A Word about Christmas

As I’m sure everyone who is reading this knows, Christmas is upon us. For most of the religious world, it is a celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The name of the holiday itself comes from the term, “Christ mass.”  The name in some languages, such as the Spanish Navidad, refer directly to the birth of Christ. As those who attend Manslick Road know, Brother Lee delivered a lesson recently on the celebration of Christmas. My goal is not to duplicate that effort, per se, but to delve specifically into the dating of Jesus’ birth.

The Silence of Scripture

It is noteworthy that the Scriptures are silent concerning the exact date of Jesus’ birth. We have a number of other events for which we have dates specified: the tenth of Abib was to be the Passover celebration (Deuteronomy 16:1); the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) was to be celebrated 50 days following the Passover sabbath (Deuteronomy 16:9-10); the Feast of Booths was to be celebrated a week after the harvest (Deuteronomy 16:13). Not only were these days specified, they were commanded for celebration among the Jews. Deuteronomy 16:16 says that all males had to appear before the Lord for those feasts. We can see even in the New Testament where those feasts were kept by the Jews. Luke’s gospel records Jesus going to the Passover with His family as a boy. John’s gospel marks time by the Passover and the Feast of Booths. Luke described Pentecost in Acts 2, noting that Jews had assembled in Jerusalem from all over the Roman Empire.

Yet when we come to the birth of Christ, God is silent concerning the actual date. Furthermore, the Scripture is silent concerning a command to celebrate His birth or examples of early Christians commemorating such. If celebrating Jesus’ birth is such a pivotal thing to Christians, why do we not read of it in Scripture?

Calculating from Zacharias

The most reliable method for calculating Jesus’ physical birth depends on what we know about the father of John the Baptist, Zacharias. Luke 1:5 records that Zacharias was “of the division of Abijah.” Under Jewish temple worship, the priests were divided into 24 divisions for service throughout the year. Abijah was the eighth such division (1 Chronicles 24:10).  According to the Jewish historian Josephus, each division served one week in rotation (thus, each course would serve twice in a year; the Talmud additionally states that every division served during the weeks of the three major feasts, making up the 51 weeks of the Jewish calendar). Computer calculations suggest that the Jewish year began in early April. Because of the way the dates fell, the division of Abijah would have served in the ninth week (Passover would have shifted the divisions a week) and also in the tenth week (for Pentecost). Zacharias would have returned home after Pentecost. This puts the conception of John sometime in late June.

Based on this reasoning, Jesus would have been conceived in late December (six months later, based on Luke 1:36), with a likely birth in September.

Surrounding Details

The September date is supported by additional details presented by Luke. Luke records shepherds in the fields with sheep (Luke 2:8). While Bethlehem winters could be mild, the traditional end to the sheep-grazing season was September, before the rainy season began. The census mentioned by Luke in Luke 2:1-5 would likely have been done locally when it was most convenient. The time after harvest would have been so, as the people were not burdened by the duties of the harvest. Additionally, it would have been the ideal season for tax collection and would have corresponded to harvest festivals when people may have been returning home anyway.

Do We Move Christmas?

So, should we move our celebration of Christmas to reflect this “new” understanding? Hardly. Even with such calculations, we could not pretend to pin down the date of Jesus’ birth with any certainty. Additionally, a celebration of Jesus’ birth is unheard of, as far as the Bible is concerned. While Jesus’ birth is significant, God does not command that we remember it. Recall that Jesus’ birth was not Jesus’ beginning. Rather, “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). Jesus has played a role in God’s plan from the very beginning.

It is interesting that two of the four gospels (Mark and John) do not mention Jesus’ physical birth in any real detail (John does state that “the Word became flesh”) and only one (Luke) really deals with the events immediately surrounding the birth. In contrast, all four gospels describe in great detail the events of and surrounding Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection.

Something to Remember

In contrast to His birth, we are commanded to remember His death, yet we do not do so annually–we do it weekly. The eating of unleavened bread and drinking of the fruit of the vine are done in remembrance of Jesus (1 Corinthians 11:24-25). According to Paul, when we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death. We find that the early disciples did this weekly on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7).

So in the season when many recall Jesus’ birth, let us recall Jesus’ death and strive to follow after Him, not just in December, but in every day of our lives.