F4F | Is Christmas Sinful to Celebrate?!

Fighting for the Faith

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:15

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

00:21

This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. Now today we're gonna talk about, well, what some people call the

00:31

War on Christmas, but I have a different take on it than other people, and we're gonna look at two things.

00:38

We're gonna look at two instances of what I would consider to be backwards legalism as it relates to something that we have

00:45

Christian liberty on, and that's Christmas. So we're gonna be answering the question, number one, is it sinful as a

00:52

Christian to celebrate Christmas? Because you'll note at this time of the year, out come the

00:58

Christmas Karens on social media, and I'm just tired of them.

01:04

And here's what they do. They police social media, and any hapless Christian who happens to talk about how excited they are for Christmas, they get told,

01:15

Christmas is a pagan holiday, it's the Roman Saturnalia, and you can't practice, you can't celebrate

01:21

Christmas, because no true Christian would celebrate a pagan holiday. And they pull out all of this nonsense and basically say, you can't celebrate

01:32

Christmas. So can we as Christians, do we have biblical grounds to celebrate

01:38

Christmas? The answer is yes, actually we do. And all of that other history has nothing to do with what you and I do when it comes to celebrating

01:47

Christmas. So this video will be helpful in that regard. But there's another issue, and that's the war on Christmas that other people talk about, where you have

01:58

Christian organizations putting together Christmas shame lists, and something along the lines of such -and -such a retailer is not properly observing

02:10

Christmas, and their cashiers are not saying Merry Christmas and stuff like that.

02:15

We'll talk about that too, because that's another form of legalism as it relates to Christmas.

02:24

So what we're gonna do, there's no videos that we're gonna be comparing today, we're just gonna take a look at a biblical case.

02:30

Can a Christian celebrate Christmas? Now, I'm gonna grant a couple of historical facts.

02:36

Historical fact number one, it is highly unlikely that Jesus was born on December 25th.

02:43

I don't have a problem saying that. And there's a particular part of the Gospel of Luke that kind of hints at that it's at a different time of year, because you have the shepherds out in the field sleeping with their flocks at night.

02:56

That's not a practice in the wintertime, that's a practice in warmer months. So some of the best scholarship

03:03

I've seen on this puts Jesus's birth probably somewhere in late June or July of the year that he was born.

03:11

But the reality is this, we don't know the day that he was born. But that doesn't matter, and I'll explain why here in a minute.

03:20

So why is it that we celebrate Christmas? Nobody knows exactly why the ancient

03:25

Church chose to remember and to celebrate the birth of Christ on the 25th.

03:32

Now, there are speculations out there that what they were trying to do was sanitize a

03:39

Roman pagan holiday known as the Saturnalia Festival. Saturnalia Festival originally was from December 17th to the 23rd.

03:48

Later, in its iterations, it was expanded out to the 25th, and so this was a debaucherous celebration that, let's just say, that Christians really shouldn't have been participating in.

04:03

And so the theory is, and that's what it is, it's a theory, is that Christians tried to redeem the holiday by, you know, putting the remembrance and the biblical passages related to the birth of Christ on December 25th, to kind of come up with a

04:20

Christian alternative for celebration on the 25th.

04:26

Now, that's, you know, that's the theory, but nobody can actually prove that.

04:32

But that being the case, I want to make something very clear, and that is that one of the things that the ancient

04:38

Church put together was a lectionary. And this is something that has fallen out of practice in much of evangelicalism, and as a

04:46

Lutheran pastor, I'm a confessional Lutheran, that means I'm a conservative, I believe the Bible is the inerrant inspired

04:52

Word of God, I'm not some, you know, wingnut, SJW, postmodern, liberal, progressive, or anything like that.

04:59

But all of that being said, the ancient Church, when they put together the reading plan for the year, the idea was this.

05:08

The basic premise behind it was, in the course of one calendar year, they wanted to teach the full counsel of the

05:16

Word of God. And that being the case, the full counsel of the Word of God, you're going to have to hit all of the major doctrines of Christianity in a 12 -month period.

