Should We Celebrate Christmas?

Since the time of the Reformation, some Christians have wondered whether Christmas Day should be celebrated at all. Today, Sinclair Ferguson brings thoughtful and biblical principles to this question.

Well, the next time you hear my voice on Things Unseen, if you’re able to listen to the next podcast, it will actually be Christmas Day. And yes, there will be a podcast, and I hope that even if you can’t listen, you will still be able to find a few minutes of peace and quiet to give thanks to the Lord. And all this week, we’ve been thinking about our need to have this expulsive power of a new affection for the Lord Jesus. But today I want to focus on Christmas Day itself.

I think it’s important for us to say there’s no special holy days now for believers. Yes, the life of an old covenant, Old Testament believer was punctuated by holy days because God’s people had national holidays. Actually, they had a lot of them, but they were religious holy days. And actually, that’s where the word holiday comes from, isn’t it?

And you probably know that before the Protestant Reformation, the church had created a whole calendar of holy days, Christmas being one of them, and the Reformers, especially in my own country of Scotland, reacted against that. It felt the church had been insisting on observations that went beyond Scripture and sometimes against Scripture. And so, all these special days came to an end, including Christmas. In fact, when the Scottish commissioners went to the Westminster Assembly in the mid-seventeenth century—the assembly where the famous confession and catechisms were written—the Scots were appalled to discover that people were not working on Christmas day. And even when I was growing up in Scotland, Christmas Day was only a half-day holiday.

Now, I have Christian friends who maintain that old tradition because Scripture doesn’t command us to celebrate Christmas, and therefore the church shouldn’t. Sometimes, rather sadly, I think that can be expressed in a rather mean-spirited and even spiritually superior way, suggesting that those who do celebrate the incarnation at this time should feel guilty about doing it.

But there are actually several considerations that have led me to believe that it’s both legitimate, appropriate, and helpful for us to celebrate Christmas. One is this: Scripture doesn’t tell us our pastor, or elders, or the congregation as a whole, for example, should have sermons in September on sanctification, or that the last Sunday in some month in the year will be “Missions Sunday,” or that another weekend will be the church anniversary weekend. Our elders, our ministers, make those decisions for the spiritual wellbeing of the congregation. And if we have that liberty, then surely, we have the liberty to think that there would be a time in the year when we might concentrate on the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ and think through, and celebrate, and apply the momentous event of the birth of the Savior of the world. And that seems to me to be perfectly appropriate.

We’re not saying that these are specially holy days. We’re not binding anyone’s conscience any more than when we have a month of sermons on sanctification. In fact, my general observation is that Christians and congregations that don’t mark the incarnation in this way are actually likely to hear fewer sermons and have less concentration on the conception, and birth, and early days of our blessed Lord than those who do.

But here’s something else: you’ll know it’s often said that Christmas is actually a pagan holiday based on the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. But that’s a bit like saying Reformation Sunday is a pagan celebration because it coincides with Halloween. Actually, some churches started holding a Reformation Day service as a direct contrast with the events associated with Halloween. And in fact, historically, that’s one of the reasons Christmas came to be celebrated around the time of the Roman Festival of Saturnalia. It was a way of pointing the pagan world to a better story, to an infinitely greater God than the Roman god Saturn. It was saying, “You are worshiping the creature, and we want to encourage you to worship the Creator.” It was meant to be a powerful witness to the incarnate Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. And in fact, so powerful was that witness that at least on one occasion, a church gathering on Christmas Day was deliberately and maliciously firebombed by Christ’s enemies. So, it’s simply muddleheaded, and I think ungracious, to say that Christmas is a pagan celebration.

So yes, Christmas day isn’t any more holy than any other day of the year. Christmas dinner isn’t actually more sacred than yesterday’s dinner. But like that food, it can be sanctified in special ways by the Word of God in prayer and praise because the Lord Jesus came into the world to be our Savior. And I hope this coming Christmas, you’ll be able to do that and enjoy the day to the full because you actually do it. And if you miss Things Unseen on Christmas Day, let me wish you, a podcast early, a very blessed Christmas.