A. Israel, located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Desert, has a shorter spring and autumn, and longer summer and winter, and it is characterized by a huge daily temperature range. That is because it is situated in the region where the Mediterranean climate meets the subtropical climate.

Winter is the rainy season in Israel, so it rains a lot and the temperature falls off. So people move their sheep into the sheep pen at least by October so that they can go through winter there. Therefore, it is hard to keep watching over the flock of sheep in the fields at night in midwinter, December.

The birth of Jesus

When we read the Bible, we can find out that the shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks in the fields at night heard the news about the birth of Jesus from an angel.

Lk 2:3–12 And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

The fact that the shepherds kept watch over their flocks in the field at night on the day when Jesus was born is the circumstantial evidence proving that Jesus was not born in the cold season. In other words, December 25 is not the birthday of Jesus. Then, why do many churches commemorate December 25 as the birthday of Jesus even though He was not born on that day?

The origin of Christmas

Christianity was introduced into Rome, and it was approved by Emperor Constantine in AD 313, and became the state religion of the Roman Empire. Then, the Christians felt the need to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. However, they could not find the date from the Bible, so people brought up several dates that they estimated as the birthday of Jesus.

Until the early 3rd century, nothing was decided about the birthday of Jesus and people celebrated it on any day in March, May, or November. Then, December 25 came up for the first time by Hippolytus, one of the fathers of the Rome Church. Without any exact foundation, he made a presumption that the Virgin Mary conceived Jesus on March 25, and insisted that it was certain that Jesus was born on December 25. At that time, his insistence did not catch any attention.

Meanwhile, the church in Jerusalem in the east appointed one day among early January, as the birthday of Jesus and as the day when Jesus was baptized; and they celebrated each of them in Bethlehem and in the Jordan River. However, people began to complain about it becasue it was hard for them to travel to the two places, which are separated by more than 30 km [19 mi] away, in a day.

As their complaints rose, the then bishop of the church of Jerusalem wrote a letter to Julius, the then bishop of the church of Rome, asking him to reveal the actual date of Christ’s birth. Julius sent a reply saying that he regarded December 25 as the birthday of Jesus as Hippolytus had suggested. Eventually, Christmas began to be celebrated on December 25 since the time of Pope Liberius in AD 354. Since then, it has been recognized as an official holiday and gradually established as Jesus’ birthday celebrated all over the world.

Actually, December 25 didn’t just come out of nowhere. According to church history, December 25 came from a pagan festival that predates the appearance of Jesus. In December, three festivals, namely Saturnalia, Sigillaria, and Brumalia, were held one after another in Rome.

Saturnalia was a festival that was celebrated in honor of the god of agriculture for about ten days starting from mid-December. During this period, people went out to the streets to eat, drink, and indulge in pleasure, regardless of their status as a noble or a slave. Sigillaria in late December was a day to give dolls to children, and Brumalia was a winter solstice festival for sun-god worshipers to celebrate the birth of the sun.

The winter solstice occurs on December 25 and is the day with the shortest period of daylight when the sun is at its lowest elevation in the sky of the year. They believed it was the birthday of the sun, because from this moment the day begins to lengthen and the power of the sun to increase. It was easy for them to associate the Roman winter solstice with the doctrine of Christianity. Christ is described as light in the Bible, so they had no problem equating the sun god with Jesus.

Such interpretation was not bad for both Christians who were persecuted by Rome and Rome which needed a unified set of values to unite the empire. No longer did the Romans, who believed in the sun god Mithra, have reason to persecute Christians who worshiped Christ as the sun. Moreover, Christians were able to seek gatherings with their own special meanings on pagan festival days where there was quite hustle and bustle all around. The observance of pagan festivals in the church was regarded in some sense as Christianity’s conquest of paganism.

Since then, various pagan customs such as Christmas trees and carols have been added and commercialized, and December 25 has been firmly established as an international feast that the whole world enjoys. Nowadays, many people would be confused and tilting their heads if they are told that December 25 is not the birthday of Jesus.

Worshiping God in vain with man-made rules

After the Reformation, pious believers adamantly refused to commemorate the birth of Jesus on December 25 after knowing the background of how Christmas was created. This was the case with the Puritans who took control of the British Parliament in 1644, and in 1659 Massachusetts in the United States officially outlawed Christmas.

As people have been accustomed to the wrong traditions for a very long time, they take lightly of Christmas though they know it is not of truth. Some say that the fact that God came to this earth to free mankind from sin and suffering has meaning in itself. They say that the date Jesus was born is not so important, and that it does not really matter whichever day the birth of Jesus is celebrated on. A theologian once said, “What was more natural than that the Christians celebrate the birth of Him Who was the ‘Light of the World’ and the true ‘Sun of Justice’ on this very day [birthday of the sun god]?”

The problem is not only that December 25 has nothing to do with Jesus’ birth, but also that it is a day to worship other god, which God forbade. Christmas is Satan’s deceptive scheme to make us betray God’s commandments that tell us not to have any other gods before God and not to worship idols.

Isa 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Satan devises schemes to make us go against God’s will without hesitation by presenting plausible excuses that make us think we are serving God better. That path is never the path to salvation but the path to destruction; however, we cannot see that path correctly when we cannot distinguish between truth and falsehood.

We must place priority on God’s word in order not to stray away from the path to salvation by tripping over Satan’s cunning schemes. Observing the days, which pagans worshiped other gods on, under the pretext of serving God while not keeping God’s decrees and commands is to provoke God to anger, let alone to receive blessings. Celebrating December 25 as Christ’s birthday is an act of idolatry displeasing to God, which can never be justified or rationalized under any pretext. It is not a commandment of God but just a man-made rule, which Jesus and the apostles had never kept.

Mt 15:8–9 “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ ”

Ultimately, you can never worship God correctly with man-made rules. Rather than being carried away by what is going on in the world and following man-made rules that distance us from God, we should give true worship to God through God’s commandments such as the Sabbath and the Passover recorded in the Bible and become the heavenly children who receive blessings from God.