05:25

That's going to include the Incarnation, the Doctrine of the Trinity, Pentecost, Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and all of the major teachings of Christ and his parables, and things like this.

05:37

And so they came up with a system called the lectionary, and the readings related to the conception, birth, actually the conception would be earlier in the year, but especially the birth, the immediate story regarding the birth of Jesus Christ, those fell on the 25th.

05:59

That's how that worked out, and that's a good practice. Now you'll note that, you know, we don't know the exact day that Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead.

06:14

We know that it's related to the Passover, but the

06:19

Passover is hooked to a lunar calendar, so you know, always and again as I'm preparing for the upcoming months, when we get into the season right before Easter, I have to figure out what day

06:32

Easter is going to be, because it moves around all the time. I mean, the wild swings of two, three weeks one direction or another.

06:39

And I never get verklempt, because, you know, well, how do

06:45

I know that Jesus died on this exact Friday? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

06:52

The point is is that we're reading these texts, we're following a lectionary, and see, the thing is is that so much of evangelicalism has...

07:00

they don't have a lectionary. And as a result of it, you know, you are basically at the whims of your pastor.

07:07

What does he want to preach on this week? But the idea then is that the ancient

07:13

Church took away the pastor's whims and said it's more important that we cover in one calendar year the entire counsel of the

07:22

Word of God, and then do it again, and then do it again, and then do it again. And as a pastor now, you know, for six years,

07:30

I can say that I think this is a superior way to preach the

07:35

Bible, to follow a lectionary, so that every year the people whom

07:42

I serve, you know, they are getting the full counsel of the Word of God every single year, from the birth of Christ, John the

07:52

Baptist, the death, burial, resurrection, we talked about these things, and even the end of the world. You know, we just got done with the end of the lectionary, and we spent three weeks on eschatology.

08:04

You know, the end of the world took forever this year. You get the idea.

08:11

So the ancient Church's practice, this is the reason why it just keeps up coming with these, you know, at these regular intervals.

08:21

That's the thinking behind it. But all of that being said, there's a bigger, broader issue as it relates to Christmas, and that is that this falls into the category of Christian liberty, and I'll explain that in a minute.

08:37

In fact, let me give you, you know, something that's tangential that I think deals with the same concept, because I want to bring up a biblical text.

08:47

If you are familiar with the Jehovah's Witnesses, and now I'm sure every one of you have had the

08:52

Jehovah's Witnesses knock on your door, and I'm one of these guys, you know, I cut my teeth in Christian apologetics doing counter -cult work, reaching out to and trying to minister to and open the eyes of people who were in the

09:07

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, otherwise known as Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses, they do not, not only do they not celebrate

09:14

Christmas or Easter, they don't celebrate birthdays. And I want to give you the biblical reason why, or at least the one that they claim is their biblical reason, and explain why their biblical reason is actually a perversion of Scripture, because there's a very key text that we have to take into consideration on these things, and it's

09:32

Romans chapter 4, but also we're going to take a look at Romans chapter 14 in this regard.

09:39

But here's the Jehovah's Witnesses' reasoning. They claim, and rightly so, that there are only two times that birthdays are mentioned in the

09:49

Bible. This is true. And one is in the book of Genesis, when Pharaoh had his birthday, and the other is in the

09:58

Gospels, when Herod had his birthday. And both times birthdays are mentioned in the

10:05

Bible, get this, somebody lost their head. Somebody died. And this is absolutely true.

10:12

In the case of Pharaoh, I think it was his chief baker was killed on Pharaoh's birthday, and then in Herod's case it was

10:23

John the Baptist who was murdered on Herod's birthday, because Herod's wife,

10:29

Herodias' daughter, did some dirty dancing, and well, we all know how that went down.

10:35

And so here's their logic, and they say something to this effect, that, well, there's a reason why

10:41

Jehovah, and they always refer to God as Jehovah, there's a reason why Jehovah has put these in here, and that's to tell us that he does not will for us to celebrate birthdays, because bad things happen.

