Churches closed on Christmas!

I keep reading about churches that are going to be closed on Christmas day, which falls on a Sunday this year.

What’s up with that? The word ‘Christmas’ comes from ‘Christ mass,’ which is the Roman Catholic service, or mass, for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas falling on a Sunday should be viewed as a special occasion, with people excitedly looking forward to going to church that particular day, not using it as an excuse to close the church doors.

Churches that are deciding to not hold services on Sunday, December 25th, are making a huge mistake. Now, I know the churches planning on not being open on Christmas Sunday are giving lots of justifications for their decision, including the following:

The church is supposed to be reaching out to the unbeliever, and if they won’t come on a regular Sunday, they are less likely to come on Christmas.

The church should promote family, and Christmas as a time for family, not being in church.

Getting help on that day will be hard, and won’t be worth the effort, as we expect a low turn out.

These are all excuses. Cop-outs. They are not credible justifications for being closed on Sunday. Concerning the first excuse, I have to ask, “What about ‘CEO Christians’ (Christmas and Easter Only)?” One of the few times of the year these ‘nominal’ Christians may come to church, and the church doors are shut! This could be the year these people get serious about their faith and their salvation, and the church is skipping this opportunity to reach these folks.

The second excuse is simply ridiculous. What better place for a family to be together, especially on Christmas Sunday, than in their house of worship? Do these ‘pastoral leaders’ think it’s more beneficial to the family to stay at home in their pajamas with bed head? The last two excuses are nothing less than a damning indictment of our churches today and the lack of faith of those who attend.

For crying out loud! It’s going to be Christmas on Sunday! People should be flocking to their churches, not skipping out. The doors should not be closed, but thrown open so that not only can people get in, but so that those passing by can hear the joyous singing coming from inside from those celebrating what this special holiday is truly about.

What’s next? Are these churches going to start closing their doors when the 4th of July hits a Sunday? What about other holidays when they fall on a Sunday? Why not close on Super Bowl Sunday? We are headed down the road where churches will be open only nine months out of the year like schools (Hey, let’s take the summer off from worshiping our Lord and Savior.). Closing the churches on Christmas Sunday this year is definitely a step in the wrong direction.

Parents, think of the precedent you are setting if you stay at home this Christmas Sunday. What are you teaching your kids? You say, “It’s just one Sunday,” but your kids will get the message that playing hooky from church is okay, and it can grow to missing a lot, to not going at all. Is our commitment to our faith so weak that we’ll bail from church attendance at the least inconvenience?

This shouldn’t be viewed as an inconvenience, but a wonderful stroke of good fortune. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but church when Christmas falls on a Sunday. To the church ‘leaders’ who will be skipping church this December 25th, I say, “Do as you wish, but you are jeopardizing your credibility as leaders in a House of God. How can you criticize a member for skipping out on Sunday services to go hunting during deer season, or fishing in the summer, if you pick such a significant day to skip out?” As for my family and me, we’ll still open presents and have a wonderful Christmas dinner, but we’ll work our schedule around the true reason for the season and be at church on Sunday December 25th.

At the risk of great flaming.... (hope not...)
I will attempt to mitigate the point....

Amen #1:
Sunday is the Lord's Day...

Food for thought #1:
In the New Covenant of Christ, the Lord of the religious Sabbath has become the Lord of our primary relationship every day of the week. There is no hard legal requirement to ONLY worship on Sunday - NOR a similar legalistic requirement that we MUST convene EVERY Sunday.

Amen #2:
The Christmas celebration is a wonderful tradition for our faith, recognizing God's unconditional love given to all mankind in Jesus Christ.

Food for thought #2:
The joyous celebration of Jesus isn't locked into any season of the year -- or particular days of the week (...or the year.) These seasons and days are important -- and give us useful traditions for spreading the Gospel.

Food for thought #3:
The Lord's ongoing invitation of reverence is found at the Communion Table and the in the waters of baptism. Our response as Christians is not at all limited to the sacred ordnances -- but in the WILLING giving of our hearts in worship, devotion, and obedience to Christ.

Food for thought #4:
Our ongoing devotion includes life and ministry within the family web of relationships -- Christmas is a very happy time to extend God's love given in Christ into our family relationships. The fun, food, and fellowship of giving and receiving gifts -- The unselfishness and generosity -- I respectfully submit -- therein is ALSO the heart of Christ on Christmas.

So to all who will join in singing the carols and rejoicing in the telling of the story of Messiah on Christmas Eve -- and remain home sharing God's love and goodness with your families on Christmas morning.... A BLESSED AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And to all who will postpone the gifts and the treats until after church or chapel on Christmas Sunday morning.... A BLESSED AND MERRY CHRISTMAS

I would finally offer that we are not degrading Christmas... or Christian tradition by sharing corporate worship on Christmas Eve.. and/or Christmas-Sunday-Morning.

