When Santa visited Israel

I was fourteen years old. The crunch of fresh snow followed my footsteps as I walked home at dusk through the Montreal suburb of Notre Dame de Grace. Tall and dark-green Fraser firs stood to attention, decked out with twinkling blue-red-green Christmas lights. Every door that I passed sported a large green wreath sprinkled with red holly berries. And small plastic manger scenes of a very non-Jewish-looking Holy Family glowed warmly with electric lights.  I could nearly hear the sound of snow falling. This Jewish kid loved Christmas.

A year later, I was playing piano in a dance band at Christmas parties and dances. Santa, joie de vivre, crowded shopping malls vibrating with saxophone-flavored Christmas muzak, and the huge glass window panes of the department store Christmas train display – all these still thrilled me, even though by now I was listening to the Beatles.  Yes, I loved Christmas cheer the way many U.S. citizens love Mom, apple pie and America. But like so many Jewish people, I didn’t really have the faintest idea of what Christmas is all about.

Only after I had a life-changing personal encounter with the Messiah of Israel did I begin to grasp the reason for the season. Christmas is all about the prophesied birth of the Jewish Messiah, and His coming down to earth – to Israel – in order to die on a Roman cross as a Yom Kippur atonement for His own Jewish people (Romans 1:16) and for all the world as well (John 3:16). The best Christmas gift of all is Yeshua – He paid the penalty for our sins and He can wash away all our rebellious ways.

Christmas and Hanukkah are nearly cousins in the popular eye. Both holidays are fêted as festivals of lights. Both are connected to the Winter solstice. Both involve the giving of gifts. Both have tasty foods. And both have customs which are partly biblical and partly traditional. To paraphrase the words of Tevye the milkman from ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ much of these holiday celebrations can be summed up in one word: “Tradition!”

Make Christmas joyously Jewish again

For most Jewish people, Christmas is a beautifully celebrated holiday, but it is definitely not seen as a Jewish one. It is viewed as a foreign holiday, a Gentile celebration, which seems to take place in a far-away and non-Jewish Bethlehem. Yet Messianic believers delight in echoing the angelic declaration about the birth of a Jewish King:

• Now Yoseph also went up from the Galil, from the city of Natzeret, to Judea, to the City of David which is called Beth Lechem, because he was of the House and family of David, in order to register along with Miriam, who was betrothed to him, and was pregnant. While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. In the same region there were shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock at night. And an angel of YHVH suddenly stood near them, and the glory of YHVH shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the City of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Messiah the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army of angels praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased!” (Luke 2:4-14)

And here is a worthy challenge: how to restore the Jewishness of the Jewish Messiah – for the Jewish people and for the whole Body of Messiah – and how to rejoice in His birth, while simultaneously understanding the context into which He was born, and how the original First Century believers perceived that event.

Jewish birthdays

Most people are not aware that in Bible days the Jewish people did not celebrate birthdays. Indeed, the Old Testament makes no positive statement about the celebration of birthdays.  The Encyclopedia Judaica speaks plainly: “The celebration of birthdays is unknown in traditional Jewish ritual” (EJ vol. iv, p. 1054).  This perspective is most likely rooted in Ecclesiastes 7:1: “A good name is better than good oil, and the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth.”

Only in two places does the Bible refer to birthdays. In both cases pagan rulers brought death to someone on a birthday:

• “So it came about on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he held a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. He restored the chief cupbearer to his office, and he put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand. But he hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had interpreted to them.” (Genesis 40:20-22)

• “But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod, so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. And after being prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ And although he was grieved, the king commanded it to be given because of his oaths and his dinner guests. He sent word and had John beheaded in the prison. And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother” (Matthew 14:6-11)

Early Christian birthdays

Early Christians did not celebrate birthdays, as the following quotes reveal. Early Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria (early 200’s A.D. and not really a friend of the Jewish people) explains:

• “Not one from all the saints is found to have celebrated a festive day or a great feast on the day of his birth. No one is found to have had joy on the birth of his son or daughter. Only sinners rejoice over this kind of birthday. For indeed we find in the Old Testament Pharaoh, king of Egypt, celebrating the day of his birth with a festival, (Gen 40:20) and in the New Testament, Herod (Mark 6:21). However, both of them stained the festival of his birth by shedding human blood. For the Pharaoh killed ‘the chief baker,’ (Gen 40:22) Herod, the holy prophet John ‘in prison.’ (Mark 6:27) But the saints do not celebrate a festival on their birthdays” (Origen, Homily on Leviticus 8.3.2)

• “And I … find nowhere in Scripture that a birthday was kept by a righteous man” (Origen, Commentary on Matthew 10.22)

The translator of the Vulgate Latin Bible Jerome (ca. 400 AD) agrees with Origen in his Commentary on Matthew 2.14.6: “We have found that no other people observed their birthdays except Herod and Pharaoh.”  

