There’s no record of Jesus or his parents making a big deal out of his birthday each year. There’s no record in the New Testament of setting aside his birthday as an important date on the calendar either. And for the first two centuries no one claimed to know the year or the date of his birth. It wasn’t important. 

Interest in his birth picked up in the third century, but it wasn’t until nearly half way through the fourth century that interest in his birth had grown to the point that a Roman Pope fixed a day for it. It wasn’t a brilliant choice on his part, because it coincided with the Roman pagan holiday celebrating the birthday of the unconquered sun, but it stuck.

To support December 25th as the day of Jesus’ birth, the Roman church claimed Jesus was conceived on the spring equinox in late March so, based on that supposition, Jesus would be born nine months later on the winter solstice in late December. And right or not, that stuck too. 

The festivities then chosen to celebrate Jesus’ birthday compared remarkably well with the rituals observed by various pagan groups. “Christmas” entered the English language later on as Christes Maesse, and many traditions from other nations were added through the years – one of the most popular being the Dutch name for St. Nicholas – Sinterklaas, the giver of gifts to children. 

Fixing a date for Jesus’ birthday and attaching traditions to it can be explained, therefore, but it surely begs the question still, that if Jesus didn’t celebrate his birthday, why do we? And what if the one public celebration of Jesus as a baby the Bible does mention, wasn’t actually on his birthday? 

It came forty days later, when Jesus’ parents took him to the temple in Jerusalem in Luke 2:22 to complete the purification ceremony commanded in the Law of Moses for every firstborn baby boy (verse 23). Waiting for them was a man by the name of Simeon, who on seeing Jesus “took him in his arms” and right there in a shout of praise to God, told the world in verses 29-32 what this baby boy had been born for. And then to Jesus’ stunned parents he added that because of their baby boy “the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed,” verse 35.  

Now that’s a message worth noting, because what makes our world tick is people with good hearts, and what makes our world suffer is people with cold hearts. And Jesus came to reveal that, because it gives us the key to why good and bad things happen. It’s the thoughts in our hearts.  

What we and the planet desperately need, then, is people with good thoughts in their hearts. And, fortunately, Jesus is creating such people, by birthing his lovely heart in them. Now there’s a birthday he’d celebrate.  

When the Roman church officially launched the first Christmas in the fourth century it must’ve been a great relief and a time of celebration, thanks to Constantine freeing up Christians from years of persecution. But through the following centuries Christmas was met with mixed reviews. 

It was banned several times, by Cromwell in England and by the Plymouth Pilgrims in America in the 1600’s, and attempts are being made today to remove Christmas in both name and ritual. But it’s also noticeable that any time Christmas was threatened it resulted in serious protest. Through history, then, Christmas has been “lovely for some; for others a pain.”   

And it still is. On the lovely side it’s been a valiant attempt at self-giving love, which is at the heart of who God is. It tries to create a little light in the darkness, bring families together, and for many people it’s the highlight of the year. They love buying gifts, love decorating the house inside and out, love seeing the children’s eyes gleam as they unwrap presents, love cooking up a storm, love the buzz of a house full of friends and relatives, and love the warm fuzzy feelings that Christmas creates.

But for others it’s a weighty burden of obligation. We must buy presents. We must wow the children. We must make Santa Claus magical. We must make the Christmas meal a work of art. We must have a large fir tree in the living room. We must send cards, hoping we don’t miss anyone essential, and we must do all these things even if we can’t afford them. 

For some that’s no pressure at all, “it comes with the territory,” but for others with large, dispersed and mixed-up families, it can be a nightmare of planning, risking all sorts of offence if some in the family feel cheated of the Christmas they had imagined. Gifts are a nightmare too: Who should you buy gifts for? And what do you give to someone who has everything? But anyone daring to say, “I’ve had enough of this malarkey, it’s driving me nuts,” is in for some serious, fire-breathing virtue-signalling. 

It’s interesting, then, that Jesus doesn’t require anything from us to celebrate his birth. He never did. Christmas is our dream child, not his. Paul writes in Acts 17:25, that “he isn’t served by human hands as if he needed anything, because he gives to all men life and breath and everything else.” 

