Christmas - Christian Festival or Pagan Myth?

I'm going to have three readings from Scripture this evening. If you'd like to turn, please, first to Isaiah, chapter 7. The first song that the trio sang were words that were written about 2,700 years ago, words taken from the book of Isaiah. And our first reading comes from Isaiah, chapter 7, a prophecy given by God to one of his servants concerning an event that would take place 700 years further on.

Isaiah, chapter 7, and verse 14. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel.

He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. Now we go into the New Testament to the Gospel of John, chapter 1. John chapter 1, words written at the end of the first century AD, words which relate to what happened before the beginning. Not just the beginning of the New Testament period, but the beginning of time.

Here we're taken right back to beyond the beginning of the universe to when there was only God. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life and that life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. And then down to verse 14. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out saying, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God, but God the one and only who is at the Father's side has made him known. And then lastly, in the Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 2, we read a few words concerning the actual birth of our Lord Jesus, prophesied as we saw those hundreds of years before, explained against the background of eternity past, and now described in little detail in Luke chapter 2 in its historical context. In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

Well, this was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Let me read to you one verse of Scripture, then a brief prayer together. In fact, if you'll turn to it, we could read it together. Galatians chapter 4 and verse 4. Galatians chapter 4, verse 4. Not perhaps the first passage that springs to mind when you think about Christmas, but nonetheless it's a verse of Scripture that has a great deal of meaning upon the narratives of the birth of our Savior.

So join me. We'll read it twice, just to get it really into our minds. Galatians 4.4. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.

Yes, good to see your enthusiasm. All right, we'll take the fifth verse as well. To redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

In fact, the two verses roll on, don't they? So let's take them again. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Let's bow our heads in prayer.

Father, help us as we come around your word right now just to look afresh at the old story of the gift of the Savior, and send us on our way, our faith confirmed, and for some maybe faith created within our hearts, as we hear again of your intervention in the history of mankind. Amen. Well, we come to the final address on the series that I've been, along with others, bringing to you on a Sunday night now for several weeks, if not two or three months.

And that is, come to think of it, Christmas. Come to think of it, Christmas, is it a Christian festival or really a pagan myth? A religious or a Christian festival or a pagan myth? I remember some years back in the tab pulpit telling you the story that I'd first heard because it was broken on the BBC, of a lady who was going around a departmental store, something like Woolworth's, and it was around this time of the year, and she was looking at the Christmas cards, and she found one with a scene of the nativity, and she opened the card and inside was a quotation from the Bible, and the comment was, don't say they're now bringing religion into Christmas. Well, when the story broke, it created a few flutters of the eyelashes and puckered brows, and yet in one sense, though the woman was unwitting, doubtless in the comment that she was making, there was a word of truth.

Now I have very good connections with the Christian Publicity Organization, and I'm hoping that at the end of this address, the connections will be as strong as they have been up to this point in my period in Worthing. You see, they've done a delightful poster, so attractive that many of you took the copies that we have available in the tab and will by now, or certainly by tomorrow, I trust, have them up in your window, and the poster depicts the 25th of December. In terms of celebrate the King's birthday, celebrate the King's birthday.

Happy birthday, gentle Jesus. Come let's join the celebration, it's a very special day. If Cliff Richard were here, I'm sure that he could have put that into song.

I won't attempt it for reasons that some of you so rudely offer me from time to time, when the PA system's left on and my voice is carried through these loudspeakers. Now, I don't want to in any way create problems for you by saying that it's not really historically accurate to talk of the birth of our Lord Jesus in terms of the 25th of December. What the 25th of December was, historically, on the computation of the old calendar, was the shortest day in the year.

And if you track through this historically, you will discover that it was the day when folk used to believe that the sun was going to be renewed, because from that day, every other day that followed would have an additional period of light. And so the ancients thought that the sun had conquered over the problems brought by winter and the closing in of the days of the year. And that gave birth to some special celebrations.

People would come together and they would enjoy a sort of party style atmosphere and so forth. This was very, very much rooted in the lifestyle of the ancients, the ancient world. And you move forward through the first century, second century, third century of the Christian era, and you discover that the Christian church, with its headquarters more or less in Rome, was unable to get this festival out of the system of the people.

