Christmas with Isaiah

 I have an article in the December 2021 edition of Evangelical Times

Christmas Convictions

(This article was published in the December 2012 edition of Grace Magazine)

Christmas Convictions

Gary Brady

No not the results of the government's latest drink driving offensive but a look at one man's personal convictions about celebrating Christmas

I am sometimes involved in interviews at a theological college. We ask most of the questions but at the end they can ask what they want. I remember an occasion when one student asked about celebrating Christmas and Easter. He had come to the conviction this is something he did not want to be involved in and knowing that not all Christians take the same view he wanted to flag up his viewpoint. We assured him it would be no problem.

He is not alone in his convictions. I know of a minister with similar convictions who regularly goes on holiday at this time of year knowing that most of the church take a different approach to the season. The late Professor John Murray of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, apparently used to really enjoy having the place to himself each December 25, which was for him an ordinary working day.

At the other extreme are Christians who keep Christmas as enthusiastically as anyone. Some will have a crib in their front room, pipe endless Christmas carols through the house and send cards with nativity scenes and texts. Some even talk of celebrating Christ's birthday and the idea of not being in church on Christmas day of all days makes them rather nervous.

What about you? Did you tut a little when you saw that the magazine theme was a Christmas one? Or were you pleased that the subject has been raised again? Whatever your reaction you need to hold firm convictions on this vexed subject but you need to hold them with grace, recognising that not all will hold the same convictions as you do.

What I want to do here is to set out my own convictions so that if you are undecided on the issue it may help you to come to firm convictions, which we all need, and if you are decided you will have a good opportunity to test your convictions and consider whether there might be need for change.

Conviction 1 The New Testament does not require believers to keep any particular festival

Talking about Jewish customs in Colossians 2:16 Paul says do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. In Romans 14 he says (6, 7a) One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord.

Obviously the Lord's Day is to be kept special as it is part of the moral law but with everything else, it is up to the individual. If you wish to celebrate Passover or Israeli independence or your birthday or Christmas or (to a limited extent) Ramadan for that matter, you are free to do so.

Conviction 2 Christmas or the midwinter festival as some want us to call it is a pagan festival

It is certainly possible that Jesus was born on December 25 or thereabouts but the truth is that we do not know, we cannot know and we do not need to know if that is so. It is true that large numbers of people celebrate his birthday at this time of the year but that is undeniably tied into the pre-Christian traditions that existed in communities in the northern hemisphere long before they heard the gospel.

Wherever Christians have gone, they have attempted to transform pagan customs into something more Christian. There is some evidence, for example, that Boniface the sixth century missionary to the Germans tried to stop pagan tree worship but still encouraged the custom of cutting down a fir tree and bringing it into the house in winter.

We may feel that pagan customs are better abandoned rather than adapted but the fact is that year by year we are confronted by pagan traditions, often with but increasingly without a Christian veneer, and we need to decide how to react. To do so we must try not to confuse what is allowable for a Christian to do with what it is necessary for him to do. It is allowable for a Christian to put a tree in his house and decorate it or eat plum pudding or wear a paper hat and blow a party puffer. It is allowable for him to celebrate Christ's birth with songs and readings and sermons any day of the year. None of these things are necessary for him to do.

Conviction 3 Christmas or the midwinter festival is a good idea for many

If you live in the northern hemisphere, winter is long and dreary. Splitting it up with a celebration in the middle makes good sense psychologically. If at the same time lots of people want to say it is a time to celebrate Christ's birth then rather than complaining about it, take advantage of the opportunity to talk about his birth, his life and his death too and how to come to him.

Having said that it is a pagan festival, if we are going to celebrate it then we must nevertheless be careful to celebrate it in a Christian way. Can we justify the amount we are spending albeit on other members of the family? Is slumping in front of the TV for more than a few hours a good idea? What about all that food and drink – is it right to so indulge? Are we just being swept along with it all and not thinking about how to glorify God? These are the sorts of questions to ask.

More positively, many will want to go further and not simply seek to shun the commercialised and pagan Christmas that is so common but really celebrate the fact of our Saviour's birth. When he saw Christmas trees Luther would famously speak about how Jesus the Light of the World has come into this dark world. That fact beats anything the world has to offer.

