Why Do We Need Jesus in Christmas?

When even the non-Christian religions of the world celebrate Christmas in their own unique traditions, why do we need Jesus in Christmas? The nativity set makes a lovely centerpiece and the children of all ages enjoy the living manger scene displayed but is it really necessary to put Jesus in our Christmas celebration?

The answer to the question, why do we need Jesus in Christmas? hasn’t changed over the centuries. Simply, Jesus is the reason for the season. It’s his birthday, after all; but it’s so much more than that.

Christmas celebrations for non-Christian religions

I never understood why people from other religious affiliations celebrated the birth of Jesus. When I lived in a remote jungle village, amongst a people who worshiped at the mosque on Friday but sacrificed to carved images twenty-four/seven, I hadn’t expected such an enormous celebration over the birth of Jesus.

The festivities began on Christmas Eve with an all-village dance. The eardrum-splitting loudspeakers squawked the unintelligible lyrics of raunchy western-style disco music at maximum volume—all night. Nothing silent about that night.

People walked long distances to participate in the celebration as a family. Large bowls atop the ladies’ heads held the family’s contribution for the feast. The hind quarter of a wild boar dangled from the handlebars of the husband’s bike. (In our African Muslim country, the religious leaders didn’t consider wild boar to be pork, which is forbidden by the Koran.) The village spent Christmas Day feasting, as did Christians all over the globe.

The Muslims told me that Jesus had been a powerful prophet, so the Koran commanded that they celebrate His birthday as they did Mohammed’s. Interestingly, the birthday of their prophet, Mohammed, didn’t last more than one feast day. Few traveled to celebrate this event in another village.

Sometimes, the day passed without our notice–unless it happened to fall on that one day every three months we drove to the city for provisions. Nothing is open on a Muslim holiday.

Jesus is the reason for the season

While other religions celebrate special feast days to honor their particular deity/deities, and there are millions of them in Hinduism, only Jesus’ birthday affected the recording of time.* The opportunity to choose where each individual from every generation and culture wanted to spend eternity changed forever that night in the stable.

Perhaps, it’d be easier to understand why Jesus is the reason for the season if we backtracked just a bit and asked another question: Why did Jesus make His own, personal sojourn on earth so long after He participated as part of the Creation Team?

Why do we need Jesus in Christmas? We’ll begin at Square One. The first verse of Genesis (Old Testament) and the first verse of the Gospel of John (New Testament) reveal that there is nothing at all on Planet Earth—until God speaks it into existence. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit let us in on how it all went down in the beginning. Later, John continued with Jesus as the focus, but first Genesis declared the details of the Creation.

The Trinity sculpted the landscape, filling it with everything needed to live on earth. Wouldn’t you think Jesus’d just drop in to check it out while everything was still shiny and new? It didn’t work like that.

The Creation Team had decided that mankind, created in their image, would have free will–the right to choose to obey their Creator’s rules or go their own way. The Triune God would not make the humans into robots who have no choice at all. Father God wanted a relationship with us.

You might like to take some time to read the Old Testament. Try reading it from the point of view of Father God, not just like a world history lesson. The good news/bad news scenario repeats throughout history—from the beginning of time to the present.

First, the people God made are doing great. Things are going hunky-dory. No problems. Being the Chosen People is fantastic. Until, little-by-little, things began to change.

As so often happens, the better things are, the less God’s people remember Him. It’s so easy just to skip that Sabbath Day worship. Those special feast days the Lord commanded hinder work, especially the Passover and Yom Kippur, which disturbs business for an entire week. God wouldn’t mind if the family sits this one out, would He?

The more they skipped participating in special religious observances/festivals and regular worship services, the easier it was to miss one more. Until the good life… wasn’t.

Their hearts left the Lord, and their intellect followed. Before long, the people gave into the temptation to improve their financial situation by forming an alliance with their enemies. They’d be able to expand their armies, too, if only they’d bow down to the gods of wood and stone.

“Uh, well… okay, why not? It doesn’t mean that we’d need to believe in them, right? Who would know the difference?” They discussed the pros and cons.

Next, came an alliance through marriage. The foreign enemies-turned-partners wanted to marry the Jewish daughters. And, while they’re talking marriages, how about letting the partners give their daughters to the Jewish sons? That would make the Jewish people stronger in the region; that’s for sure.

Hmmm, maybe not. God expressly forbade this kind of alliance through marriage. As happens even today, what God commands gets usurped by the powerful voice of those rebelling against God’s authority. The majority reasoned,”We are here, and they are here so why not just join our families as well as our forces and make one huge happy people group in the land.”

Why not? Because the One Who created them told them not to do that; that’s why! God, in His infinite wisdom, knew all too well that it wouldn’t be his people influencing the foreigners to follow the Holy Almighty God. Rather, the foreigners would be infiltrating His people. Their hearts would turn away to worship gods of wood and stone that are not gods at all.

God had given His people free will. Of course, the people broke God’s law, with disastrous results every time.

At the point of maximum suffering, the people cried out to God for help. The miserable rebels promised all kinds of reforms, if only God would deliver them from these people. God had been right in forbidding an alliance with the foreigners—even those living nearby.

God responded to their cry and delivered them. Great rejoicing filled the land of God’s People. They faithfully followed God’s ordinances and precepts every day… until they didn’t.

Again, they listened to the Deceiver. Again, things went badly for them, as God stood off, just letting them do things the way they wanted. Again, a desperate cry for help. Again, God forgave them, believe their professions of repentance and promises to do things God’s way. Again, the celebration over the deliverance and, again, back on the straight and narrow! Until next time, that is.

The people not only refuse to listen to God’s prophets when He sent them, but they killed them! Something had to be done! Maybe if God dropped in now to be an example for them?

Next week, the post will address what’s known about God’s plan for the first Christmas.

In the meantime, you might like to skip over the admin pages in your Bible and begin at Genesis Chapter One. You won’t go far before realizing that the world needed the Christ in Christmas to make His entrance on this planet. I’m so thankful He came!

*For those not old enough to remember, not long ago time was measured by BC (meaning Before Christ) or AD (meaning in the year of our Lord…after Jesus came to earth). Now, time is noted as BCE, Before Common Era or CE, Common Era, without regard for the historical fact that the birth of Jesus changed the era.