Republishing with a few edits, for this year...enjoy.
Many people hold a rather derisive view of Christmas these days.
First, there's the issue of Christmas' commercialization. There's an easy answer to that -- in the immortal words of Ebenezer Scrooge, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." Do you give gifts with ulterior motives, or to bless others and experience the sheer joy of giving, the way God gives to us? Hopefully, it's the latter. Commercialization is cured by your heart.
Recent years have brought the political incorrectness of the phrase "Merry Christmas," offending those who observe Kwanzaa or Hanukkah...or nothing. I'm happy to report the obvious, that this sentiment has suddenly suffered what I hope is a fatal blow, with the President-Elect making a point of saying, "Merry Christmas" and promoting Christianity. But for the past ten years I have had to make a point of saying, "Merry Christmas," so as not to be considered politically correct or avoiding the proclamation of my Christianity. News flash: There's no problem with saying "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" UNLESS you're saying it to avoid acknowledging Jesus! Political correctness is not scriptural, not Godly, nor is it inoffensive to all.
Lately, though, there is one reason I hear most often when someone is minimizing or even denigrating the significance of Christmas. That is, that December 25 isn't actually Jesus' birthday.
Then, when was Jesus actually born?
There's very good reasoning to support Jesus' birth in Autumn. The Jewish Feast of Booths, aka Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Shelters, Feast of Ingathering and Sukkot, is much like our Thanksgiving -- a harvest-based holiday. It is celebrated in the seventh Jewish month of Tishri, overlapping our September and October. Sukkot is one of the three pilgrimage feasts in Judaism. As the story I was told goes, all year long, the women would save leftover bits of wool and the coarser fibers from their spinning and weaving projects. These they wove into coarse, cheap lengths of cloth that they took with them on the journey to the city for festival time, because the nights of celebration required illumination. Jerusalem in those days was decisively lacking in electric street lights. They would fill barrels or large urns with oil, and these lengths of cloth, contributed by attendees, would serve as wicks for making these street lanterns. What do you suppose this cloth was called? Have you guessed it? Yes, swaddling cloth, as it was told to me. (Perhaps 'swaddle' originally was defined as something to do with lamps, wicks or light, and only came to mean wrapping a baby after the first Christmas. That makes sense to me as a mom, as the softest, not the coarsest, fabric would normally be used against a baby's delicate skin.) Mary would have had swaddling cloth with her to take to Bethlehem to be counted, had the time of year been that of Sukkot.
The case for Jesus being born in springtime is just as beautiful and compelling. It revolves around Jesus, the Lamb of God, being born in Bethlehem, the birthplace also of David, the shepherd-king of Israel. It is the town where the sacrificial lambs, perfect first-born male lambs, were cared for before being sold to those who sought to atone for their sins. Swaddling cloth plays it's part in this story, too, as another use was to wrap a protective layer around these perfect lambs for warmth, protection from thorns, cuts and scrapes, and to keep them clean. Migdal Eder, the Tower of the Flock, earlier a military fortress, stood on the road to Jerusalem and provided not only protection for shepherds, but it was where ewes were taken for lambing. According to prophesies by Micah (4:8), it is likely the structure in which Jesus was actually born. Mary giving birth to Jesus there would further the example of Him as the sacrificial Lamb of God. The first lambing season would have been early spring, so it would have been springtime when those shepherds had the flocks of sacrificial lambs out in the fields at night, keeping watch over them.
Another graphic representation: these strips of swaddling cloth, used as wicks to "light the way," were used during embalming/mumification, which the Israelites had made their custom when enslaved in Egypt. This provides more meatphorical "evidence" of the fact that Jesus was born to die for mankind.
As to a winter birth, Hanukkah being celebrated around the same time as modern Christmas is no accident. After the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 168 BC by Antiochus and his army, the invaders erected a statue of Zeus with the face of Antiochus, right in the center of the temple. The Maccabbees rebuilt the altar after three years of guerilla warfare, and on Kislev 25, 165 BC, they rededicated the temple to God. The Jewish month of Kislev happens to occur roughly when we have December, and the word Hanukkah means 'dedication.' The early Church later chose December 25 for Christmas, usurping and taking lordship over the birthday of the Greek Zeus/Roman Jupiter. The early church didn't know Jesus' birth date, they just chose a date that seemed appropriate.
It's amazing how Christianity's Jewish roots shine through our celebrations. But we still haven't come any closer to figuring out Jesus' DOB. One cosmologist I recently heard is absolutely certain Jesus was born in June, based on evidence regarding the Star of Bethlehem, but most people don't believe the Wise Men arrived until much later.
Jesus' birth date, like Moses,' was hidden from the enemy. At both times in history, the spirit of Herod went to work soon after their births, killing all the male children under the age of two. This was an attempt to wipe out, first, the one that would save the Israelites and lead them into the Promised Land, a picture of Jesus to come, and then to kill Jesus Himself -- the Savior of the the entire world, Jews and Gentiles alike.
Why is it so difficult to figure out Jesus' birthday? Because God hid it! He hid it to conceal Jesus from Herod's butchers. If God hides something, IT'S HIDDEN. You'll never find it. And if He hid it, why would He expect us to know it now? Obviously, He really doesn't care that we're not celebrating on the proper date, or He would have revealed it to us sometime in the intervening 2000 years. Let's just concentrate on honoring the spirit of Christmas every day of the year. That spirit is embodied in "Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men."
Jesus is our Perfect Atonement:
Born in a fortress -- He is our strong tower.
Born in Bethlehem, the town from which all the sacrificial lambs came, and which means "House of Bread" -- He is our Daily Bread, the Bread of Life, the Living Manna.
Born the firstborn male -- just like the other sacrificial lambs.
Wrapped in swaddling clothes -- signifying He is our perfect Lamb, born to die.
Laid in a manger, a trough made for feeding the flock -- "Take, eat, this is My Body which
was broken for you."
...Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given...
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begottten Son,
that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.
Merry Christmas!
Kemala
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