B ut when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of

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   B   ut when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a
       woman, subject to the law. 5God sent him to buy free-
   dom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could
   adopt us as his very own children.
                                         Galatians 4:4-5 (NLT)

Not a Human Creation
Why did we invent Christmas? And by “Christmas” I do not mean
the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in a stable in Bethlehem around the
year 1 AD, but rather the modern celebration of a year-end holiday
that has become a huge cornerstone of our modern western calendar
and its economy. Over the past 200 years we have, as a society in
North America and Europe, invented and refined and modified this
gigantic annual cultural event. From the writings of novelist Charles
Dickens (whose best-selling little story put Christmas “on the map”)
and poet Clement Clarke Moore (“A Visit from Saint Nicholas”), to
Coca-Cola ads featuring a fat man in a red coat, to Bing Crosby
crooning “White Christmas,” to billions of dollars in advertising, the
modern world is unimaginable without Christmas. And it is possible
for millions of people to go through an entire December without giv-
ing a thought to the actual birth of Christ. Christmas can exist today
completely apart from its origins. So the question I will pose and try
to answer today is: Why did we invent this whole modern holiday
complex?

And let’s make the distinction very clear: We did not invent the orig-
inal Christmas. That was not a human creation at all—not a single

element of it. The whole thing was completely God’s idea. Not only
did He think it up and carry it out without our help or input; it was
also something that not a single person even guessed would happen.
Nor could we have ever imagined it. The central problem of human
nature and human history—namely, how can mankind cure our
deadly sin problem and get ourselves back to our Creator?—was un-
solvable by human intellect and human effort. Not even the smartest
and most pious could come up with a solution.

There were a few human beings who were given by God Himself
various hints and glimpses of what He would do. One suggested that
a virgin would somehow have a baby, contrary to all nature. Another
offered the thought that a special child might be born in Bethlehem
someday. And a third predicted that a direct descendant of the leg-
endary King David would one day arise. But like people who are
each handed just one piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle, no individual
had all the information. And even the scholars who had the entire set
of Old Testament prophecies at their disposal couldn’t figure it out.
Only when it happened perfectly, according to God’s precise plan,
did the various puzzle pieces come together and make sense.

And no one guessed the timing of God’s arrival to rescue and redeem
the inhabitants of Planet Earth. When He came, He caught everyone
flat-footed and unprepared. In hindsight we can see how wise and
perfect the plan and its timetable turned out to be. The Apostle Paul
(years after the fact) hints at this in our scripture text for this morn-
ing: “when the right time came, God sent His Son” (Gal. 4:4).

Today, historians can show us why the first century AD was the best
time since the beginning of human history for a world-changing
message to be introduced. The Pax Romana, the extensive Roman
road system and well-developed sea travel across the Mediterranean
facilitated the rapid expansion of news. For the first time in history
the civilized world spoke a common language. The global spread of
colonies and outposts of Jews formed a ready network of syna-
gogues across the Roman world that were perfect launching pads for

2

the message of the Messiah in every major city. The timing could not
have been better.

Even the location was just right: though the Romans thought of their
city as the center of the universe and viewed the Middle East as a
distant fringe area, when we look at a world map we see it different-
ly. That little strip of habitable land known today as Israel was, in
fact, centrally located as the land bridge connecting Europe, Africa
and Asia. The apostles, fanning out from there in every direction,
did indeed have an ideal launching pad for taking their message to
the world.

The details of the Nativity story, from Mary’s supernatural pregnan-
cy to the “coincidence” of a forced trip to Bethlehem at her ninth
month, to the divine appearance of angels and a miraculous star,
prompting the arrival of eyewitnesses in the form of shepherds and
Magi—all of these elements were too extraordinary and unusual to
be invented by even the most creative human being. A George Lucas
might dream up a “Star Wars” epic to entertain generations, or a J.K.
Rowling might invent Harry Potter and his wizarding world; but
only God could have come up with something as outlandish and un-
believable as what we find in the Christmas story. It was all His in-
vention and His production from start to finish.

