Mags GarganDear Editor, Christmas seems to be assaulting the senses even earlier each year as the media begins promoting the season as soon as the summer months wane. Shops begin stocking festive wares and decorations slowly begin to appear in public places a little bit more prematurely every year. “It’s far too early,” many will say, but just what is too early for the celebration of Christmas?
Christmas (‘Christ’s Mass’) is the celebration of Christ’s birth in the western hemisphere, whereas the Eastern and Orthodox Churches mark it on January 6 or thereabouts.
December 25 was never celebrated by the historic New Testament Church in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, by the 4th Century, as Jews played a lesser part in the Church’s affairs, the celebration by non-Jewish Christians of the ‘Mass of Christ’ now became the norm. This distanced the Church from Jewish teaching and the significance of the Biblical feasts that Jesus celebrated. One such feast is the Feast of Tabernacles, which recalls the exodus of the Israelites as they made their way from Egypt into the Promised Land.
This feast may well be the true birth date of Jesus. As John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, was a priest in the order of Abijah, which can be traced via the book of I Chronicles to the time of year when he was due to serve and when he received the revelation about John’s birth. Jesus was born six months later, according to the Gospels, which is the first day of Tabernacles, or 15th Tishrei (October 9 this year in the Gregorian calendar) yet hardly a soul is aware of it! The true date of Christmas will come and go as it does every year without recognition. Pagan-oriented holly and mistletoe, jolly Santa Claus images and all the expense and pressure that now makes up a modern Christmas experience will once again fill our lives so much that we hardly even have time for God. I wonder which feast Jesus would recognise?
Yours etc.,
Colin Nevin,
Bangor,
Co. Down.