Did Christians co-opt a pagan holiday by celebrating Christmas on December 25th?
The early church in the first few centuries did not celebrate the birth of Jesus arguing against celebrating all birthdays of saints and martyrs. The early church fathers suggested that saints should be honored on the day they died for Jesus.


Previous dates for His birth were January, March, April, May and November. The first recorded reference to December 25 was in the 3rd century.


The date we now celebrate was supposed to replace the pagan holiday, "Sol Invictus" or “The Birthday of the Unconquered Sun,” which honored the sun god on what they thought was the first day of the Winter Solstice.


Historian Glenn Sunshine rejects that premise. He says that it may have reflected an ancient Jewish belief that people were conceived on the dates of their death. Since Christ died on or around March 25th, some Church Fathers believed that Christ must have been conceived on that day and born nine months later… December 25th.


Nevertheless, it’s fitting that Jesus, the “Sun of Righteousness,” “will rise with healing in his wings” on the darkest day of the year as the Light of the World.
I just finished a wonderful biography of my hero, D. L. Moody, the greatest American evangelist of the 19th century. This excerpt sums up the man:


Somewhere along the way, D. L. Moody, the boy who once seemed anything but a poet, became something like one. “Earth,” he used to say, “is the little isle; eternity the ocean round it.”


And he grew fond of quoting the greatest poet of his age: Alfred Lord Tennyson. He wove words Tennyson had written into one of his oft-repeated stories:


“The poet Tennyson once asked an old Christian woman if there was any news.


“‘Why, Mr. Tennyson,’ she said, ‘there’s only one piece of news that I know, and that is: Christ died for all men.’


“At this, Tennyson gave a reply that was one with the message Moody had been telling all his life. Tennyson told the aged saint: ‘That is old news, and good news, and new news.’"
Martin Luther said that there are three conversions a person needs to experience when becoming a Christian: “The conversion of the head, the conversion of the heart, and the conversion of the pocketbook."

Have you experienced the last conversion yet?
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