The Bible In A Year
Advent/Christmas week 2 of 3
December 24-29, 2018
Readings for the week
Theme: Jesus is born!
- Monday A Prophet in the midst of crisis -Isaiah chapters 1, 2 & 3
- Tuesday God gives a sign -Isaiah 4, 5, 6 & 7 Be mindful of familiar lines and images.
- Wednesday -Isaiah chapters 8, 9 & 10
- Thursday -Isaiah chapters 11 & 12
- Friday-Luke 2:1-20
Before reading this scripture passage take time to call to mind everything you can remember about the birth of Christ. After reading the passage list the things you remembered about the story that were not mentioned in Luke’s account. - Saturday-Leviticus chapter 12 Luke 2:21-52
The Bible In A Year
Advent/Christmas week 2 of 3
A Framework for Understanding
Christmas
The term “Christmas” comes from combining the words Christ and mass. On the day when Christ’s birth was celebrated the church has a special mass, the Christ mass. The word Christ is the Greek word for the Hebrew term “Messiah”, in English “Savior”. In Greek this word starts with a letter that looks like an X, so X has been used for centuries as shorthand for Christ. The word mass has roots in Latin, and is used to denote the celebration of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. So Xmas has long been recognized as meaning the Christ mass, or Christmas.
The date of December 25th is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible as the date of Christ’s birth. That date was chosen because of secular or pagan celebrations. It was common for early Christians to take non-Christian festivals and rename the traditions and symbols giving them Christian meaning. The Roman Empire had several celebrations surrounding the winter solstice which likely influenced the choice of this season as the date of the birth of Christ. It is not a huge leap to move from celebrating the rebirth of the sun god, to celebrating the birth of the son of God.
The mention of shepherds in their fields often is used to suggest that possibly Jesus’ birth took place in the spring, when sheep are “lambing.” However, at that point in history, in that part of the world, shepherds spent time out with the sheep in all seasons, as the need called for it.
The earliest written mention of December 25th as the day of the Jesus’ birth dates to a document written in 221 CE (current era). However, the early church did not uniformly embraced the celebration of Jesus’ birth. It would be centuries before it became a regular part of most Christians’ holy days. Even today there are some Christian denominations that do not consider it appropriate to celebrate anyone’s birth, not even Jesus our Savior.