Is Christmas just a stolen solstice?

“Jesus wasn’t even born in December. The tree and everything? It’s just the Pagan winter solstice. There's no other reasons for Christmas stuff.” 

I get told this all the time. By SO many people. Atheists who left the church because of hurt or hypocrisy; spiritual “nones” who think all religion is basically getting at the same thing; and, maybe most of all, Christians who are trying to purge their life of possible Pagan contaminants. 

Factually, they seem to be correct, of course. There is no passage about pines, no coal condemnations, no mention of mistletoe. And we have good reason to believe that Jesus' birthday was in July, not December. 

So why would we take some Pagan rituals and say that they're about Jesus' birthday? To… trick people into celebrating? Like a kid convincing his gullible friends that the fourth of July fireworks are just for his birthday‐‐even though his birthday is not for months? Seems… like a stretch.

Perhaps the church procrastinated. "Eh, maybe next weekend we'll do your party," they said, until they'd run through the whole year.

Or maybe they just stained the birth of Christ with wrong religion… and it is our duty as the enlightened Christmasers after them to purify it once more. Trees are kindling for hellfire! Mistletoe indulges the lusts of the flesh! The day is marked by darkness! Darkness!

Is Christmas nothing more than a co-opted Pagan practice? Are the traditional celebrations of trees and lights (dun dun DUNNN) *worldly*?

Perhaps that is the point. 

Winter solstice celebrations took place because every year, the earth would slip into death and darkness. Bare branches and solid dirt replaced greenery; birdsongs no longer occupied the skies. The sun would leave for longer and longer—in some parts up North, it leaves entirely! And the air itself turned cold and uninviting. 

There, in the midst of that darkness, loved ones would gather and mark the darkest day of the year with light and life. Evergreens and candles were symbols of hope, defiant on that solstice, that the sun would come again. 

Christmas is not merely the imitation of such hope; it is the ultimate fulfillment of it. 

John 1:4-5: "In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it."

Evergreen hearts have waited in a world that can feel increasingly hopeless for… something. Something better, something warm, something they remember but that feels like it's slipping further and further away. 

Jesus redeems everything. He is what every spirituality, every aching heart has been waiting for. He is that perfect love, that trustworthy leader, that truth, that acceptance, that purpose. 

I think it's terribly ironic that there would be such a concern with "worldliness" on a holiday that specifically celebrates God coming into the world.

Instead of engaging in culture wars, how can we seek the fulfillment of culture?

Instead of drawing away from other spiritualities, how can we press into them? Press through them to what is true?

Jesus took on human form, and in doing so, he radically redefined humanity. 

So let Christmas take on Pagan form and redefine the solstice. For we have a greater hope, a greater light, a greater tree. 

I hope you can gather with your loved ones and recognize His presence in every tradition this year. Whether it originated in the Bible or not.