And so, instead of doing further battle, what they determined to do was to, if you like, sanctify the festival. And they started to think in terms of the sun of righteousness bringing the light of the glorious gospel of Christ into the world. And so they took it as a convenient day in which to remember the birth of our Lord Jesus.

Now, I have no argument against that at all. I think that it was a very wise thing to do. Those of you who are up in regal things in our land, who know something of the monarchy, will be aware that our queen has an official birthday and then she has her own natural, so to speak, birthday.

Well, it seems to me that that's a good way to look upon Christmas. If you like, it's the official birthday. It's that day in the calendar of the church that has been set apart, especially during the period that the church calls the Advent, to remember the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, why am I particularly bringing this to your attention? Well, there are a couple of reasons. The first is the Jehovah's Witnesses. They create some problems.

They think that we Christian people are latching onto some pagan festival and really we don't understand anything about God's intervention in the world in the form of the Lord Jesus and we make a fetish out of this 25th of December and so on and so forth. That's an utter nonsense. That is not the reason why we celebrate the 25th of December.

We know full well it is, as I say, a convenient day that we set apart to remember that God in the form of his Son came into this world. And then my old friend, the Puritans, they, you see, used to get very upset about this, the fact that historically you couldn't prove that the 25th of December was the birth of Christ and so they used to try to stop festivities and parties and all that. Some of you know of Oliver Cromwell, a very great man in my estimation.

My wife doesn't agree but we have little bits of sort of differing conclusions in our evaluation in history. And they were very doer in the way that they approached this season. Well as another good friend of mine, Charles Spurgeon, said they were doer enough to sort of compensate for the rest of Christianity and now in his case the 19th century, in ours in the 20th century, we can perhaps come back into a more sort of jolly atmosphere when we approach the 25th of December because we're sensible enough to realize that it's not the literal birth of Christ but it is a recognition of his birth in the calendar of the church.

So then, where do we go from here? Well, I want to suggest to you that what is important and what was very important to the early church was not so much when Christ was born. In fact, the New Testament is frustrating in the limited evidence that it gives as far as dates are concerned. You have to be a sort of Sherlock Holmes going through the pages, getting any little intimation of evidence that you can to date something specifically.

But you see, our early Christian brothers and sisters, they weren't concerned about chronology. They were not interested basically in precise dates. For them, it was not when Christ was born that was important but rather that Christ was born, that Christ was born.

And so you see, here is the apostle in that verse that we read together a couple of times enunciating, underlining the thought, but when the time had fully come, that's important, that Christ came. And equally important, how Christ came, born of a woman under the law. And if you please, why Christ came, to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Now, these are the essential things for us to try to understand for a few moments this evening. The fact that Christ was born. Winston Churchill was a great man.

He wasn't the most modest of men, but he was a great man. But on one occasion, sort of out of character with him, he made this confession. The reason why he achieved prominence in European and particularly British history was that he was born at the right moment.

You see, he had this sort of gravelly voice, and he had this firmness of character. And although he shifted his political allegiance on two or three occasions, he found himself center stage when he had been warning the British about the dangers of the Nazi dealings in Europe, and largely speaking, his words had fallen on deaf ears. And when his prediction came true, then he found himself propelled as being, if you like, the visible leader of our country at that time.

Now, Churchill said he was, by an accident of history, around just then with his bulldog qualities, his resolute character, his ability to bring heart into our nation, which was very weak and very timid in many ways. Now, don't you see, my friend, that this is exactly what the Scripture is saying in regard to the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came, not as a fluke of history, but by the providential dealings of God into this world at the right time, when the time had fully come.

Okay, so we can't date it exactly as 4 BC, though that would be the opinion to which I gravitate, but it doesn't matter if it's out by a year or so. Not when, but that, that he came, and he came at the right time. In what sense was it the right time? Well, you see, the religion of the Jewish people was in a very bad state.

It had deteriorated when Jesus came. Those of you who are familiar with the Gospels, sometimes you come across characters by the name of Caiaphas and Annas. These were the high priests in Jerusalem.

They controlled, if you like, the Jewish religion. And it was bankrupt of the sincerity and the spirituality of Old Testament times. The laws of Moses, they were very often misunderstood or wrongly applied.