10:55

This is a pagan practice, so we cannot, in good conscience, celebrate birthdays. You sit there and go, well, no text actually says that.

11:03

So let me pull up my Bible, and we'll start the biblical teaching portion of this video so you can kind of get the idea of how this all works.

11:12

And let's see here, I gotta go this direction, there we go, and let me pull up my digital

11:18

Bible here, Accordance Bible is the name of the software, I get a lot of questions about that. We always put a link in the description if you want more information about the software that I use.

11:28

But here's an important text, and I'll put it in context, Romans 4 13.

11:34

It's actually verse 15 we want to get to, but I'll start at 13. The promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be the heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

11:48

In other words, Abraham was saved by faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

11:56

Now here's the important verse. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression.

12:07

Where there is no law, there is no transgression. In other words, unless the

12:14

Bible forbids something, you have freedom in Christ to either partake of one thing, or celebrate one thing, or not celebrate, or another.

12:27

So think of it this way, in the case of the Jehovah's Witnesses, what they're doing is they're taking a descriptive text and trying to turn it into a prescriptive commandment that forbids the celebrating of birthdays.

12:41

But the issue is there is no commandment where God says, Thou shalt not celebrate birthdays.

12:50

And because there is no commandment from God that says, Thou shalt not celebrate birthdays,

12:56

Romans 4 15 is in play. Where there is no law, there is no transgression.

13:02

Now, that does not mean that you are required to celebrate birthdays. Nope, you're not required, and you're not forbidden from celebrating them either.

13:12

It's neither commanded nor forbidden, it falls into the category of Christian liberty. And the same thing holds true for Christmas.

13:22

Same thing. And you know, and here's our text that's going to be governing this,

13:28

Romans chapter 14. And here's where the Apostle Paul does.

13:33

He's talking about our Christian freedom. "...as for the one who is weak in faith," and there are some who are, "...welcome

13:40

him, but not to quarrel over opinions." All right, one person believes he may eat anything.

13:48

Well, the weak person eats only vegetables. All right, so are you required to be a vegan as a

13:55

Christian? Nope. Are you forbidden from eating meat as a

14:01

Christian and a vegan? You go right ahead. You want to be a Christian and a vegetarian? You go right ahead.

14:06

It's none of my business, all right? But if you tell me that because I'm a meat -eater that I'm sinning and that I need to become a vegetarian, uh -uh, uh -uh, uh -uh.

14:17

Where there is no law, there is no sin. Keep it to yourself, right? So one person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.

14:26

"...let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.

14:39

Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the

14:48

Lord is able to make him stand." All right, now here's the part now, you got the principle.

14:54

Here's how it plays out now regarding holidays. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.

15:05

Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the

15:13

Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the

15:24

Lord and gives thanks to God. So there you go, all right?

15:30

None of us lives to himself, none of us dies to himself, so you get the idea. So here's how this works out then regarding Christmas.

15:37

I have the freedom, as a Christian, to observe the birth of Christ and to celebrate it in any way

15:46

I choose, as long as the way I choose to do it doesn't steer into sin.

15:53

For instance, I do not have the freedom to celebrate Christmas by getting stone -cold drunk.

16:00

I don't have that freedom because drunkenness is a sin. But I do have the freedom to buy presents and to exchange gifts with those whom

16:10

I love. I have the perfect freedom to do that because there is no commandment in Scripture that says, thou shalt not give presents.

16:19

So you get the idea. And here's the thing, you don't want to celebrate Christmas? For you, that's a stumbling block.

16:26

I totally get it. You are free to not celebrate Christmas, and I will not begrudge you that at all.

16:34

But if you tell me that I can't celebrate Christmas and that I'm not a

16:39

Christian because I observe Christmas, you have overstepped your bounds and you are sinning.

16:45

You are binding my conscience where God's Word does not bind it, and I refuse to allow you that privilege.

16:52

You don't get to bind my conscience as it relates to Christmas. For the past few years,

16:58

I'll note that when I have posted on social media that my intention is to celebrate

17:06

Christmas, always and again Karen comes out. The Christmas Karens who are policing social media to beat me over the head and tell me,

17:15

Saturnalia! Saturnalia! Pagan! Debauchery! Uh -huh, yeah, I get it.