Flavius Josephus the Jewish historian (ca. 95 AD) communicates a similar perspective in his Against Apion 2:26 over 100 years before Origen, though the official reason given is to prevent drunkenness: “No indeed, the Torah does not permit us to make festivals at the births of our children, and thereby afford occasion of drinking to excess.”

Roman birthdays – not a kosher party

Modern birthdays are a source of joy and delight: cakes, gifts, singing and feasting. But part of the reason that the Church’s original leaders were opposed to Roman birthday celebrations, was because strong demonic and idolatrous elements lay at the core of those ancient ceremonies. An awareness of these spiritual realities was very clear to the Church Fathers; today, most of us are not aware of these ancient and pagan roots.

In Kathryn Argetsinger’s scholarly article ‘Birthday Rituals: Friends and Patrons in Roman Poetry and Cult in Classical Antiquity’ (pp. 175-193), she comments: “The birthday in the Roman mindset was much closer to a cultic religious celebration than it is today, predominantly because each person had a genius (a tutelary spirit) that they sacrificed to on their day of birth. This deity protected an individual for the year, and thus there was a re-up of that protection annually through the performance of a sacrifice. Birthday parties were a key mix of religion and friendship, where sacrifices were made, incense was burned, ritual cakes were made and eaten, and white robes were worn.” Argetsinger adds: “Such birthday celebrations, whether of family members, personal friends, or patrons take place in that crucial sphere where Roman social relations and Roman religious practice intersect, and demonstrate how difficult it is to understand either in isolation from the other.” A Roman birthday (dies natalis) was a deeply religious event, involving the worship of one’s personal guardian spirit (or personal ‘daimon’/’daemon’ called a ‘Genius’). This guardian angel (an intermediary divine spirit between gods and humans) would be propitiated though sacrifices, incense, wine libations, anointing and wreathing a statue of one’s Genius, the dedication and eating of oat cakes, making vows (vota) and prayers for the protection of the ‘birthday boy or girl’ in the coming year.

The Roman grammarian Censorinus (ca. 238 AD) unpacks the term ‘genius’:

• “A Genius is a god under whose protection each person lives from birth… It is believed that our Genius has the greatest, or rather absolute, power over us… Therefore, we offer special sacrifices to our Genius every year throughout our lives . . . Our Genius has been appointed to be so constant a watcher over us that he never goes away from us for even a second, but is our companion from the moment we are taken from our mother’s womb to the last day of our life” (Censorinus, De Die Natali 3.1-5).

Saint Augustine of Hippo in The City of God (8.14) declared that believers in Messiah Yeshua should have nothing to do with such beliefs and celebrations. Traditional Roman households possessed at least one shrine with the images of the household’s penates (deities), genius and other favored idols. Their statues were placed at table during family meals and banquets. They were divine witnesses at important family occasions, such as marriages, births, and adoptions, and their shrines provided a religious hub for social and family life.

Sextus Pompeius Festus in his lexicon ‘De verborum significatione’ (late 180’s AD) stated: “The Genius is the son of gods and the father of humans, from whom humans are born. And for that reason, he is called my Genius, because he begat (genuit) me.”

A Roman birthday involved worship of demons and thanksgiving to them. Many of our modern birthday traditions are based on these Roman foundations, minus the demonic worship. An accurate appreciation of how ancient Jews and Christians  understood birthday celebrations is foundational as we consider what their perspective regarding the birthday of Messiah Yeshua.

The silence of the Fathers

There is no mention at all by early Christian writers from the first and second century, such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200 AD) or Tertullian (c. 160–225 AD), of birthday celebrations. Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264 AD) actually mocks Roman celebrations of birthdays, dismissing them as pagan practices. And no celebration of Yeshua’s birth can be found at this time among believers.

In non-canonical apocryphal writings from the Second Century AD (such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Proto-Evangelium of James), there is no recounting of the date of Yeshua’s birth  or its celebration, though reference is made to arcane bits of information like the names of Yeshua’s grandparents or to supposed details of His education.

These historical facts about ancient biblical culture should come as no surprise.  Messiah Yeshua, the son of David, was a Jew who lived a Jewish lifestyle, and it should be remembered that it was Romans and not Jews who celebrated birthdays. For Gentile (and Jewish) believers in Yeshua, the clearly idolatrous and demonic nature of Roman birthday celebrations made the concept of celebrating the birthday of Messiah an unthinkable idea.

The First Noel

Just after December 31, AD 192, an Egyptian Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria wrote in his Stromata (Greek for ‘miscellanies’ or ‘patchwork’) about the possible birth dates of Messiah Yeshua. His record is the first indisputable historical reference of theologians attempting to determine Yeshua’s birthday – and it came nearly two hundred years after the fact.

According to Clement, several different days had been proposed by various Christian streams, but Clement didn’t mention December 25 as being one of those days:

• “There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord’s birth, but also the day. And they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus, and in the 25th day of [the Egyptian month] Pachon [May 20] … And treating of His Passion, with very great accuracy, some say that it took place in the 16th year of Tiberius, on the 25th of Phamenoth [March 21]; and others on the 25th of Pharmuthi [April 21] and others say that on the 19th of Pharmuthi [April 15] the Savior suffered. Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21].”

