This week, Pastor Jermaine continued on with Week Two our Christmas Series “The History Channel” with the time period of 0AD – 1800.
Every week, this series will be talking about the Sacred and the Secular history of Christmas.
SECULAR
In the early 17th Century, a wave of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated. The Puritans moved to eradicate decadence from society, and as part of that – they made Christmas illegal. For example, from 1559 – 1681 the celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Boston.
This was partly because of the sins associated with the season; greed, drunkenness, thievery, and public havoc. Often, the poorer classes would terrorize the rich during this season, going
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from house to house and demanding their best food and drink. If the rich refused, the poor would cause mischief on their properties. Christmas was an unhealthy mix of the spiritual and the secular, and the thus the Puritans sought to eradicate it in order to focus solely on God.
Christmas was only declared a federal holiday in the USA in 1870.
SACRED
In early Christianity, it wasn’t common to celebrate the birthday of any martyr, including Jesus. Instead, they were honored on the days of their death – as this was recognized as their true “birthday.” Thus, for a long time, Easter was celebrated as the primary Christian holiday.
When Christians began to celebrate the birth of Christ, the date was chosen not because of any mentioned date within the Bible, but because it fit into the cultural celebrations of the time. Thus, the date of December 25th is entirely symbolic and somewhat arbitrary.
Pastor Jermaine led us through the four “R’s” of the Christmas narrative: responsibility, reality, reassurance, and reply.
When Mary became pregnant, she was 14-16 years old and bore a huge weight of responsibility. She lived in Nazareth and in poverty – seeing herself as having done nothing worthy of special mention. Mary had to face the disgrace of being seen as one who became pregnant out of wedlock. It would be a very different story if she chose to say no, and yet she took on the task with grace and humility.
Additionally, Joseph’s reputation was also on the line. He could have chosen to make a scene, and bring Mary to trial for her sin – and yet he didn’t. He was a man of low estate but high integrity.
From Mary, to Joseph, to the Magi, we see that the Christmas story is interjected repeatedly with the intervention of God – angelic visits, dreams, and alignment of the stars. It would have been so easy for it to be so different, and yet we have the miracle of Jesus birth, and the story that we know and love today.
We need to continue being awed by the truth and wonder of the Christmas narrative. God came to earth. The holy, perfect God came to earth and died for us – the unholy and sinful ones. The wages of our sin is death, and yet God came to save us from those just and deserved consequences. We must never became calloused to this incredible truth and reality, and Christmas is a wonderful time to allow the truth and wonder of this miracle sit and stir deeply within us.
Our reply, and our response should be that of Romans 10:9: “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”