LIFE’S LESSONS
By Henrylito D. Tacio
“There is no Christmas without Christ.” – Henrietta Newton Martin, author of Greatest of All Romances
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There are people who believe what they hear or are told are true. And if you tell them that some of those “truths” are actually lies, they will argue. They won’t believe it even if you provide them with all the facts.
Such is the case of Christmas. A lot of Filipinos still believe that Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son and The Messiah, was really born on December 25. The real truth is that He was not born on the said date.
The Holy Bible, the main source of information, didn’t specify the exact date of His birthday. What the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – of the New Testament gave were just some hints.
Luke, the “Beloved Physician” and an authority on Christ’s birth, recounts the first Christmas with these words:
“At the time Emperor Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman Empire. When this first census took place, Quirinius was the governor of Syria. Everyone, then, went to register himself, each to his own hometown. Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea, the birthplace of King David. Joseph went there because he was a descendant of David. He went to register with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant, and while they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby. She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in clothes and laid him in a manger – there was no room for them to stay in the inn.
“There were some shepherds in that part of the country who were spending the night in the fields, taking care of their flocks. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone over them. They were terribly afraid, but the angel said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid! I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people. This very day in David’s town your Savior was born – Christ the Lord! And this is what will prove it to you: you will find a baby wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger.’
“Suddenly, a great army of heaven’s angel appeared with the angel, singing praises to God: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom He is pleased!’”
Luke expressly mentioned that there were shepherds tending their flocks in the fields on the night of Jesus’s birth. In those days, and even today, shepherds always drove their flocks from the fields and mountainsides and corralled them not later than the middle of October to protect them from the oncoming cold and rainy season.
If the month and date is obscure, the year is also vague. It is a common belief that Jesus was born in the year 1 A.D. Let’s see what the Bible says.
According to Matthew 2:1, Jesus was born when Herod was the king of Judea. Luke also states: He was born when Cyrenius (in Roman history, Quirinius) was the governor of Syria (read Luke 2:2), but King Herod is said to have died in 4 B.C. and Cyrenius did not become governor of Syria until ten years later. The administrations of Herod and Quirinius were separated by the whole reign of Archelaus, the son of Herod.
Apparently, from the statements of Matthew and Luke, there is a difference of ten years in the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. So, which is which?
So, why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25? I learned some of these information from the website, interestingfacts.com:
One of the most widely accepted theories for the date of Christmas involves the winter solstice, which in ancient Rome took place on December 25. According to the fourth-century theologian Augustine of Hippo, Jesus chose to be born on the shortest day of the year: “Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase.” This interpretation was later supported by Isaac Newton.
The December 25 date may also have been chosen by the Roman Catholic Church in an attempt to co-opt the pagan festival of Saturnalia, which was dedicated to the Roman deity Saturn.
The earliest theologians who discussed Jesus’ birthday mentioned that he was likely divinely conceived during Passover, the Jewish holiday on which he was also later crucified. They calculated Passover in the year of Jesus’ death as March 25, and arrived at December 25 (nine months later) as a likely date for his birth.
Eastern Christian communities used a different calendar, which calculated the date of Passover as April 6; that’s how we got January 6 as Christmas in some parts of the world.
Another theory centers more specifically around the Annunciation, or the day that the Archangel Gabriel told Mary she would give birth to the Son of God. The Annunciation is observed on March 25 — again, exactly nine months before December 25.
Whatever the case, Christmas taking place on December 25 is hardly a new phenomenon. Christmas probably started being commemorated around the second century, and the church decreed that it be held on December 25 in 336 CE.
However, Christmas did not become a significant Christian holiday until the ninth century. In the end, some theologians argue that the precise date of the celebration doesn’t matter a great deal, if the spirit of the day is preserved. – ###