The Modern Christmas
But the birth of Christ is not central to modern Christmas. We Chris-
tians have to work hard just to keep injecting into our culture a few
references here and there, as a faint remembrance of the holiday’s
origins. The bumper stickers and signs in church yards and bill-
boards imploring “Keep Christ in Christmas” appear because His
birth is so relentlessly crowded out. But rather than just pointing our
fingers at and scolding those who have missed the point, let’s try to
put ourselves in the mind of those who are apart from Christ to un-
derstand them.

                                                                    3

I will try to analyze this morning why it is that we in the modern
world have invented Christmas the way we have. It is true that, from
a historical perspective, a few of our modern Christmas traditions
had some origin in parts of old Christian customs. For the first thou-
sand years or more of the Church the birth of Jesus was not a big holi-
day; in many places it wasn’t even celebrated. There was no consen-
sus on the date or time of year (many scholars now believe that Jesus
was more likely born in the springtime than in December). All the
emphasis was on the climactic events of what we call Holy Week: the
death and resurrection of Jesus. Those were the milestone holidays.

Medieval churches began the custom of marking a day for Christ’s
birth, just as they observed a day in honor of each of the saints. For
example, a day would be set aside to honor St. Peter and a worship
service on that day would be called “Peter Mass”; other days were
“Paul Mass” or “Thomas Mass” or “Mary Mass”; thus, the day to
honor Christ’s birth would be called “Christ Mass.” Some traditions
began in response to reflections on the significance of God entering
the world. Martin Luther is credited with the idea of putting lit can-
dles on an evergreen tree—evergreen to symbolize the eternal life
Christ brings, and light to signify His entry to a dark world as the
true light. Many of the songs—some dating back many centuries,
such as “The First Noel”—tell the Gospel message clearly (and secu-
lar people today might sing or hum these songs without giving any
thought to their real meaning). The tradition of gift-giving to others
was inspired by the gifts of the Magi to honor the Christ Child—and,
even more, by the words of John 3:16 that “God loved the world so
much He gave His Son” as the greatest of all gifts. These have been
brought into our secular celebrations, but many more aspects of a
modern Christmas have no specific Christian origins.

Christmas Fulfills Human Needs
What is it inside of us that caused us to want to invent the annual
holiday of modern Christmas that is so central to our society? I be-
lieve there are five core human needs that are fulfilled by our hodge-
podge of cultural traditions.

4

1) Christmas was invented because we all have a need for
   Sabbath. The natural tendency of humans is to emphasize
   work above all else, and to require it of others. Ebenezer
   Scrooge was the prototype: in his relentless pursuit of wealth
   and success, he resented giving his overworked clerk Bob
   Cratchit even one day off! It’s an easy and seductive lie—
   that the meaning of life is found only in our work and its
   financial rewards. All the way back in the earliest days of the
   nation of Israel, the principle of Sabbath was laid down for
   the good of mankind.
   The Sabbath was not an act of strict regulation and legalism,
   but of grace. People need time off to be refreshed, renewed
   and recreated. We need regular reminders of the sacred to
   balance out the secular demands of work. And what we have
   invented in our modern holiday tradition is, consciously or
   unconsciously, meant to fulfill that deep human need. Those
   who are clueless to the meaning of Christ’s coming to earth
   still look forward to time off, to the holiday or vacation inter-
   ruption in the regular flow of work. Even the federal govern-
   ment and nearly every employer (except those like hospitals
   which are essential to survival of their patients) expect and
   look forward to their Christmas holiday.