We’ve got all we need from him – joy, peace and love, whether we celebrate Christmas, or not. Which is good news for those who think Christmas should be buried under ten feet of concrete, and good news for those who look to Jesus at Christmas for his joy, peace and love, and he comes through in spades.  

When “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over it,’” the goal was, to quote Paul in Romans 12:2, “to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

In other words, by tuning in to what God had in mind by making us in his image we would discover just how amazing his creation is, and therefore how amazing he is. And if we’d eaten off the Tree of Life we would’ve had God’s own life and spirit being lived in and through us too. So, where would our planet be now if we’d done that? 

Would we be keeping Christmas, for instance? Well, what would be the purpose of it when Jesus didn’t need to be born as a human being to save us? No need for Christmas then. But what about climate change? Well, we wouldn’t need to be chopping down millions of perfectly healthy trees every year at Christmas time, or using up millions more trees for wrapping paper, packaging and Christmas cards. So no worries about the effects of climate change either.  

But what we’ve got instead is a world that’s being asked to indulge us. And it does an amazing job too. Because ever since the first recorded celebration of Christmas on December 25, A.D. 336, Christmas has evolved into the season it is today that demands overindulgence. And it’s even state-sanctioned too, despite net zero by 2030. So, with the blessing of the powers that be, secular and religious, let’s eat, drink and be merry and forget the environmental impact of millions of tonnes of Christmas food waste releasing highly toxic methane, or the hundreds of thousands of miles of wrapping paper and billions of Christmas cards, many of which cannot be recycled. 

But what a mighty planet God created for us, so that despite all the plastic waste, the unwanted gifts, and the massive carbon footprint transporting all our goodies over great distances, it somehow survives the pollution, the landfills piling up with Christmas debris, and the increasing demand on its treasured resources to indulge us. 

How fortunate we are, therefore, that the planet isn’t what we’re depending on to sustain us, because it does have its limits. But above it all is one without limits, “sustaining all things by his powerful word,” Hebrews 1:3. 

We can rest assured, then, that in his capable, loving and powerful hands our amazing planet will carry on, wheezing and sighing for now at our foolish and wasteful ways, but knowing there’s a day coming “when he will judge the world with justice,” Acts 17:31, and we get the opportunity again – since we missed it the first time – to discover what God created us and this marvellous planet for.

In Matthew 1:20, Joseph is told to “take Mary home to be your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” Is it strange to believe, then, that the Holy Spirit might have been involved in our conception too? 

But the fact that our conception actually happened is surely proof of it, because what gave us life? Why did the fertilized egg we started off as decide to divide and create more living cells that automatically developed us into a little separate human?

Well, we wouldn’t be the first to wonder about this – or come up with an answer either – because in Job 33:4 Elihu told Job, “The Spirit of God has made me. And the breath of the Almighty gives me life” – just like God breathed into the first human in Genesis 2:7 to give him life too.

So the Holy Spirit was the Life-giver – a point backed up by Jesus himself in John 6:63 when he said, “It is the Spirit who gives life.” And the same “Spirit of God hovering over the waters” in Genesis 1:2, that gave life to all creation. In Scripture it’s made clear, then, that the Holy Spirit is the source of life.   

The Spirit was just as much the source of life in Jesus too – in both his conception and his life from then on. And Jesus willingly put himself in that situation, by emptying himself of all his divine power and “making himself nothing,” Philippians 2:7. As a human, then, his life’s work was only possible because “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,” Luke 4:18. 

Which is why he “breathed on his disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” in John 20:22, so that their entire life’s work could be the product of the Holy Spirit too.  

Receiving the Holy Spirit later in their lives, then, was like a second conception, but still for the same reason, that the Holy Spirit would be the source of life in them and in what they did from then on – just like the Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism in Luke 3:22 to be the source of life in Jesus’ ministry as well. 

In a human lifetime, therefore, there can be two conceptions by the Holy Spirit, the first in the fertilized egg that became who we are, and the second in our life’s work too.    

