Christmas and Easter: Christian “holy days”

Are Christmas and Easter Christian “Holy Days”? A significant percentage of the world celebrates Christmas and Easter, yet few neither know nor care to know anything about Jesus Christ. For those of us who are Christian and choose to celebrate Christmas and/or Easter while proclaiming a connection between these festivals and Jesus Christ, where are these connections based from? Are there any solid Biblical foundations for Christmas or Easter?

What might seem strange to many, especially non-Christians, is that these holidays are strewn with images of Santa Claus, the Christmas tree, reindeer, and Easter bunnies that lay multi-coloured eggs. What do any of these things have to do with Jesus Christ? It may surprise many Christians and non-Christians alike to learn that Christmas and several others traditions commonly celebrated by Christians and associated with Jesus Christ are not found in the Bible. Where did they come from?

In addition to looking into the history of Christmas and Easter, we will examine some of the typical arguments put forward as to why Christians choose to keep these traditions while dismissing the Biblical Feasts of the LORD. After all, even if we may choose to keep Christmas and/or Easter while choosing to define what these various symbols mean to us, we should firstly consider the following: What does the Bible say about how we should worship God? How does HE want to be worshiped?

Christmas

Timmy and the Pastor discuss Christmas and Easter

Richard Shaules - July 22, 2015

Join Timmy as he chats to his Pastor about the origins of Christmas and Easter. What will happen after the Pastor acknowledges the lack of Biblical evidence for Christmas and Easter and points Timmy to an encyclopaedia? Find out more!

Is Christmas really the birthday of Jesus Christ?

Ronald Dart - June 14, 2015

Now I know that that's a loaded question because people will say "What do you mean, there's nothing in the New Testament about Christmas." Yes, that's quite the point! You don't find any reference, such as we sailed away from Troas after Christmas, and you don't find any reference about any kind of a big Christmas celebration in Corinth. If you had mentioned Christmas to a first century Christian, they would have said "What? What's that?" They would have had no idea what you were talking about. In fact, not only did they not believe anything about Christmas, they did not practice anything remotely like it.

Timmy and the Pastor discuss Christmas and Easter

Richard Shaules - July 22, 2015

From Passover to Easter – Ronald L. Dart

Ronald Dart - June 2, 2015

Occasionally, when I have said that “Easter” is nowhere mentioned in Bible, someone reminds me of the incident where Herod has arrested Peter and put him in prison, “intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people” (Acts 12:4). The problem is that the Greek word translated “Easter” is the Greek Pascha which, everywhere else it is used in the New Testament, is translated “Passover.” So why, 1600 years later, did the King James translators use Easter instead of Passover here?

The Origin of Easter Sunday – Samuel Bacchiocchi

Samuele Bacchiocchi - June 1, 2015

The historian Eusebius (ca. A.D. 260-340) provides a valuable dossier of documents regarding the controversy which flared up in the second century over the date for the celebration of the Passover.” There were of course two protagonists of the controversy. On the one side, Bishop Victor of Rome (A.D. 189-199) championed the Easter-Sunday custom (i.e., the celebration of the feast on the Sunday usually following the date of the Jewish Passover) and threatened to excommunicate the recalcitrant Christian communities of the province of Asia which refused to follow his instruction.

When did Christians begin to celebrate Easter?

Christian Holy Days - May 31, 2015

If, after the year 70 AD, Christianity evolved within a Jewish environment that was cult reluctant, how and what did they celebrate? Pharisees and Rabbis structured their time according to the Pharisaic lunar calendar; the Samaritans, like the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls, used the solar one. Those Christians who came from non-Jewish backgrounds brought along their own religious and cultural festivals and liturgical habits, some of which we find gradually introduced into an emerging Christian liturgical directory.