Every Christmas and every Easter they come out of the woodwork: the well-intentioned Christian zealots shouting, “You can’t celebrate that! It’s pagan!”
So let’s begin by acknowledging that, yes, there were at various times pagan rites celebrated at the times when we now celebrate the birth and the death of our Saviour. Does that mean that we should forego these celebrations and hand these times over to the devil?
Last Easter I read a comment from one Christian writer (can’t remember now who it was) to the effect that “what has previously belonged to Satan cannot be redeemed.” Now if that were true, then none of us would have any hope, for before we came to Jesus every one of us belonged to Satan. Praise God, Jesus’ sacrifice has bought us back (redeemed) us out of that bondage. Can that redemption also be applied to times and celebrations? I believe it can, and that there is a Scriptural precedent for doing so.
In Judges 6:25-26 the Angel of the Lord tells Gideon to tear down his father’s altar to Baal, and in its place to build an altar to the Lord, and to cut down the grove that was beside the altar and was also part of its pagan worship, and use the wood to offer his father’s second bull as a sacrifice to the Lord. Note that this was not something that Gideon did out of his own understanding – in fact he was so fearful of the consequences from his family and the rest of the clan that he did it at night. This was specifically commanded by the Angel of the Lord (generally understood to be a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ): he was to take that which had been used in pagan worship and “redeem” it by using it to offer sacrifice to the Lord.
Coming into the New Testament, in Acts 17:23 Paul is in Athens and comes upon an altar dedicated to An Unknown God. He immediately seizes upon this and says, “This God who is unknown to you, I will declare to you.” There can be no doubt that in the thinking of the Athenians, the “Unknown God” was definitely a pagan deity. They might not have known which one, and probably thought it was simply best to cover their backs just in case there was one they had missed, but whoever or whatever it was, they definitely saw it as pagan. Yet Paul had no hesitation in picking up that which had belonged to Satan and commandeering it for the Kingdom of God. He may not have had a specific direction to do so, as Gideon had, but we can be confident that Paul walked closely enough with the Holy Spirit to be led by Him in this as in all his ministry.
So here we have two clear instances, one from the Old Testament and one from the New, where something which had belonged to Satan is redeemed to be used for the glory of God. Why should Christmas and Easter not be the same?
For me, the important question is not, “What did some other people hundreds or thousands of years ago celebrate at this time?” but, “What do I celebrate at this time?” Let me illustrate: I’m sure that over the millennia there have been thousands, probably millions, of people born on the same day as me. There have also been all kinds of events that have happened on that day, some good and some bad. Do I celebrate any of those things on my birthday? No, I celebrate my birthday. Likewise, when I celebrate Christmas, I do not celebrate Saturnalia or some other pagan festival, but the fact that God became Man, and was born in Bethlehem as a baby who grew up to live a perfect human life and die a cruel death bearing the sin of all mankind, and rose again in victory.
But what about Christmas trees? Doesn’t Jeremiah 10:3-4 say that they are idols? Well, actually, no. Jeremiah was written hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Christmas didn’t even exist then, so how could it be talking about Christmas trees? Jeremiah was talking to his own generation, speaking against those who cut down trees which they fashioned into idols. It’s unfortunate that the KJV uses the word “deck”, the same word used for decorating a Christmas tree, but in this case it meant covering it with silver or gold to make it beautiful.
Christmas trees are actually a very Christian tradition which originated in Europe in the middle ages. Conscious of the fact that there was no room in the inn for Jesus, in winter Christians would place lights in trees outside their homes to say to travellers, “There is room for you here. You can be safe and warm.” Later they added decorations so that the trees would also be noticeable during the day. Then, because then as now there were some unscrupulous characters who would steal these lights or decorations, they began bringing the trees inside and setting them up in a window to show that hospitality was available.
So we have a choice: we can do the “holier than thou” thing, declare Christmas a pagan celebration, and hand it over to Satan. Or we can shout joyfully, “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” and rejoice in the fact that this is a time of the year when even unbelievers turn their minds to the Saviour. Which do you think God would prefer?