Do you see Satan’s fingerprints all over American Christmas celebrations? Commercialism, consumerism, stress, lies, and a vague “Christmas spirit” all sound good but detract from the real reason for the season. Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), even at Christmas!
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According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, Christmas is a relatively recent term that literally means “Christ’s Mass.” The precise origin of the name and why Dec. 25 was chosen for its celebration are somewhat unclear. The Christian historian Sextus Julianus Africanus first identified the date of Jesus’ birth as Dec. 25 in the year 221 A.D. According to some historians, this date gained widespread acceptance because the Roman Catholic Church sought to Christianize the popular Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (the birth of the unconquered sun, associated with the god Mithra). That day celebrated the winter solstice with the resurgence of the sun as the hours of daylight would slowly begin to outnumber the hours of darkness. Dec. 25 was also precisely nine months after March 25, which the Church had designed as the celebration of Mary’s conception of Christ; setting the celebration of His birth then was the Church’s first attempt at countering Mithraism and adapting the gospel to culture and folklore to make it more understandable to its hearers. It also placed Christmas on the emerging liturgical Church Calendar as an annually recurring celebration held on the same day.
But this also opened the door to confusion about how to celebrate Christmas. According to History.com, Christianity had replaced paganism throughout Europe by the Middle Ages, but pagan practices persisted. People would first go to church and then celebrate afterward in a raucous, drunken revelry that resembles today’s Mardi Gras. Every year, people would crown a beggar or student as the “lord of misrule,” and celebrants would play the role of his subjects. The poor would visit the houses of the wealthy and demand their best food and drink. In that way, Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined “debt” to society by entertaining less-fortunate citizens.
When Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans took over Great Britain in 1645, they promptly outlawed Christmas as a pagan celebration, in an effort to rid the country of decadence — only to see it restored by King Charles II after Cromwell’s death, in 1658. When the Puritans arrived in the American colonies in 1620, they outlawed Christmas in most of their communities. After the American Revolution, however, when British customs and practices fell out of favor, the celebration came back.
During the 1800s, Americans began to embrace Christmas more widely. But along with the birth of Christ, other elements crept in. For instance, with its message of goodwill toward all people, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol struck a chord. Families saw it as a perfect opportunity to lavish attention and gifts upon their children without creating the impression that they were spoiling them. Thus, the celebration of Christ’s birth began to be diluted and was eventually overshadowed by gift-giving and the promotion of goodwill.
The late 1800s saw the arrival of another element to Christmas: Santa Claus. Dutch families that had immigrated to New York and other parts of America brought with them the celebration of the birthday of St. Nicholas, a monk who lived in Myra (in today’s Turkey) during the early fourth century. He gave away his possessions to care for the poor and was regarded as a protector of children. His birthday was and is, to this day, celebrated in the Netherlands on Dec. 5. He is portrayed as a Roman Catholic bishop with white hair and a long white beard who rides over the rooftops on a white horse, dropping presents down the chimney for nice children and pieces of coal for naughty ones. In the Dutch language, the name St. Nicholas was abbreviated to “Sinterklaas,” which formed the basis for the name Santa Claus. The celebration of Sinterklaas all but disappeared in the U.S., but Santa Claus became more of a central figure in American Christmas celebrations. He took on his own identity, thanks largely to Clement Clarke Moore’s poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which depicted Santa Claus as a jolly man flying from home to home on a sled pulled by reindeer to deliver toys. Political cartoonist Thomas Nast immortalized this description in 1881 into the image we still know and use today.
Why is this significant, and why has a spiritual battle swirled over Christmas as the celebration of Christ’s birth? And more important, why should we pray about that?
The birth of Christ was an event that came under heavy attack from the Enemy.
We commemorate mostly the serene scene of the baby in the manger, the adoring shepherds, the choirs of angels, and the visiting magi. And we wrangled a little drummer boy in there somewhere. But as soon as King Herod discovered that the Messiah was born, he commanded all male children under 2 years of age in Bethlehem and the surrounding areas (see Matthew 2:16–18) to be killed. Jesus’ parents had to flee to Egypt to escape the bloodbath. The spiritual significance of that cannot be underestimated. Herod was angry because he knew from Isaiah 9 that the government would be on the shoulders of this newborn king, which meant that he was about to lose his kingdom. The battle against Christ, however, is not merely about flesh and blood. Satan used Herod’s rage to try and prevent the Messiah’s birth because he knew that Christ had come to reveal the kingdom of God and to disarm Satan and his evil forces through His death on the cross.
Ever since his decisive defeat and the birth of the Church, Satan has actively tried to counterfeit the gospel and to sow confusion about its true meaning. Jesus talks about that in the parable of the weeds, in Matthew 13. It is, therefore, consistent with the devil’s tactics that he should try to obscure the commemoration of Christ’s birth and its significance by means of counterfeit practices and celebrations.
For Christians, though, isn’t Christmas a prime opportunity to be countercultural? We can establish the birth of Christ at the center of our celebrations and prayerfully consider whether other practices should be pushed to the background or discarded altogether.
Even more, we must be conscious of this season’s excellent opportunity for sharing the gospel of Jesus. Amid the worldwide celebration of “Christ’s mass,” it is not surprising that the devil tries hard to drown out the message with counterfeit stuff that appeals to people’s physical senses more than their spirits. Today, more than ever, we must not be like the world, but we should rather proclaim Christ clearly and loudly.
I believe there has been and still is a spiritual battle over Christmas and its message. I have been praying into that heavily during the weeks leading up to Christmas 2022. Will you join me?
Father in heaven, we thank You for the miracle of Christ’s birth that we celebrate at Christmas. God became a human being in Him, born in the humblest of circumstances, so that You could reveal Your kingdom in a way we could understand, and so that He could represent us on the cross, to deal Satan his defeat. I pray that this message would ring loud and clear this Christmas. May the world see the real reason for Christmas in how we celebrate. May human hearts be open to the gospel of Jesus. And may we proclaim this clearly and fervently, as we should. In Jesus’ name. Amen!
Are you taking opportunities to declare Christ at Christmas? Share below!
Remco Brommet is a pastor, spiritual-growth teacher, and prayer leader with over 40 years of experience in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the U.S. He was born and raised in the Netherlands and pastored his first church in Amsterdam. He moved to the U.S. in 1986. He and his wife, Jennifer, live north of Atlanta. When not writing books, he blogs at www.deeperlifeblog.com and assists his wife as a content developer and prayer coordinator for True Identity Ministries. Jennifer and Remco are passionate about bringing people into a deeper relationship with Christ.
Photo by Gavin Tyte on Unsplash.