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Summary
- The true meaning of Christmas is that God came to be with us: Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, God the Son made man, whom Matthew calls Emmanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).
- The birth of Jesus is in the Bible, in Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2, but the word Christmas and the feast are not; the English word began as Old English Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first written down in 1038.
- The earliest record of the feast on 25 December is a Roman calendar, the Chronography of 354, whose list of martyrs’ days may go back to 336.
- Christmas matters to Christians because of who the child is: “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman” to redeem us, as Paul says in Galatians 4:4–5, and the child of Bethlehem is the Saviour of Good Friday and Easter.
- The true spirit of Christmas is God’s gift passed on: “if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John 4:11), with room for the poor, for peace and for joy that leaves no one out.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- The Holy Bible, King James Version, quoted from BibleGateway: Matthew 1:21–23; Matthew 2:11, 16, 18; Matthew 28:20; Luke 2:4–19; John 1:1–14; Romans 14:5–6; 2 Corinthians 8:9; 2 Corinthians 9:15; Galatians 4:4–5; Philippians 2:6–8; 1 John 4:9–11; Isaiah 9:6.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 456–458, vatican.va.
- The Nicene Creed, Common Worship text, Church of England, churchofengland.org.
- Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 2, Worship: Nativity of Christ (troparion and kontakion of the feast), Orthodox Church in America, oca.org.
- Leo the Great, Sermon 21, On the Feast of the Nativity, trans. Charles Lett Feltoe, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 12 (1895), New Advent.
- Andrew McGowan, “How December 25 Became Christmas”, Bible Review (December 2002), republished by the Biblical Archaeology Society, biblicalarchaeology.org.
- Cyril Charlie Martindale, “Christmas”, Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3 (1908), New Advent.
- The Chronography of 354, Depositio Martyrum, Latin text from Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Chronica Minora I (1892), tertullian.org.
- “Why Don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses Celebrate Christmas?”, Jehovah’s Witnesses, jw.org.
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