2) Christmas was invented to remind us of the seasons built
   into the rhythm of life on earth. In the Northern Hemisphere
   many of our secular Christmas traditions are really built
   around finding good things in the otherwise-negative season
   of winter: snowmen and sleigh rides and “white Christmases”
   and roasting chestnuts in a fireplace on a cold winter night.
   We have made this annual holiday a way to lighten the bur-
   den of cold and storms and dark nights that come at this time.
   (Of course, we in Florida have to adapt to the irrelevance of
   all the cold-weather imagery—and those customs make even
   less sense in Brazil and South Africa, where it’s the middle of
   summer.) Why has the 21st century embraced celebrations of
   winter? Because our technology has allowed us to be climate-
                                                                 5

controlled indoors, and to avoid the rhythms of seasons that
        were so much a part of life in previous generations. And God
        intended life on earth to exist in a rhythmic pattern. Ecclesias-
        tes 3 says, “To everything there is a season, and a time for
        every purpose under heaven.”

     3) Christmas was invented because we need to bring families
        back together and reconnect them. In past times and other
        places, people tend to live all their lives in the city or town
        where they were born, and to be constantly living with their
        relatives across multiple generations. It is no longer that way
        in a world where generations scatter. How common is it for
        an American family to have children, parents and grandpar-
        ents all living within a few miles of each other? It’s increas-
        ingly rare. So, whether by careful thought or just by circum-
        stance, Christmas has become that glue that holds together
        far-flung and separated families. It is the time of year when
        those relationships are renewed. And we need that. It’s a
        good and blessed thing to reconnect with those we love.

     4) Christmas was invented because even a scientifically and
        technologically advanced world needs to experience the
        mystical and spiritual dimension. We have relentlessly tried
        to drive God out of our lives, and in the process have become
        one-dimensional. From the very first humans who had brains
        to think, we have always had a longing for something beyond
        the physical, the world we perceive with our five senses. We
        have longed for mystery and magic. We have been touched
        by love, by wonder, and by imagination. For Christians, the
        real Christmas story is the time when the spiritual and eternal
        came down and touched the physical world, altering every-
        thing. For those who don’t know or believe, there is still a
        longing for things beyond the material. That is why our crea-
        tive unbelievers have invented all sorts of myths and stories
        (like Santa Claus and his magical powers) to fulfill that inner

6

longing for something more. It is why the holiday movies and
       books focus so much on love and romance—those invisible
       forces that can’t be seen or measured but we know are real.

   5) Christmas was invented because a world that is obsessed
      with the present and the “new and improved” needs to be
      anchored to its past. Culture changes so rapidly today. In
      the west, our memories are so short. We are bombarded
      constantly with the relentless succession of news; today’s
      events demand our full attention, and we forget what the
      headlines were last week and last month. Generations are
      being raised to adulthood with very little knowledge of
      even their recent past. But we were not created by God to
      live just in the present. We need to know the past and feel
      rooted to it. We didn’t invent most of the blessings we
      enjoy; they were passed down to us as a legacy, and we
      need to be grateful. Christmas is one of the rare times in the
      year when even non-believers find themselves looking back
      and remembering—their own past and their family’s past.
      Christians are, of course, a people who consciously exist
      based on the past—and especially the foundations of what
      God has done for us in Christ and the truths He has given to
      us in His Word.

It’s become clichéd and timeworn for pastors in the 20th and 21st cen-
turies to criticize and bemoan the “secularization and commerciali-
zation of Christmas.” I’m not going to do that. Of course it’s true that
millions of our contemporaries are clueless to what the original
Christmas was all about. But I am grateful that our unbelieving soci-
ety has at least adopted the traditions it has. I may prefer the world
to be more Christ-centered, but I will celebrate even the non-
Christian dimensions to this time of year—because they have been
invented to meet real human needs and longings. They fulfill some-
thing, no matter how imperfect they may be, of what God our Crea-
tor put inside all of us.

                                                                     7

The Bonus
As believers, we can fully enjoy the secular Christmas without
shame. Watch and cry during Hallmark movies. Wonder at and en-
joy the artistry in the displays of light and decorations and Christ-
mas trees. Sing the old songs about sleigh rides. Buy your gifts and
wrap them brightly. Bake your Christmas cookies. Send your cards.
Celebrate with those you love.

And as an extra bonus, we get to add to all the pleasures of the
Christmas season the incomparable joys of knowing personally the
One who came down to earth at Bethlehem so that He might live in
our hearts forever. 

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