Like so many events in early Christianity, the development of the commemoration of Jesus’ birth is largely unknown. Its relative unimportance is even suggested in the Gospels where Mark((Probably. There are some suggestions that Mark as we currently have it is missing a beginning and ending — perhaps the first and last few pages of the codex — or role edges — decayed.)) and John omit any wider telling. The latter, of course, summarizes the narratives in Matthew and Luke as ‘the Word became flesh’.

And, as with the Gospels lack of attention to the birth narratives, their exceptional attention to the final days leading to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection is similarly reflected in the early commemoration of Easter. The death and resurrection (and its profound consequences) was celebrated not merely annually on Passover/Pesach (or thereabouts), but at the start of each week. Jesus’ resurrection symbolized the beginning of God’s rule, of God’s new creation. A date in the early spring only enhances its significance.

Pentecost — the coming of the Holy Spirit on those first Christians — was also celebrated from the earliest days, borrowing these days from its Jewish antecedents — Christianity was, after all, a Jewish sect. In the view of Christianity’s earliest adherents, Jesus had given new meaning to Passover/Pesach, as well as to the Feast of Weeks (i.e., Pentecost).

But the Nativity of Jesus had no such designation. There were some attempts in the third and fourth centuries at speculating on a possible date. Perhaps March? Or April? Who knew?

Well, one might, it was observed, be able to calculate a date if one could work backwards from Jesus’ execution to his birth. If one gave his ministry about 3 years (one can count 3 Passovers in the Gospel account), and then took Luke 3.23 as an indication that Jesus was exactly 30 years old (never mind the modifier ὡσεί/’about’), we might get close. Hippolytus of Rome may have done just such a calculation in the early third century.((I have had trouble determining the provenance of this passage in Hippolytus’ Commentary on Daniel 4.23.3. It is not present, e.g., in New Advent and most of the citations I see point to this text. Even if it proves to not be authentic, I think the general idea of Hippolytus’ calculation to arrive at 25 December quite reasonable. Whoever did it likely followed a similar process. E.g., George Goodwin argues for something similar in a podcast, though his sources are rather unclear.)) Hippolytus thus arrived on a 25 March 3 BC-ish date, but ascribed this as the Annunciation when an angel announced to the Jewish teen that she would bear God. Presumably, this was the moment of the incarnation when Mary became pregnant. Nine months later, a child would be born; nine months from 25 March is 25 December.

In the East, a similar set of calculations seems to have ended on 6 January (starting from a 6 April for Jesus’ resurrection and conception). These two dates were celebrated as a single event, but by the end of the fourth century, they appear to have taken on unique characteristics: the former date for Jesus’ birth (Christmas), and the latter for the arrival of the magi (Epiphany).

The date itself is not of great significance, but what the date signifies is. St. Chrysostom, for example, stresses the importance of Christmas — without it, Epiphany, Easter, and the other festivals would be impossible. Christmas signified the incarnation: the beginning of God’s restoration project. It, thus, does not seem out of place for modern celebrations, of gift-giving, time spent with family, lights illuminating every house and tree, and so forth. The event is worthy of celebration and we should celebrate it as best we know how. And, as Chrysostom suggests, we should take Christmas as an opportunity to look forward to the forthcoming celebrations:

  • Epiphany as those from every corner of the globe are invited to become part of this new ‘race'((Epistle to Diognetus)) where there is no favoritism of Jew, Greek, male, female, etc.;
  • Easter as Jesus dies for the sins of the world and restores humanity to God in his resurrection; and
  • Pentecost as the promised Holy Spirit arrives to guide and comfort the Jesus movement across thousands of years.

At Christmas, we begin the annual 3-month process of following Jesus as he traversed from Galilee to Jerusalem. These are no ordinary days.

One of my favorite texts on the significance of the Incarnation is that of Athanasius. It can be read in full here, but let me quote at length from 4.13-14:

What was God to do in face of this dehumanising of mankind, this universal hiding of the knowledge of Himself by the wiles of evil spirits? Was He to keep silence before so great a wrong and let men go on being thus deceived and kept in ignorance of Himself? If so, what was the use of having made them in His own Image originally? It would surely have been better for them always to have been brutes, rather than to revert to that condition when once they had shared the nature of the Word. Again, things being as they were, what was the use of their ever having had the knowledge of God? Surely it would have been better for God never to have bestowed it, than that men should subsequently be found unworthy to receive it. Similarly, what possible profit could it be to God Himself, Who made men, if when made they did not worship Him, but regarded others as their makers? 

This would be tantamount to His having made them for others and not for Himself. Even an earthly king, though he is only a man, does not allow lands that he has colonized to pass into other hands or to desert to other rulers, but sends letters and friends and even visits them himself to recall them to their allegiance, rather than allow His work to be undone. How much more, then, will God be patient and painstaking with His creatures, that they be not led astray from Him to the service of those that are not, and that all the more because such error means for them sheer ruin, and because it is not right that those who had once shared His Image should be destroyed.

What, then, was God to do? What else could He possibly do, being God, but renew His Image in mankind, so that through it men might once more come to know Him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Savior Jesus Christ? Men could not have done it, for they are only made after the Image; nor could angels have done it, for they are not the images of God. The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was He alone, the Image of the Father Who could recreate man made after the Image.

In order to effect this re-creation, however, He had first to do away with death and corruption. Therefore He assumed a human body, in order that in it death might once for all be destroyed, and that men might be renewed according to the Image. The Image of the Father only was sufficient for this need. Here is an illustration to prove it.

You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself, and seek out His lost sheep, even as He says in the Gospel: "I came to seek and to save that which was lost. This also explains His saying to the Jews: "Except a man be born anew . . ." a He was not referring to a man's natural birth from his mother, as they thought, but to the re-birth and re-creation of the soul in the Image of God.