What Really Happened at Christmas?
Perspective by Jack Kelley
In previous articles I’ve made the case that Jesus probably was born sometime in September so what really happened in December? Is Christmas just the result of overlaying Christian beliefs on a formerly pagan holiday as some believe, or is there more to it?
Happy Hanukkah
Maybe you’ve heard the story of Hanukkah. During the Maccabean Revolt (166-142 BC) the Jews recaptured their desecrated Temple from Syrian dictator Antiochus Epiphanes and undertook a rebuilding and cleansing process to make it fit for worship again. (Angry with the Jews and defiant toward God, Antiochus had sacrificed a pig on the altar and erected a statue of the Greek god Zeus in the Holy Place requiring them to worship it. This outrageous act rendered the Temple unclean and was known as the Abomination of Desolation.) Jewish tradition holds that when they prepared to cleanse the Temple not enough Holy Oil could be found to complete the required 8 day purification ritual. But the small supply they did have miraculously lasted for the full eight days making the Temple Holy again. This event gave rise to the popular 9 branched Hanukkah Menorah as distinguished from the 7 branched menorah ordained in Exodus 25:31-40. The Hanukkah Menorah has a single elevated branch representing the available supply of oil and 8 additional branches, one for each day of the purification ritual. It symbolizes the miraculous cleansing of the Temple and is often seen at Christmas time. Hanukkah is also referred to as the Festival of Lights for this reason.
By the way this Abomination of Desolation is an act destined to be repeated and will again trigger a revolt, this time with God himself as leader and the revolt called the Great Tribulation. When you see a Temple in Jerusalem you will know the time is near, and when you see the Abomination of Desolation standing in the Holy Place you will know that 3 1/2 years of the most terrible time man has ever known have begun (Matt 24:15-21). Whether you see this from Earth or Heaven will be determined by whether you’ve previously accepted the Lord’s death as payment for your sins.
What Day Is This?
As you know Hanukkah takes place around Christmas and I’m going to use this year’s intersection of the two events to make what some call an outrageous claim. I believe there’s a theological connection between Hanukkah and Christmas that does nothing less than state God’s position on the beginning of life.
Let’s have a look at the calendar and discover a fascinating possibility about December 25th. In all probability John the Baptist was conceived in what would have been mid to late June on our calendar and born the following March (see ). According to Luke 1:26-27 Mary conceived in the 6th month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. That means that our Lord was conceived in late December and born the following September. Because the calendars are different the exact dates vary from year to year, but this year Hanukkah began on the evening of December 21st and runs until the 29th. Jesus is called “the True Light that gives light to every man” (John 1:9). Was Jesus, “The Light of the World” conceived during the Festival of Lights? Are we unknowingly celebrating His conception at Christmas, not His birth? If that’s the case do you realize what God is telling us?
When Did Christmas Begin?
The fact that Jesus is God incarnate is amply supported in Scripture, despite liberal theology’s views to the contrary. But when did He become God and why did He choose to come into the world the way He did? Jeremiah 1:4-5, Psalm 51:5 and 139:13-16 all allude to the fact that God knew us at the moment of conception, knew all the details of our lives and considered us human from that time. To merely be with us in human form Jesus could have arrived as a fully grown man, a teenager or even a baby, but He came as an embryo, a fetus, because that’s the way all humans come into the world.
Christmas began at the moment of divine conception. God the Father planned it, God the Holy Spirit planted the fertile seed in Mary, and at that moment God the Son took on human form … the form of an embryo, a fetus in the womb of a virgin. From that first moment of conception Jesus was very much alive, very much human, very much God. He didn’t become the Incarnate God somewhere along the path of His life, or even when He emerged from Mary’s womb. He had been such from the moment of conception (Luke 1:35). God could not have made any stronger statement about the sanctity of pre-born life.
As a poor, unwed teen-aged girl about to be ostracized from family and society, Mary met all the modern criteria for a therapeutic abortion. Had she and Joseph sought one, it would have been just as much the murder of the Messiah as was His death on the cross 33 years later. So the life of the Christ child really did begin at Christmas. Immanuel … God with us. And now you know the adult version.
Merry Christmas 12-24-00
