In Praise of Pagan Christmas
by Jack Hoehn | 17 December 2024 |
There can be no doubt about it: December 25 was once a pagan holiday, the birthday of the Sun god, Sol Invictus, from his winter nap—the shortest winter day that starts the gradual return of longer days, the winter solstice. So let’s celebrate the end of winter and welcome the power of the god-like sun.
What about the Christmas tree? A dying Yule log is put into the fire on Christmas Eve, and a living green tree appears magically Christmas morning. Many trees died in the fall when the sun began to go away, and the bringing forth of new living trees as the Sun would return was celebrated with tree worship hung with round Sun ball decorations as another celebration of solar power.
A tree alive in the dead of winter was perhaps a symbol of fertility? Evergreen trees alive when all others are barren? The holly also green and prickly is said to be a symbol of male fertility? And mistletoe is another mysterious plant that grows from dead wood, so also a symbol of plant fertility, and you kiss under the mistletoe to enhance your own fertility as well?
Gifts at this season? Pagan gods such as Wodan/Odin left special gifts under the sacred evergreen trees. Saint Nicholas just took over where the pagan gods had left off, bringing gifts from Jesus to put under a tree.
So who can fault fundamentalist Christians who don’t want a Roman Catholic “mass” to baptize a bunch of pagan sun-worship and pagan symbols into the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth? “Bah, humbug!” to the Christ-mass, indeed!
But December 25 as Jesus’ birthday also has another possible origin. Around 200 C.E., Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion, according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus died was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar. March 25 was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception. Thus, Jesus was believed to have been both conceived and crucified on the same Passover day of the year. If March 25 on the Roman calendar was the date of his crucifixion and his conception, then nine months later, Jesus would be born, on December 25.
Even if December 25 be of pagan origin and not Christian calculations, Christ has appropriated to himself many symbols from other religions. He took the Passover lamb of the Jew, and became the Lamb of God. He takes Hermes, the Greek shepherd god, and becomes The Good Shepherd.
The cross of Roman shame, Christ changes to a symbol of Christian glory. He takes secular calendars and imposes AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ) on them all. Astarte’s eggs and pagan lilies are now used for paschal celebrations of the resurrection.
Who shall deny the Conqueror of Death his right to take unto himself the birth celebration of the sun, the death of the old log, the life of the evergreen, the round sun balls on that tree, the gifting for Wodan/Odin, and even the kiss of fertility under the mistletoe back to himself? He is King of kings, and Lord of lords. Worship of the rebirth of the sun has been taken over for celebration of the Son who created the sun.
The prophet Ezekiel said of the holy city Jerusalem, “Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite.” Pagan, idolatrous in origin, through and through, and “on the day you were born you were despised.” But “later I passed by…and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine.” “Your fame spread among the nations….” (Ezekiel 16)
Like the old Jerusalem, the ancestry of Christmas and its symbols are pagan. Christmas’s “father” was sun worship. Its symbols are from Nordic gods. But Christ has “passed by” and now they are clearly his. Happy Holidays can be Holy-days. Frosty the Snowman would be no-man except for Christmas. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer would be out of a job if he didn’t guide the saintly Nicolas on his judgment day function of finding out who has been naughty and who has been nice. The pagan word Yule means child, and what Child has given meaning to every babe more than the one born in Bethlehem under a star noted first by pagan magicians?
Christmas and all its tinsel and fluff are pagan, but ownership of this day has been transferred, as shall all things be, to Bethlehem’s Babe.
Ride on, Baby Jesus
for your kingdom,
and your power,
and your glory,
manger born, settles the question
of who really owns Christmas. Forever and ever, Amen.
Jack Hoehn is a retired missionary doctor. He and his wife Deanne live in the Walla Walla area of Washington.
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