Christmas drops a tantalizing hint of a solution to the world’s ills, as the good side of us gets a chance to shine. But a couple of days later we’re back in the real world again, with our political masters up to their usual shenanigans, inflation taking a chunk out of our pocket money, and the usual stress on our mental well being when faced with the lunacy of evil. And our poor kids too, with what they have to put up with from the latest fads being taught at school.

Christmas so far, then, has offered no solution to such pressing problems as poverty, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, or divisions between families and races. And in the rush and pressure to buy gifts, entertain, and make it a day to remember for the kids, when is there time to even question why we put so much effort and money into Christmas when it has so little to offer? 

Perhaps it goes back to its origin. It’s well known that Christmas was pinched from the old pagan worship of the Roman agricultural god Saturn with its traditions of evergreen wreaths, ornaments on trees, candle lighting, gift-giving, season’s greetings, feasting, family gatherings, and decorating homes. Interesting, then, how all that has carried through to today – but for the same reason, to create a pleasant and fun break from routine. As best selling historian Kenneth C. Davis wryly observed,“Christmas is really about bringing out your inner pagan.” Funny or insulting his summary may be, but what else can one say about Christmas today?

Well, one could say, “Christmas is really about bringing out your inner Jesus,” because just after Jesus was born an angel announced in Luke 2:14 that Jesus’ birth would begin a new era of peace, confirmed later by Jesus himself in John 14:27 when he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”

It was his peace, note, not “as the world gives” that offers peace and goodwill through largely pagan and corporate rituals. He promised a peace that no outside forces or man-made rituals are the cause of, nor are they needed. Because he gives us a peace that “transcends all understanding.” It’s beyond anything we can come up with – and it goes deep inside us too, to “guard our hearts and minds,” Philippians 4:7. 

Imagine, then, if Christmas was all about bringing that out in us, this amazing inner peace made possible for us by Jesus’ birth. Would Christmas in that case, then, offer us a solution to the world’s problems?   

With laws now making the choice to end one’s life easier, what would convince people who see only pain and suffering in their future that life is preferable to death? 

It would surely be an understanding of what life is for. But that raises some challenging questions, because for the first ten to fifteen years of our lives we just “live life as it comes” without a passing thought as to what life is for. And when troubles hit in teenage, maybe to the point of contemplating suicide, what reasons do parents and other carers give for not killing oneself and continuing to live? 

But who’s got time to get into what life is for anyway? We spend a third of our lives asleep, another third working, and the other third taken up mostly with personal and family activities. And if you’re ill, frail, injured, homeless and a social pariah, who cares what life is for? Just getting through a day is enough.    

What must God be thinking, then? He had great plans for us, equipping us with wildly creative minds, and placing us in an endlessly fascinating creation that would, as we delved into it, thoroughly convince us that he’s amazing and he loves us. 

But that didn’t work out, did it? Instead, we’re stuck in a world governed by – to quote philosopher Jeremy Bentham – “two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.” But how does that convince a person life is worth living, when life offers little pleasure and a lot of pain?  

Cut to Ephesians 1:5, therefore, and Paul telling us that “Long, long ago God decided to adopt us into his family.” Ah, so that’s what he gave us life for. Meaning that we could have been living as members of his family for thousands of years already. But evil put paid to that – until, that is, Jesus “destroyed the devil’s work,” 1 John 3:8, and unlocked the door again to what makes life worth living, which is “knowing that we are children of God,” 1 John 5:19. 

So what’s that like? Well, that’s what we get to discover in this lifetime now, as bit by bit we come to “know him who is true,” verse 20.    

Would that be enough, though, to convince a despairing person that life now is worth living, no matter what one’s present circumstances are? 

Well, what if someone who’s already been living as a member of God’s family has great stories to tell of God’s exquisitely customized help in times of deeply pressing need – just like Paul’s story in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10? Would that then encourage the despairing person to “reach out for God and find him,” and discover for himself that God is “not far from each one of us” – because we really “are his offspring,” Acts 17:27-28?

