Celebrating the Birth of Jesus Christ

All my life I have been taught that as Christians we don’t celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ because… no one knows the exact date when Jesus was born and there is no authority in the Holy scriptures to celebrate Jesus’ birthday… we celebrate his death (Lord’s Supper) not his birth.

These arguments began to fall apart for me especially when one of my employees who visited services asked about why we didn’t celebrate Christmas and I trotted out my well rehearsed answer… well know one really knows when Jesus was born so we can’t celebrate it. She responded… I don’t know when my dog was born but we still have a birthday celebration for him.

Then I got to considering just what happened when Jesus was born… an Angel of the Lord appeared to Shepherds and told them about the birth of Jesus and they went to go see the newborn Christ. Their experience caused them to glorify and praise God at the sight of the new born baby boy. On that same occasion (along with the Angel) a “multitude of the heavenly host” praised God.

God led the wise men from the east with a star to go see the newborn King. At the sight of baby Jesus they fell down on their knees and worshipped him and gave gifts… gold, frankincense and myrrh.

So it does seem to me that their is authority to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. God (after all) orchestrated it. The celebrants of the birth of Jesus were the Angel, the Heavenly Host, Shepherds and wise men. Their celebration included words and acts of praise and gifts.

So in my opinion there is general authority to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. We are at liberty however in regards to the specifics of how that celebration plays out.

In Corpus Christi, beginning in November, 93.9 am radio plays nothing but Christmas music until after Christmas. When I hear “Silent Night”, “Oh Holy Night” and the “First Noel” my emotions are stirred thinking about the birth of my Lord and Savior and I usually join in with the singing. What a wonderful thing.

I wonder if Jesus would be offended if in Heaven one day I knelt before his throne and sang “Oh Holy Night” to Him?