Christmas / Bada Din

Why to celebrate 25th December every year?

The festival of Christmas is celebrated every year on 25th December, and millions of people are participating in this joyous occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ. It is the last festival of the year which transmits the signals of the new year. Out of four traditional 'Quarter Days' it is the most important festival. The other quarter days are 'Lady Day' (Annunciation), 'St John the Baptist's Day' and 'Michaelmas'.

December 25 marks the official commemoration of the birth in Israel some two thousand years ago of Jesus, the Divine Child. Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, who became Jesus Christ, was the source of the Christian faith however, it has come to be a general time of feasting, gift-giving and celebration for people all over the world, of all cultures and faiths. As it actually happens, this date has long been a time of celebration in all cultures since prehistoric times, well before the birth of Christianity.

Christmas essentially celebrates the birth of the Divine Spirit in human form, the salvation of souls lost in the material world. Jesus, the Incarnation of Spirit, is said to have been born in a stable, in Bethlehem (now part of the Palestinian Territories), accompanied by angelic proclamations and miraculous portents – not the least being that his mother, Mary, is believed to have been a Virgin – esoterically standing for the sign of Virgo. Thus is the Divine brought forth from Nature! His birth is also said to have been marked by the appearance of a marvelous star, the Star of Bethlehem, which was followed by three Wise Men (Magi, or Astrologers) from the East, who brought gifts to mark his birth.

Is it fundamentally a celebration of something else?

This archetypal celebration has also spread to many non-Christian cultures as well, for the pleasures of gift-giving and feasting are universal. No doubt the commercial pressures of a consumerist society have seen to that! But does this festival really mark the anniversary of the miraculous birth of the baby Jesus, celebrated by angels, shepherds and wise men from the East, or is it fundamentally a celebration of something else?

In the New Testament, the holy book of the Christians, there is no actual mention of the date of the birth of Jesus and the primitive church did not celebrate it. The shepherds of Luke's gospel were said to have been minding their sheep in a field when they received the angelic proclamation of his birth. It is therefore unlikely that the birth of Jesus could have happened on December 25, for at that time all would have been wrapped up in a warm barn, the wintry weather being too cold for them to be out in the elements.

Why then was December 25 chosen as the day for Christmas?

At the beginning of the Christian Era, the Roman Empire was the dominant force in Europe, the Middle East and the world of the Mediterranean. Rome followed a pagan religion of many gods and goddesses, including Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, the Moon and the Sun. There are many myths and legends that tell the stories of these gods and heroes, really a coded set of narratives that reveal much about the ancient cultures and their approach to life, the universe and everything.
Life in ancient times was far more dependent upon the seasons and the natural cycles than we are in the West today, cocooned as we are in our electronic villages, turning night into an interminable electric day. During times when people could actually see the stars in the night sky, astrology developed as a mode of making sense of these natural cycles and certain times in the year were seen to be especially significant.

Gift-giving

Children and adults exchanged gifts, but the adult exchange became so great a problem — the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer — that a law was enacted making it legal only for richer people to give them to poorer. This custom is still in theory celebrated on Boxing Day, the Feast of St Stephen, when gifts are boxed and given to the poor, who are also due to be given food.

The solstice was celebrated throughout the ancient world in one form or another. In particular, the Romans honored the rebirth of the Invincible Sun with the festival Dies Natalis Solis Invicti on December 25th, the first day after the Solstice to lengthen noticeably.

Quite a few other notable births were honored at this time, including a selection of Solar Heroes: Horus; Attis; Mithras; Osiris; Baal and so on. The winter solstice was honored in the pagan mysteries as the birth of the Divine Child, Sun of Righteousness, Son of Man, Light of the World etc. Christmas Eve, the night before the solstice, was honoured as the Night of the Mother, matrum noctem.

Formal Celebration

Northern cultures celebrated Yule (birth of the child) at this time, from which many of the trappings of the modern Christmas celebrations have developed. Indeed, most of the symbols and emblems of Christmas have been adopted wholesale from earlier and often competing pagan traditions, including the Virgin Birth, the Christmas Tree, gifts, lights, decorations, mistletoe, holly, carols and so on.

Notwithstanding, Christmas is a seasonal celebration of the rebirth of the Sun at the deepest night of the solstice, so is ingrained into the cultural soul of our civilization and consequently has proven impossible to erase. People have celebrated the birth of the Unconquerable Sun with gift-giving and feasting for thousands of years. Whether or not the contemporary commercialization of this spiritually significant time is a good thing is entirely another matter and one which thoughtful people must decide for themselves.