It was a barren religion. And Jesus came into the world at the time when his people most desperately needed him. And what is more, he came into the world at a time when there had been a great deal of thinking in Greece particularly, and especially in Athens, in regard to men's philosophy, their own understanding of the world, why they're here, and so on and so forth.

And although they had great minds, nobody had really been able to satisfy the heart's desire in order to acquire peace and a sense of well-being. It's very difficult unless you read the literature that comes from that first century B.C. and A.D. to appreciate just the bankruptcy that there was in our world in those days. And yet, on top of this, there was – and all of you are aware of at least the arrival of the Roman Empire, the fact of the Roman Empire – there was this great administrative machine that was controlling the whole of the known world.

It was brilliant. The peace of Rome was benefiting the nations of the Middle East and Europe and Asia, as we know those continents today. Roads were opened up.

People were speaking a common language, the Greek tongue. And there were these means of travel and communication which were quite unique in the history of man up to that time. Now here is Jesus, you see, God's own son.

He steps into our world at a time when Judaism is bankrupt of the spirituality of the Old Testament, when Greek philosophy have left men utterly disappointed, and when Rome has made the means of communication and travel possible. So when Jesus, God's own son, comes into the world, he ministers to the needs of people who desperately want to hear, at least many of them. And in the organization or the organism that he set up the church, there is the means left by the Roman Empire whereby the message that Jesus came into the world can be taken and broadcasted in a way that messages rarely up to that point could have been communicated, could have been scattered.

You see, it's quite right for the Apostle Paul to say that Jesus Christ came into the world at the right time. And that's what we Christians are celebrating on the 25th of December. Not when Jesus came precisely, but that he came.

And not only that he came, but how he came. God sent his son born of a woman, born under the law. Don't you find the study of language fascinating? I do, but I guess that's largely because before I came here, I used to teach in London, and one of my subjects was English, the English language and English literature.

I've always found words fascinating. I'm glad to say that Dennis Skinner, Honorable Member of Parliament for Bolsover, fairly near to where I was born, he too is interested in words. In fact, do you ever tune into Parliament and listen to the intelligentsia there discussing some of the issues that are really crucial as to how much teachers should have and how much they shouldn't have and so on and so forth? Well, Mr. Skinner enlivened Parliament by spotlighting one of the members of Her Majesty's Government and referred to him, if you please, as a wimp.

Now the Speaker wasn't having that. It was most unparliamentary language. And so Brother Skinner, never short of an alternative, withdrew the word and reinserted wally.

And the Speaker ruled that that was all right. You see, wally is in, but wimp is out. Now you may laugh, but what I'm telling you is quite accurate.

This is what took place in the mother of the parliaments, heaven help us, just a few weeks ago. Now, Mr. Skinner aside, the study of language is very, very interesting, particularly the study of language in the New and Old Testament. And here is the apostle and he's telling us how Jesus will be brought into this world.

God sent his son, born of a woman. Now in some senses, your birth and that of the Lord Jesus' are identical. Inasmuch as you were conceived in your mother's womb and she brought you forth into this world.

Thank God for our mothers. Now with our Lord, it was the same or almost. The great distinction being that our Lord Jesus Christ was born of a woman who was a virgin, one who was not married.

And a great argument has revolved around what Paul means here when he spotlights that Jesus was born of a woman, came into the world by a woman. Is he linking up the idea that is made much more clear in Matthew's gospel and Luke's gospel that Jesus was virgin born? And are Matthew and Luke, the evangelists, linking in this observation with a comment found in Genesis in chapter 3 where Adam and Eve who have sinned against God are told, and the woman in particular, that she or her seed will one day bruise the head of the serpent. You remember the whole of the story.

They've fallen into disgrace. The serpent, Satan, has slid alongside Eve and she has succumbed to his temptation and as a result of that, the life that they should have enjoyed with God has been forfeited. But God says that the day will come, as he addresses both Eve and also Satan, the day will come when from her womb, the womb of the woman, from the seed, a most unusual term to use, almost a contradictory term to use in terms of a woman and in terms of gynecology and reproduction and what have you, from the seed of the woman will come one who will bruise your head and if you bruise the head of a snake, if you hit it hard enough, you'll kill it.