17:21

But here's the thing, I've never worshipped Saturn. Never will.

17:28

And they go, yeah, well, well, if you have a Christmas tree, it was the pagans of Europe that had

17:33

Christmas trees. Well, actually they didn't have Christmas trees, but they did use trees.

17:39

But here's the thing, their gods don't exist, and you can't accidentally worship a false god via proxy, okay?

17:48

I put my tree up in observance of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ.

17:53

Listen again to what the text says, one person esteems one day is better than another, and I do, and I make no apologies for doing so, while another esteems all days alike, and you're free to do that.

18:05

Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind, and I'm fully convinced that it's okay for me and my family to observe

18:12

Christmas. The one who observes the day, listen, observes it in honor of the

18:18

Lord, and I do. I observe Christmas in honor of the Lord Jesus, and it is one of my favorite holidays of the year, and I am not going to let any

18:28

Christmas Karens out there try to steal my joy and bind my conscience as I observe, celebrate, and thank

18:38

God. Thank God for the birth of the Son of God from the

18:43

Virgin Mary, so that I can be saved from my sins. So when I've posted out there that I'm going to be doing these, you know, celebrating

18:52

Christmas and stuff like that, somebody always takes me on. One of the things I enjoy doing, one of the things

18:58

I enjoy doing is pointing out, you know, what it is that my intention is to do on Christmas.

19:07

As a pastor, I lay out for them the biblical texts that I will be reading from, as well as some of the hymns that we're going to be singing, and so that being the case, let's talk about this.

19:24

I think this will be kind of fun. So let me read for you some of the texts that we will be reading,

19:32

I will be reading and preaching on at the congregations that I serve this

19:38

Christmas. Luke 2, in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

19:47

This was the first registration when Quirinius was the governor of Syria, and all went to be registered, each in his own town.

19:54

Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called

19:59

Bethlehem, because he was of the house and the lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

20:06

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth, and she gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling claws, laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

20:20

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

20:26

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

20:32

And the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.

20:38

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the

20:44

Lord. And this will be a sign for you, and you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling claws and lying in a manger.

20:51

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

21:02

I always like to point out, well, the angels got to celebrate Jesus's birth, why is it sinful for me to celebrate it?

21:11

Hmm? And I've had people tell me, well, God doesn't command you to celebrate his birth!

21:18

Exactly. He doesn't command me to do it, nor does he tell me not to. So it falls under the category of Christian liberty.

21:26

Again, Romans 4, 15, where there is no law there is no sin. One person observes all days as the same, other persons observe some days as being special, and they do so in honor of the

21:39

Lord. That's the point. So when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another,

21:44

Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

21:50

And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.

21:59

And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

22:06

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them.

22:15

Yep, that's a good text. Another text potentially I could preach from, standard biblical text from the lectionary for Christmas.

22:25

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great

22:39

God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works.

22:49

Also the prophet Isaiah, two texts, Isaiah 7, 10 to 14, and then 9, verse 2 to verse 7.

22:59

Again, Yahweh spoke to Ahaz, ask a sign of Yahweh your God, let it be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.

23:06

But Ahaz said, I will not ask, I will not put the Lord to the test. And he said, hear then,

23:12

O house of David, is it too little for you to weary men that you weary my God also? Therefore the

23:17

Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name

23:24

Immanuel. So the people who walked in darkness, Isaiah 9, 2 now says, have seen a great light.

23:31

Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. You have multiplied the nation, you've increased its joy, they rejoice before you as with the joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.

23:46

I do think it's interesting that one of the main Christmas texts from Isaiah, it talks about rejoicing over, you'll see here, the birth of the

23:54

Messiah, as like a harvest festival. And that's originally what the Saturnalia was, although it was a pagan holiday.

24:00

I just think it's kind of fascinating. For the yoke of his burden, the staff of his shoulders, the rod of his oppressors, you've broken on the day of Midian.