The pandemic revealed some rather scary things about government, like its “draconian measures,” but only in response to people who were scared out of their wits and depended on their politicians to keep them safe and alive. 

And isn’t that what government is for? It exists to serve the public need. And credit to those governments that did their very best to do that. But we’ve also learnt that handing over one’s life decisions to government officials can be risky, because government then feels justified in “taking control” and forcing its measures on people, and heavily penalizing those who don’t comply. 

What we experienced during the pandemic, therefore, was a switch from government serving us to us serving government. And for some in government that was a huge rush. They discovered they had power. They could close down entire cities, invoke mandates and even emergency measures that gave them the power of a police state. And they could send in the goons to force compliance too. Scary stuff. Fear of the virus was rapidly being replaced by fear of government “overreach.”   

Things got worse too, as anyone who questioned the government narrative was censored, ostracized, and even hated by family members and whole communities. But worse still, was the discovery that many of our noble leaders weren’t themselves obeying the rules and mandates they were forcing on us. But even when caught out, there was no apology or remorse, just blatant hypocrisy, arrogance, and no change in behaviour.

Which is tragic, because God gave us human government, and when it’s done well it has a huge positive effect on a nation’s stability, peace, prosperity, justice, and joy. “When the rulers are good, the people are happy,” Proverbs 29:2. And in verse 4, “A nation will be strong when it has a fair and just king.” That’s what God designed government for, as a wonderful servant of, and service to, the people – “For he is God’s servant to do you good,” Romans 13:4. 

And one day God’s going to institute such a government, where the increase of peace will never end, and those in charge “rule with fairness and justice,” Isaiah 9:7. So that no longer will there be a question of who serves who – whether it’s government serving us, or us serving government – because both will be a joy. 

Loving one’s neighbour is a great idea, because if we all treated each other with love and respect, we wouldn’t have wars, or power addicted psychopaths, or trolls on social media. 

But that leaves evil in a tricky spot, because if it can’t create anything better than love for neighbour, how does it compete and make itself attractive instead? It can’t mock the idea of loving one’s neighbour either, because too many people have experienced its benefits. But what if it could take loving one’s neighbour and use it for its own ends, and do it so well that people don’t notice, and even fully support it?

Take medical assistance in dying, for instance. Laws in several countries now give people the right to end their lives if they choose to do so when their physical and/or mental suffering from a serious illness, disease or disability in an advanced state of decline is unbearable, incurable, irreversible, and cannot be relieved by any other acceptable means.  

And why would such a law be made? Well, out of love for neighbour, right? It’s to enable an end to a loved one’s suffering, along the same lines as ending a much loved pet’s life for its sake. The person who’s suffering can choose a medically assisted death out of love for neighbour too, to avoid a messy suicide, end the heavy burden on family and other carers, and put a stop to the mounting costs too. 

But evil is subtle. It is the master of the slippery slope. If medical assistance in dying can be justified by love for neighbour, could that be exploited for killing more people, then? Well, yes, as we see in several countries now, where enabling death for problems other than a grievous and irremediable medical condition – like depression, poverty, anxiety, desperation, PTSD, hardship, and even homelessness – are being considered, and with several medical professionals already pushing assisted suicide as the solution. Why? Well, “out of love,” right? “Got a problem you can’t cope with? We can end it for you, and no more pain, my friend.” And for many fragile, disconnected young people, that could sound highly appealing too.   

So love for neighbour is already being used to widen the killing zone, to include treatable illnesses and vulnerable youngsters. Well-meaning this may be in the minds of many, but what comes next – assisted death for babies with disabilities, death for the mentally ill, or deciding death for those incapable of giving their consent?  

Hopefully, it isn’t going that way, but if it is maybe it’s a necessary eye-opener to how evil can take something good and twist it to kill. But also an eye-opener to the mercy of God, who isn’t going to allow evil to kill us off, because he wants us in his family for eternity. 