Conviction 4 No celebration should be allowed to unduly interfere with the Lord's Day

I do not know how you celebrate Christmas Day. For many people it includes a number of things that they would not normally do on the Lord's Day. It is important not to let anything interfere with keeping the Lord's Day, as far as possible and so when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, as it will this year, it is wise for those who mark it to think ahead and consider how best they can handle possible conflicts. For many of us, it will be wisest if, this year at least, we do many of the things that we normally do on December 25 the day before or the day after.

It is better to give than to receive

If you pick up one of those rather odd Bibles – a red letter Bible, one with all the words of our Lord printed in red, you will find that most of the red print is, understandably, in the Gospels at the beginning of the New Testament. You will also find some at the end in Revelation, one or two elsewhere, and a few in Acts. Of those in Acts the most interesting is Acts 20:35, where Paul quotes a saying of the Lord Jesus not found anywhere else It is more blessed to give than to receive.

This could, perhaps, be a summary of the Lord’s teaching but is much more likely to be an actual saying. As John intimates (John 21:25), Jesus did and said a great deal more than we have preserved for us in the Gospels. Even the most detailed biography of a man’s life cannot hope to cover everything that has gone on. It should be no surprise to us, therefore, that there are acts and sayings not included in the Gospels. Perhaps what is surprising is that this was a well known saying in Ephesus and yet has only been preserved here. No doubt written or oral collections of Jesus’ sayings were circulating at this early date (about 57 AD). ‘Have we lost other well known sayings too?’ we wonder. A number of independent sayings can be found in ancient literature but this is the only one we can be completely sure is genuine.

Roots

As with certain other sayings of Jesus you can find parallels to this one from other sources. For example, Aristotle said ‘It is more becoming for a free man to give where he must than to receive where he must.’

As with other sayings of Jesus its roots can better be traced to biblical proverbs such as these:

11:24-26 One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. People curse the man who hoards grain, but blessing crowns him who is willing to sell.

14:21 He who despises his neighbour sins, but blessed is he who is kind to the needy.

14:31 He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honours God.

19:17 He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done.

22:9 A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.

28:27 He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.

It is reminiscent of another sayings found in Luke 6:30, 35, 38 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back … But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. … Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Of course, the very word blessed was one our Lord often used. J A Alexander says of the saying ‘The words themselves are exquisitely simple, but embody an important truth and principle of action.’

 

Meaning

On the face of it the saying seems wrong. ‘Silly the giver, lucky the receiver’ is more in tune with the world’s attitude. We instinctively question it. No doubt it is put in this way to give it force. Jesus is not saying ‘There is no blessing in receiving’. Of course, there is. Around this time of the year most of us receive gifts of one sort or another. Perhaps some of them are not ‘just what we always wanted’ but even then we can often appreciate the thought at least. To receive is a blessing and that is not denied here. It makes you happy, it encourages and pleases. It is, more often than not, an advantage to receive from others.

However, the argument is that it is more blessed to give. We do not find it difficult to see the advantages in receiving, but Jesus wants us to see that there are greater advantages in giving. The chief reason this is so is because it reflects the character of God himself. He is the God who gives. This reminds us of Jesus’s saying (preserved in Mark 10:45) that he himself came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. As Simon Kistemaker puts it ‘When man follows God’s example, he receives a divine blessing because he demonstrates that he is one of God’s children’.

John Gill helpfully speaks of the blessing as marked by greater comfort, honour, pleasure and profit. 

• Greater comfort because the giver obviously has ‘an abundance or at least a sufficiency and something to spare’
• Greater honour as ‘honour is reflected upon the giver, both by the receiver, and others; when to receive … carries in it, among men, some degree of dishonour’.
• Greater pleasure, whereas ‘to be in such circumstances, as make it necessary … to receive from others, and be dependent on them’ cannot be pleasurable.
• Greater profit ‘both in this world, and that to come’.

Another writer says it is more blessed to give because 

• It delivers us from ourselves – especially from selfishness and excess
• It unites us with those we give to, who are thankful and who pray for us if they are believers
• It brings us nearer to God as we imitate him, share in his delight and wait for out reward

This is a lesson we need to learn – not only at this time but for always. We must help the weak. It is a command. We ought to be motivated both by obedience to Christ and hope of blessing. Who gave more than any other? It is Christ. And who is more blessed than he? If we want to know God’s blessing we will be generous hearted, giving people who like the Apostle Paul are willing to do anything that the gospel may go out.
This article first appeared in Grace Magazine