I remember I was once in the Belgium Congo or as it's now known in Zaire, I was in a little mission encampment with some American missionaries and there we were eating our meal and suddenly I spotted a snake just slide in the house on the floor. Now, here was a moment for the British to assert themselves and show how brave they were over against the Americans. So I jumped on the table and the son of the American missionary got the snake first shot.

The prediction was that from the seed of Eve, from her stock, in a most remarkable way, a Savior would be born into this world who would rectify the problems caused by the sin of our first parents. And here it seems to me the Apostle Paul is making this very clear when he says God sent his son born of a woman, Mary's womb, played upon if you like, used by the Holy Spirit so the divine seed is placed within and ultimately our Lord Jesus Christ is born into the world. God who took a motherless woman out of the side of the body of a man took a fatherless man out of the side of the body of a woman.

Isn't that rather lovely, Matthew, Henry, contrasting the birth of Eve with that of the Lord Jesus. God who took a motherless woman out of the side of the body of a man took a fatherless man out of the side of the body of a woman. So our Lord Jesus was born into this world.

That he was born is important. How he was born is important. He was born of a woman and he was born under the law.

What does that mean? Well, you see, all the requirements of the law of Moses were placed upon the Lord Jesus. Now you know well, at least many of you here, that another unique thing about our Savior on top of the mechanics of his birth was the fact that his life was sinless. And yet did you notice, those of you who were here this morning as we read from Luke's Gospel in chapter two, how when Jesus was born, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are taken to the temple for, quote, their purification.

And there he refers to Mary and Jesus. You see, when a woman had brought forth her son, or her daughter for that matter, it was the practice in those days to go to the temple and to make an offering for the arrival of the child. Now remember, Jesus is the firstborn son.

And according to Exodus, the firstborn was basically, historically, under the sentence of death. Do you remember the story of how the angel of death went over the land of Egypt and the firstborn of Pharaoh and the Egyptians' houses were slain, but the angel of death passed over the houses of the Israelites because daubed on the lintels of their doors was the blood of an animal that had been slain? Now ever since that time, because historically or theologically speaking, the firstborn should have forfeited his life, when a Hebrew son was born, the parents would take the child into the temple and they would offer a sacrifice in lieu of the death of the son. Now the Lord Jesus never sinned.

He was never going to sin. And even when they butchered Him and put Him on the cross of Calvary, He still remained absolutely sinless. Why did He come into the world? Why did He die on the cross? Well, He died for your sins.

He died for my sins. And an anticipation of that occurs just a few days after His birth, when His mother and Joseph take Him to the temple, and there He meets the requirements of the law as He identifies Himself with all the firstborn of all time. Our Lord Jesus, He came into the world.

That He was born is important, and it's right that we celebrate it. How He was born is equally important. And finally, why He was born.

Why He was born. Well, Paul makes it very clear, doesn't he? He said, when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. I've got my axis card here.

Do you know, in one thing I think this is very useful. In one sense, I think this is very useful. In one sense, I wish that credit cards had never been devised.

Tell you why. Now, this sounds a little pious. Let me approach it another way, and then it won't sound so bad.

Some folk have been coming to my marriage classes, and in our marriage classes, we look at many, many things as we approach the whole concept of Christian marriage. And we deal with, in one of our sessions, we deal with the subject of money. And I remember putting to the youngsters who were gathered to me the question as to whether it is ever legitimate for us to borrow money.

And the answer that I wanted to get from them, and ultimately managed to squeeze out of 95%, was that apart from your mortgage, unless the circumstances were very extraordinary, you should never buy that for which you don't have the cash to pay. Much better to save for your carpets and buy them outright, or for your car and to buy it outright, than to loan money and get into debt, and for the debt to become more debt, and so on and so forth. You see, one of the problems, one of the curses of the 1970s and the 1980s is that people do not know how to use credit cards properly.

And I know of folks who have run up thousands of pounds of debt because they can't handle the ready available money that they discover on offer as they go down to some of our big departmental stores, let alone the cards, the credit cards that the banks offer. So we have the problem of folk in our society who are in debt to large sums of money, and the position gets worse as they get more in debt because the interest is increased, and the possibility is for some that they can work all their lifetime and they will never get out of debt. Now, don't you see, when you read why the Lord Jesus came into our world, the apostle uses a word that actually comes out of the language of commerce and banking.

