If you read the Apostle Luke’s letter to Theophilus and Matthew’s recording of the Good News, they begin early on by telling of the birth of Jesus.
Now Luke and Matthew never make any mention about the specific time of Jesus’ birth. We know there was a census and Herod was King at the time, but there’s little else we know about the actual time of year or a specific date as to when Jesus was born.
But if you read Luke’s letter carefully, he makes an interesting point about shepherds in the region — doing what shepherds do best — watching their sheep (at night).
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
Now I’m not an expert in Middle Eastern farming, but typically you only put your sheep out to pasture when there’s good grass for them to eat. And I can’t imagine the grass being to fertile at the end of December. I also can’t imagine the shepherds bringing their sheep out with a high likelihood of freezing temperatures.
The average high in Bethlehem (currently) is 40 degrees Fahrenheit, with an average low of 24 degrees.
That’s pretty cold! And not a likely time of year for shepherds to let their sheep graze on the open fields.
With this limited information, historians seem to differ on whether Jesus was born in the Spring or perhaps in Fall.
It’s interesting to note that while Scripture does give us a time frame of when Jesus’ death and resurrection took place (the week of Passover), the early church seemed far less concerned about when Jesus’ birth took place and there seems to be no celebration of his birth until the late 3rd or 4th century.
St. Clement of Alexandria first mentions a celebration of Jesus’ birth on May 20th towards the end of the 3rd Century in Egypt.
It wasn’t until the 4th Century after Constantine converted and started joining his new found faith with the ways of the Roman empire that the Pope declared December 25th as the day the church would recognize the birth of Christ.
Coincidentally (or not) this was also right in the middle of the Pagan Celebration of Winter Solstice (Dec. 21) and the day many Romans believed to be the birth of Sol Invictus, the official sun god of the Roman Empire.
Or, as Pope Benedict XVI has pointed out, Dec. 25 is simply nine months after March 25th, the Feast of Annunciation (aka the day celebrating Jesus’ conception).
Bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi wrote in the 12th Century:
“It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day.”
Either way, as Rick Steves notes, “Christians celebrating the birth of the Son and Pagans celebrating the return of the sun have been celebrating ever since.”
Of course co-opting the language of the culture of the day is nothing new to Jesus or Christianity but it is interesting when we think about how much our Christmas celebrations have borrowed from outside influences.
Rick Steves points out in his excellent Christmas special that in picking our live Christmas trees we give “A wink to the nature worshiping Pagans…”
And our Christmas greenery borrow from the Druid tradition of decorating their temples with swags of evergreen.
“Living greens in the dead of winter represented the persistence of life and for Christians the greens represent everlasting life,” said Steves.
With this in mind, it seems far less strange for the American Puritans to outlaw the greenery and celebration altogether.
Sources:
ChristianAnswers.net
Coptic Orthodoxy
Coptic Church of Alexandria (Wikipedia)
Sol Invictus (Wikipedia)
