Christmas (Biblical)

As the celebration of the birth of the Savior, Christmas calls attention to the mystery of the Incarnation, the vulnerable participation involvement of God in the human scene. The New Testament offers no directive to celebrate the birth of Christ. The account of his birth is included in only two of the four Gospels, though references to it occur also in Galatians 4:4 and Revelation 12:15. Scripture gives no indication of the time of year when Jesus was born, although some have suggested that the evidence points to early autumn. The traditional 25 December date originated in a Roman winter festival, the Natalis Solis Invicti, a festival of the sun after the winter solstice, when the days in the northern hemisphere begin to lengthen. Despite the objections of many early Christian theologians to the confusion of Christ with the sun god, Christians had begun to celebrate the birth of Jesus on this day by the fourth century. The infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke easily lend themsel…