This is our pastor’s article for the Stone County Gazette. It should be published on December 26th.
Why is December 25th the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth? If we are going to let the earliest history in the Christian Church be our guide, then the early Church chose December 25th to help teach that Jesus became human to die on the cross for our sins.
But first, we have to link Jesus’ conception to His death, for if we don’t do that then we won’t get what the early Church was trying to teach us. Around 200 AD, an early Christian writer, Tertullian of Carthage, wrote that, in the Jewish calendar, Jesus died on the 14th of Nisan. That was March 25th in the Roman calendar (Tertullian, Adversus Iudaeos, 8).
But why does Jesus becoming incarnate have anything to do with His crucifixion and death? Here’s how: Jesus became human for that purpose–to die our death to give us His life! When we understand that was the purpose of His incarnation, the rest begins to fall into place.
March 25th is exactly nine months before December 25th. That’s also the date that we in the western Church celebrate the Annunciation. That’s when the Angel Gabriel spoke the Word into Mary’s ear and Jesus’ began growing in her womb. That’s when Jesus “was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary” (Apostles’ Creed).
Because the purpose of Jesus’ birth was for Him to die for our sins, some thought that He was conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. And so, with such thinking in mind, nine months after March 25th, Jesus was born, on December 25th. That’s how December 25th became our Christmas! It was a means to teach us why Jesus became human, linking His conception and birth to His death on the cross.
A 4th-century, anonymous Christian treatise, On Solstices and Equinoxes, from North Africa stated as much. The treatise reads: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25th], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered” (De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri iesu christi et iohannis baptistae).
But we still have an unanswered question. After all, our eastern brothers in the Faith, Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Christians, celebrate Christmas on January 6th. Why is that? That, too, follows the same pattern of linking Jesus’ conception to His death. But instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar to mark Jesus’ death, Eastern Christians used the 14th of the first month of spring (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar. That’s April 6th in our calendar. And what do you know? April 6th is exactly nine months before January 6th–the eastern date for Christmas!
In the Eastern Church, we also have written evidence that April was the month they associated with Jesus’ conception and crucifixion. 4th century bishop, Epiphanius of Salamis, wrote that on April 6th, “The lamb was shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin, he who took away and takes away in perpetual sacrifice the sins of the world” (Epiphanius as quoted in Origins of the Liturgical Year by Thomas Talley, pg. 98).
Is it not interesting that both halves of Christianity calculated Jesus’ birth based on His death and conception taking place on the same day (March 25th or April 6th)? Indeed! However, because we in the Church had calculated different days for Jesus’ death, we came up with two different days for Christmas: December 25th and January 6th.