I notice words like evil, demonic, satanic, vile, sinister, dark, diabolical and depraved, along with phrases like ‘hell is empty because all the devils are here,’ are being openly mentioned of late. But what other words and phrases could better describe the pressure nowadays to normalize pedophilia, or better define the perverted purveyors of child porn, child trafficking, child exploitation, child suicide, child abuse, and sexualizing children as early as kindergarten?  

Compare that to a Nelson Mandela quote, that “Our children are our greatest treasure. Those who abuse them tear at the fabric of our society and weaken our nation” (22 November 1997). He also said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children” (at the launch of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund on May 8, 1995). And of course, Jesus’ statement about children in Matthew 19:14, “for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” 

Originally I had the title above as: “Is demon possession back in vogue?” – because people are doing really weird and awful things involving children without an ounce of conscious concern about how weird and awful they are being. It’s as if they’re no longer in control of their brains. Which is frighteningly similar to those with evil spirits in Jesus’ day, like the man “possessed by an evil spirit” in Mark 1:23, who started screaming in verse 24, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” 

“Us” shows the man had no control over what the evil spirits were saying through him. So I have to wonder when a famous high end clothing company produces an ad with an obvious sexual exploitation of children to sell its goods, but when slammed for it claims it had no idea it was happening, then maybe it’s true, they didn’t know what was being done through them either. Maybe the person who described their action as “not just disgusting, it’s demonic” in the title above was spot on.  

And what does one say about another well known clothing retailer’s commercial that featured a woman’s thoughts before her medically assisted death? Who on earth came up with that idea? Did they even know what they were doing? And did they knowingly or unknowingly include a floating blue whale in the commercial, that’s also attached to suicide, the ‘Blue Whale Challenge’ being an online game that can actually get young people to kill themselves? Was it deliberate, or did they have no clue what they were doing? Either way, it seems they had no conscious governor on their actions, as if they too had no control over their brains either.    

What a promise it is in such a world, then, that ”those who are born of God he keeps safe, so the evil one does not touch them,” 1 John 5:18.  

Before Eve came on the scene, Adam only had the company of animals, which was nice, but at his first sight of Eve in Genesis 2:23, he yells out, “Finally, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” (The Message). The animals were cute and all that, but this was more like it, someone just like him. 

But she wasn’t quite like him, was she? She obviously had different body bits to him, but Adam, interestingly, doesn’t comment on that at all. Nor do we see him scratching his head as if he’s thinking, “Wow, she’s a bit on the spongy side; hope she has muscle enough to skin a beaver.” Quite the opposite; all he can think of is, he’s met his match, not only his match as a perfect companion, but also his match as an equal, and he is thrilled with both. 

And we see that again in his jubilant response in verse 23, when he yells out “she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man.” And we see what he meant by that in the words for ‘man’ and ‘woman’. For ‘man’ it was ish and for ‘woman’ ishah, the same three letters ish in both, to make it clear that he understood – and revelled in – that she was just like him, his equal, his other half, made of the same stuff he was. But he did add an ah on the end of ish in recognition that, yes, there were a few bits different on her, but his focus was on the ish they shared, that despite the little differences in appearance they were equals in every way otherwise. 

And the reason for that is made clear in verse 24: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be united with his wife.” Which seems like an odd statement, because there aren’t any “fathers and mothers” yet, and Adam’s father was God (Luke 3:38). But this would obviously be the pattern for the future, that man and wife would stride out into life together, fully equipped to fulfill the purpose God had made them equals for.  

Which, as God had made clear in the previous chapter, was for the two of them to be co-administrators of his creation to make it flourish. And his reason for their physical differences was to enable them to “be fruitful and increase in number,” Genesis 1:28.

So now we have this picture of man and woman as equals, because it’s in them being equals that they would successfully govern together, and in their differences produce their own little humans, who in turn would leave the nest and make many more patches of the planet flourish too. 

But it was Adam’s reaction to Eve that gives us the key to how this creation would flourish under human rule. He loved her, not only the sight of her or that she was his perfect match in every way, but also that God had given her skills and qualities that perfectly complimented his, so that together they would make a formidable team.