The following is an excerpt from Seasons of Worship: A Spiritual Calendar for the Church Today.
The season of Christmas is a festive and joyous season, providing a time to celebrate Jesus, the Light of the world, who came to dispel darkness. The Christmas season begins on Christmas Day, December 25, and lasts until January 5, the day before Epiphany. Unfortunately, this season of the church year has been widely misunderstood and the commercialization of Christmas has created a distorted view of the season. Today, Christmas is popularly believed to end, not begin, on December 25, taking away the impact and importance of not only Advent, but also the feast of Epiphany following Christmas. The truth is, the Christmas season commences on December 25 and extends for twelve days.
The focus of a season of Christmas beginning on December 25 rather than ending on that day would be a challenge in our churches. Today, the commercialization of Christmas commences as early as September, with merchants displaying Christmas decorations and holiday promotions. This manipulation leads our congregations to feel like it’s already Christmas before it actually is. Yet the church is supposed to stand against the prevailing culture. By following the Christian year, the church could eliminate some of the hectic busyness that we all feel and use the four Sundays before Christmas (Advent) as a time of preparation and the twelve days of Christmas as a time of celebration. Christmas parties and pageants could be planned to occur from December 25–January 5. Christmas carols could continue to be sung over the two Sundays following Christmas, long after radio stations and stores have forgotten about them. Maybe then we would hear less comments like, “isn’t it sad that we’re so busy at Christmas to realize what it’s really all about?”
The primary meaning of Christmas is that we not only celebrate Jesus born in Bethlehem, but Christ crucified, risen, and returning—and Christ born in us. This perspective invites Christmas to be an important time in our spiritual lives. The fact that God became man—the Word became flesh—provides us an opportunity to be united with God. Because Jesus was united to God, we, through our union with Jesus in faith are united with God. Our spiritual lives are formed, and we experience unity with the triune God. Observing the Christmas season then, I maintain, has great spiritual value in strengthening spiritual formation.
The following poem, “A Hymn on the Nativity of My Saviour” was written by the sixteenth century English playwright and poet Benjamin Jonson. Jonson is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare. Starting as an announcement of Christ’s birth, it ends with a question directed at each of us: what will we do with this information? Will we overlook it, or will we do something about it?
“I sing the birth was born tonight,
The Author both of life and light;
The angels so did sound it,
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light, and were afraid,
Yet searched, and true they found it.
The Son of God, the eternal King,
That did us all salvation bring,
And freed the soul from danger;
He whom the whole world could not take,
The Word, which heaven and earth did make,
Was now laid in a manger.
The Father’s wisdom willed it so,
The Son’s obedience knew no “No,”
Both wills were in one stature;
And as that wisdom had decreed,
The Word was now made Flesh indeed,
And took on Him our nature.
What comfort by Him do we win?
Who made Himself the Prince of sin,
To make us heirs of glory?
To see this Babe, all innocence,
A Martyr born in our defense,
Can man forget this story?
”
©2024 Steven D. Brooks, Wipf and Stock Publishers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author.
If you would like to read more about Christmas and the Christian year, and it’s spiritual impact upon the lives of worshipers, you can find more in Seasons of Worship: A Spiritual Calendar for the Church Today by Dr. Steven D. Brooks.