meaning “booth” or “hut”).
Many people who have studied the Bible, think that
Sukkot would be a likely time for the birth of Jesus as it might fit with the
description of there being “no room in the inn.”
It also would have been a good time to take the
Roman Census as many Jews went to Jerusalem for the festival and they would
have brought their own tents/shelters with them! (It wouldn't have been
practical for Joseph and Mary to carry their own shelter as Mary was pregnant.)
The possibilities for the Star of Bethlehem seems
to point either spring or autumn.
So whenever you celebrate Christmas, remember that
you are celebrating a real event that happened about 2000 years ago, that God
sent his Son into the world as a Christmas present for everyone!
As well as Christmas and the solstice, there are
some other festivals that are held in late December. Hanukkah is
celebrated by Jews; and the festival of Kwanzaa is celebrated by some
Africans and African Americans takes place from December 26th to January 1st.
http://www.whychristmas.com/customs/25th.shtml
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