May we please stop sending hurtful words against one another -- and against the Lord's church and His servants in Gospel ministry?

We serve the Living God.. in Christ... through relationships He made possible...

NOT in religious traditions and rituals...

The journey through this life -- together -- is the "destination" of sorts.

May we enjoy the ride...

Jesus came to purchase for us....
ALL THE LORD'S BLESSINGS

Respectfully
Ol' Wings

"The celebration of Christ's birth on December 25th was a scam anyway, created to lure pagans to Christianity."

xrp, you are repeating a lie often told by those who wish to destroy the Christian faith. The December 25 date was adopted by the early Church because it was 9 months after the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25 (the day in which the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was carrying the Messiah in her womb), and the birth of Christ was commemorated on December 25 before the pagans ever held any festivities on that day:

Why is Dec. 25 the date to celebrate Christmas? Two explanations compete.

By: RICHARD OSTLING - Associated Press

In simultaneous pre-Christmas cover stories, Time and Newsweek magazines sifted with skepticism the narratives of Jesus' birth in Matthew and Luke, the only accounts we have since no other chroniclers recorded this obscure peasant's nativity.

It's far less important than those historical debates, but there's also a small disagreement about why the church later chose Dec. 25 for Christmas. Two main theories compete.

One notes that in A.D. 274, the Roman Emperor Aurelian inaugurated Dec. 25 as the pagan "Birth of the Unconquered Sun" celebration, at the calendar point when daylight began to lengthen. Supposedly, Christians then borrowed the date and devised Christmas to compete with paganism.

Aurelian's empire seemed near collapse, so his festival proclaimed imperial and pagan rejuvenation. Prior to 274 there's no record of a major sun cult at the Northern Hemisphere's winter solstice (the year's shortest day, which actually occurs before Dec. 25).

William Tighe, a church history specialist at Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg College, champions the exact opposite theory.

Aurelian almost certainly created "a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians," Tighe wrote last December in Touchstone, a Chicago-based magazine for Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditionalists.

True, the Christians later appropriated Aurelian's festival into their Christmas. But Dec. 25 "appears to owe nothing whatsoever to pagan influences," Tighe asserted. He said the pagans-first theory originated only three centuries ago in the writings of Protestant historian Paul Ernst Jablonski and Catholic monk Jean Hardouin.

Tighe acknowledged that the first hard evidence of Christmas occurring on Dec. 25 isn't found until A.D. 336 and the date only became a fixed festival in Constantinople in 379.

However, the definitive "Handbook of Biblical Chronology" by professor Jack Finegan (Hendrickson, 1998 revised edition) cites an important reference in the "Chronicle" written by Hippolytus of Rome three decades before Aurelian launched his festival. Hippolytus said Jesus' birth "took place eight days before the kalends of January," that is, Dec. 25.

Tighe said there's evidence that as early as the second and third centuries, Christians sought to fix the birth date to help determine the time of Jesus' death and resurrection for the liturgical calendar ---- long before Christmas also became a festival.

The New Testament Gospels say the Crucifixion happened at the Jewish Passover season. The "integral age" concept, taught by ancient Judaism though not in the Bible, held that Israel's great prophets died the same day as their birth or conception.

Quite early on, Tighe said, Christians applied this idea to Jesus and set the Passover period's March 25 for the Feast of the Annunciation, marking the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would give birth. Add nine months to the conception date and we get Dec. 25.

Last year, Inside the Vatican magazine also supported Dec. 25, citing a report from St. John Chrysostom (patriarch of Constantinople who died in A.D. 407) that Christians had marked Dec. 25 from the early days of the church.

Chrysostom had a further argument that modern scholars ignore:

Luke 1 says Zechariah was performing priestly duty in the Temple when an angel told his wife Elizabeth she would bear John the Baptist. During the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, Mary learned about her conception of Jesus and visited Elizabeth "with haste."

The 24 classes of Jewish priests served one week in the Temple, and Zechariah was in the eighth class. Rabbinical tradition fixed the class on duty when the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 and, calculating backward from that, Zechariah's class would have been serving Oct. 2-9 in 5 B.C. So Mary's conception visit six months later might have occurred the following March and Jesus' birth nine months afterward.

"Though it is not a matter of faith, there is no good reason not to accept the tradition" of March 25 conception and Dec. 25 birth, the magazine contended.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/12/23/special_reports/religion/21_50_1412_22_04.txt

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