24:07

For every boot of the tramping warrior, and the battle and tumult, and every garment rolled in blood, will be burned as fuel for the fire.

24:16

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. The government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called

24:24

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government of peace, there will be no end.

24:32

And on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness, from this time forth and forevermore, and the zeal of the

24:41

Lord of hosts will do this. And then one more text, and then I'll read a little bit from one of my favorite hymns.

24:50

So it's Matthew chapter 1, is the account of Christ and his birth, and it says this starting at verse 18.

25:02

Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child from the

25:11

Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

25:17

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take

25:24

Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name

25:30

Jesus. In Hebrew, it would have been Yeshua, for he will save his people from their sins.

25:37

And all of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name

25:44

Immanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the

25:51

Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name

25:57

Jesus. So when somebody challenges me, I usually say, all right, so here's the text that we'll be reading and I'll be preaching on at Christmastime.

26:08

Which of these are pagan? Which of these do I not have freedom as a Christian to read and to preach from?

26:17

And you know, yeah, that's the thing. When you challenge the Christmas Karens, they don't do so well.

26:27

Now real quick, I'm gonna have to open up a program, and let's see here,

26:33

I'm gonna call on my editor to edit this out. And then

26:39

I like to point out one of my favorite hymns, which I always, as a pastor, make sure it gets snuck in during our

26:48

Christmas services. Listen to these words, these are amazing. What child is this who laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping?

26:56

Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping? This, this is

27:01

Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing, haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.

27:08

Why lies he in such mean a state where ox and ass are feeding? Good Christian, fear for sinners here, the silent word is pleading.

27:18

Nails, spears shall pierce him through the cross he bore for me, for you.

27:25

Hail, hail, the word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary. Ah, I just, ah, it's good stuff.

27:34

So the best way I can put it is, now you know that biblically you have freedom. You have the freedom to celebrate

27:40

Christmas, and you do not need to be made, allow somebody to make you feel guilty for doing so.

27:46

Because I am absolutely 100 % convinced, at no point were you ever worshiping Saturn, nor do

27:52

I believe that you as a Christian would engage in or condone debaucherous behavior.

27:58

That's sinful, and that's not a standard part of Christmas. It may have been in the past in certain places, but that's not it at all.

28:07

So you get the idea. Now there was one other thing I wanted to talk about, and the thing

28:13

I wanted to talk about is related to the fact that there are Christian organizations that engage in Christmas shaming every year.

28:21

And over the course of my lifetime, we've seen, you know, the drifting away of American society particularly, you know, from being a nation that you can say was majority

28:37

Christian, to now, you know, the number of people who make up, who are

28:42

Christians, who are a percentage of the population of the United States has dwindled. And there has been a shift.

28:48

And so in the past, I mean, it was unthinkable to go into your local grocery store or hardware store and the person behind the counter not say

28:58

Merry Christmas to you. But the thing is, is that as we've drifted now, and more and more the culture is becoming secular, you have a lot of Christians who think that they're entitled to receive a

29:13

Merry Christmas greeting from the people in their local markets.

29:19

But they're not. This is backwards. And let me explain what I mean by this. It is not the job of my pagan, unbelieving neighbors to wish me a

29:33

Merry Christmas. It is my job as a Christian to wish them a

29:40

Merry Christmas, and to remind them that what this season is really about is a celebration of the birth of their

29:48

Savior. Their Savior. And that Christ the King was sent to come and bleed and die for their sins, and God has given us a great gift at Christmas time.

29:57

It's my job to share the good news with them. It's not their job, especially if they're not believers, to somehow share the good news with me.

30:07

That's backwards. So if I could just make a plea of sanity here, and that is that stop being so entitled as a

30:16

Christian and getting all offended if somebody doesn't wish you a Merry Christmas. As a

30:22

Christian, that's your job, not theirs. So just wanted to get that off my chest.

30:30

So hopefully you found this helpful. If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description, and until next time, may

30:39

God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins, and I pray that this year, and any year that you're watching this video, that you may have a blessed and glorious Christmas as you celebrate and honor the