He says that Jesus Christ has come into this world to redeem, to pay off. If you like to stand as a substitute for, to move money from his account into the account of the debtors, so that all those who had fallen victim because they'd broken the laws of God and therefore his judgment was directed against them, all those people who acknowledge what the Lord Jesus came into the world to do are redeemed. Here's my access card.

Let's say it stands for 10,000 pounds worth of debt. Here comes the Lord Jesus, and he writes a check to the access company that bears his name, and he takes my debt upon himself. Forget the access card, here is my sin, my sin that is constantly growing as I do things that are wrong, that are opposed to the law of God.

It gets bigger and bigger, however will I be able to whittle away at my sin, chip it off bit by bit? I can't. It's a tyrant, I'm controlled by it, but, but, and this is the reason for the celebration of Christmas. God sent his son into the world, born of a woman, under the law to redeem those who otherwise would always be under its curse.

Now don't you understand, if I was a debtor and somebody came and they lifted the load of my debt, don't you understand how happy I would be? Now how much more, my brothers and sisters, my friends who are giving me a hearing, perhaps for the first time in your life in this church, how much more grateful should we be to God for lifting the burden of sin from us by sending the Lord Jesus into the world? So you see, and here we're back to the beginning of my circular argument, it's right and proper for us to have a day or to have a period, especially when we remember what God has done, and thus my friends in CPO, who are still going to be my friends even more so now, they're quite right in trying to blanket the country with these beautiful indications that the 25th of December has been set apart in our world for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Come, let's join the celebration. It's a very special day, but it's only special, really special.

Going beyond the tinsel and the plum pudding or Christmas pudding on your turkeys, which for me you can keep, I'd rather have a lamb chop any day, it goes beyond all this. That's just on the edge, you see, that's not illegitimate. We Christians are not doer Puritans, and I don't believe the Puritans actually were doers.

I think they just went overboard on this Christmas thing a bit. You see, we have every right to celebrate, but our celebration comes from the depths of our hearts as we recognize what this great God has done for us in sending the Lord Jesus into the world. Christmas, yes, it's a Christian celebration, and for those who are truly born again, it's devoid of all the myth, it's devoid of all the hollowness of a pagan time of artificial celebration and festivity.

Now, my friend, are you going to put Jesus Christ in your Christmas in the proper place that he ought to have as you acknowledge that he came, how he came, and why he came? Let's pray. Father, we thank you that your word makes it so clear if we're only prepared to work out the meaning of the various terms, what the full significance of Christmas is all about. We want to thank you that you loved us so much you sent your own son, and you preserved for him his sinless nature by the miracle of the virgin birth.

We thank you, blessed Christ, that you were concerned to preserve your integrity down all the years of your short life, and we praise you, Lord Jesus, that on the cross you sealed our pardon, as you took upon yourself the aggregate guilt for the depravity of the sins of the whole world. Thank you, Father, for sending your son. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming.

Bless you, Holy Spirit, that you so play in upon our convictions, upon our emotions, upon our minds, that you make it possible for us to benefit from all for all that our Lord Jesus Christ has done on our behalf. Amen. Let's sing this with spirit, the right spirit.

There is a Redeemer, Jesus Christ the Son, precious Child of God, Messiah, Hosanna in excelsis Deo. The Lamb of God is as child of God, Messiah, Hosanna in excelsis Deo. Thank you, O my Father, for giving us your Son.

For giving us grace and the help of the Holy Spirit. When I stand in glory, I can see His face. When I stand in glory, I can see His face.

Father, for the dimensions of your gift and the way that you apply it so generously to all who stop and request salvation, we praise you. Now minister to all these dear friends here. And should there be any who have been within the sound of my voice who do not really know you, for whom Christmas really is a pagan festival, Lord, we just ask that your word may work in their hearts until the time comes.

Very shortly we ask of you that they may kneel to the claims of the Lord Jesus, recognize that He came, how He came, and why He came. And to you be all the praise and all the glory. Amen.