Winter-solstice celebrations
Both of these ancient holidays were observed around the winter solstice — the day of the year with the shortest period of daylight. "From the Romans also came another Christmas fundamental: the date, December 25. When the Julian calendar was proclaimed in 46 C.E. [A.D.], it set into law a practice that was already common: dating the winter solstice as December 25. Later reforms of the calendar would cause the astronomical solstice to migrate to December 21, but the older date's irresistible resonance would remain" (Tom Flynn, The Trouble With Christmas, 1993, p. 42).
On the heels of the Saturnalia, the Romans marked December 25 with a celebration called the Brumalia. Bruma is thought to have been contracted from the Latin brevum or brevis, meaning brief or short, denoting the shortest day of the year.
Why was this period significant? "The time of the winter solstice has always been an important season in the mythology of all peoples. The sun, the giver of life, is at its lowest ebb. It is [the] shortest daylight of the year; the promise of spring is buried in cold and snow. It is the time when the forces of chaos that stand against the return of light and life must once again be defeated by the gods. At the low point of the solstice, the people must help the gods through imitative magic and religious ceremonies. The sun begins to return in triumph. The days lengthen and, though winter remains, spring is once again conceivable. For all people, it is a time of great festivity" (Del Re, p. 15).
During the days of Jesus' apostles in the first century, the early Christians had no knowledge of Christmas as we know it. But, as a part of the Roman Empire, they may have noted the Roman observance of the Saturnalia while they themselves persisted in celebrating the customary "feasts of the Lord" (listed in Leviticus 23).
The Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us that "the first Christians ... continued to observe the Jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed" (11th edition, Vol. 8, p. 828, "Easter").
Over the following centuries, new, nonbiblical observances such as Christmas and Easter were gradually introduced into traditional Christianity. History shows that these new days came to be forcibly promoted while the biblical feast days of apostolic times were systematically rejected. "Christmas, the [purported] festival of the birth of Jesus Christ, was established in connection with a fading of the expectation of Christ's imminent return" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, Macropaedia, Vol. 4, p. 499, "Christianity").
The message of Jesus Christ and the apostles—"the gospel of the kingdom of God" (Mark:1:14-15[14]Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,[15]And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.)—was soon lost. The Christmas celebration shifted Christianity's focus away from Christ's promised return to His birth. But is this what the Bible directs Christians to do?
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