I grew up believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, looking forward every year to the presents and the candy they would bring. Christmas and Easter were the two most wonderful days of the year in my house and how I learned to believe in things I couldn’t see. I never heard about Jesus or what these holidays might have to do with Him until I was in my twenties. My husband and I celebrated with all three of our boys and also plan to with our granddaughter. I have friends who avoid them because of their pagan roots, and I respect that. But whatever their origins, I believe we can claim these holidays for Christ and freely celebrate them. In fact, I think maybe we should, and I’m going to tell you why.
Of course, I could argue that Santa Claus started out as a devout Christian in the fourth century named St. Nicholas, but that line of reasoning becomes more of a squiggle when he morphs into the fat man in a red suit, squeezing down chimneys to leave presents under trees. And the Easter Bunny—well, I’m not even going to try to connect Christ’s resurrection with an egg-laying rabbit who brings baskets of candy for kids. Nothing of these stories can be found in the Bible, no matter how deep we dive, so my point is not to defend the Christianity of these holidays, but also not to dismiss them entirely. Instead, I’d like to submit that, if we’re going to reject Christmas and Easter based on their origins alone, we also need to reject a lot of other things that our Western Christian culture seems to embrace without much critical thinking. But only read on if you’re willing to take an honest look at this. Otherwise, I’m about to ruin your fun for no good reason.
We kick off the New Year with a Roman tradition of sacrificing to the god Janus (as in January). The fireworks we use on that night—and in July to celebrate Independence Day—originated in Chinese rituals that ward off evil spirits and honor their deities. And, while the settlers may have been praying to God at the first Thanksgiving feast, the Native Americans were appealing to their own spirits. Even though Psalm 81 says, ”There shall be no foreign god among you; Nor shall you worship any foreign god,” I don’t know many Christians who have a problem with being a part of these continued traditions. And in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul warns against participating in idol sacrifices, stating that they are “a communion with demons rather than with the one true God.” Most Christians I know celebrate New Year’s and Independence Day and Thanksgiving without a thought for their pagan origins. We dedicate our celebrations to God and thank Him for the new beginning and our freedom and food, and that seems appropriate.
And now that we’ve warmed up, let’s talk about the coup de grâce of pagan holidays: Halloween. I’m not even about to try to redeem the devils and demons and blood and guts that draw so many in. While I do think it’s relatively harmless to let kids dress up in cute costumes and eat enough candy to give them a stomach ache once a year, I’m with you in hating the overtly evil stuff that seems to have entranced a good percentage of our society. We simply cannot defend this one. But instead of outright rejecting it, let’s be honest, we rebrand it as fall harvest or fall festival at our churches, don’t we? And lest you think that’s harmless, you should look into the origins of the pagan harvest festivals that look suspiciously similar to what we do. But those of us who dress our kids up or host fall festivals don’t acknowledge the foreign gods and evil spirits and their authority over the holiday, and I think that’s perfectly acceptable. I might add that it might even be more appropriate to outright reject and rebuke those spirits so they don’t confuse our festivities as an invitation to join the party.
In summary, we can either try to avoid everything that has pagan origins or we can claim them all for Christ and dedicate them to God. He even gives us permission in I Corinthians 8 to do just that. “…We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live…” But, lest those of you who wholeheartedly agree with me be tempted to gloat, if you read the rest of that passage, which I urge you to do, you’ll see that no one should ever hold his right to eat or drink or celebrate above the conscience of his brother. So, if my celebrating a holiday offends you spiritually speaking, I won’t celebrate it—at least not in front of you. So, I’m challenging us to ask ourselves if we might be either offending others with the way we celebrate or being offended because we don’t understand this concept. Either way, we should probably give more attention to that than to the holiday itself.
I want to close with the real reason I love to celebrate Christmas and Easter with all the cheesy made-in-China, Hobby Lobby trappings, and that’s because everybody’s doing it. I know, I know. We taught our kids that was a bad reason to do anything, but this is different. These may be the only two days every year that the whole world is willing to acknowledge our Lord and Savior, but they don’t know who He really is, so these are wonderful opportunities for us to tell them. God the Father sent His Son Jesus to earth to live a perfect, sinless human life so that He could then serve as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins by dying and being resurrected, leaving His Holy Spirit with and in us. When a non-believer listens to that and then asks you how Easter eggs and Christmas trees have anything to do with it, now you have a worthy discussion that will even engage the heavenly host! So do or don’t celebrate, but please leave that judgment to God. Because on the two days each year that acknowledge our Savior, remember John 13: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