There was no discussion or agreement among believers for nearly 200 years after the Resurrection as to when Messiah Yeshua was born, and no trend toward celebrating that event.

Changing days and choosing dates

Roman Emperor Constantine the Great made a legal ruling on March 7, 321 AD, that the Roman day of rest would be Sunday: “All judges and the common people of the city and all the offices of the arts shall rest on the venerable day of the sun.” (Codex Justinianeus 3.12.2). The Hebrew and biblical day of rest, the Sabbath, was not a subject of discussion at that time, nor had it been legally recognized by Rome. Within a very short time, a theological and anti-Jewish teaching sprouted in the Catholic Church that the seventh day of Genesis 2:1-3 was no longer biblically valid, and that Sabbath-keeping was morally reprehensible and sinful.

One of the descriptions in Daniel’s prophecy concerning the ruler of the coming Fourth Kingdom (known today as the anti-Messiah) is that “he will speak against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law” (Daniel 7:25). Constantine’s decision to choose Sunday made alterations in the law – the Torah – of God, and it has left a 1,700 year-old stain on the garment of the Body of Messiah – one which has served to foster Replacement Theology as well anti-Semitic theology and legislation.

The earliest reliable Roman mention of the date of December 25 as Yeshua’ birthday comes from the Philocalian Calendar – ‘the Chronography of 354’ – created for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus by the calligrapher and illustrator Furius Dionysius Filocalus.

A section of this Chronography commemorates the dates when martyrs were laid to rest and where significant dates related to them are remembered(‘The Disposition of Martyrs’). In Part 12 and Line 1, the Latin reads: “VIII kal. Ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae” – “On the eighth day before the kalends of January [i.e., December 25] the birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea.”

“I dreamed I saw Saint Augustine”

The Berber Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) puts the matter of Yeshua’s birth date to rest for the Western Church in his volume ‘On the Trinity’ (4.5):

• For [Yeshua] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also He suffered. So the womb of the Virgin, in which He was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which He was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before nor since. But He was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th”

The Last Days restoration of YHVH’s feasts

Paul the Apostle calls his Gentile brothers and sisters to take care in handling the Jewish people, their calling and their gifts: “In relation to God’s choice [the Jewish people] are beloved on account of the fathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:28-29). He repeatedly warns the non-Jewish part of Messiah’s body about this, using four powerful verbs:

• Do not be arrogant toward the [Jewish] branches
• Do not be conceited [toward them]
• For I do not want you, brothers and sisters, to be uninformed of this mystery – so that you will not be wise in your own estimation (Romans 11:17-25)

The non-Jewish wing of Messiah’s body has largely brushed aside the Jewish priority focus of God’s word, God’s Jewish calendar and God’s Jewish people, substituting in their stead Replacement Theology, Gentile extra-biblical holidays and and a priority focus on Gentile Last Days triumphalism. But the God of Jacob swears on His holy name that these ‘boastings against the branches’ will one day be set right:

• “For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I make, will endure before Me,” declares YHVH, “so will your descendants and your name endure. And it shall be from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says YHVH (Isaiah 66:22-23).

• “Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, YHVH of armies, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths” (Zechariah 14:16)

• “YHVH spoke again to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, YHVH’s appointed times which you shall proclaim as holy convocations – My appointed times are these’” (Leviticus 23:1-2)

Freedom to celebrate as we look forward to Restoration of the biblical feasts

History and Scripture show us that Christmas is not a biblically commanded celebration, nor is the date of Messiah Yeshua’s birth known with certainty. Yet Christmas is a holiday that brings much joy to many believers around the world. At the same time, modern celebrations of Christmas tend to conceal more than reveal both Yeshua’s Jewish identity and the priority calling on the Jewish people (as per Romans 1:16, Romans 3:1-2 and Romans 9:1-5).

Paul tells us that “one person values one day over another . . . Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it for the Lord” (Romans 14:4-6). As we consider the multi-faceted aspects of the celebration of Messiah's birthday, let's remember Paul's words: it was for freedom that Messiah has set us free. As we are called to freedom, let us serve one another through love!

How should we then pray?

• Pray that the true Christmas gift – Messiah Yeshua’s free offer of forgiveness of sins and eternal life – will become a reality for millions of Jews and billions of Gentiles everywhere at this season

• Pray for revelation to be given to Jews and Gentiles across the globe of YHVH’s ways and End Time strategies (especially concerning the sons and daughters of Jacob) as revealed through His calendar and His feasts

• Call out to the God of Isaac and ask Him to shine His light on Israel (promised in Isaiah 60:1-3) even as gross darkness fogs the nations, and for Him to bring the Jewish people into full recognition of Yeshua our Messiah, Son of David, the Light of the world

• Pray for all who stand guard over the Jewish people – for strength, discernment, strategies and balance

• Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth!

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

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