Who First Celebrated Christ's Birth?

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Valerie
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Who First Celebrated Christ's Birth?

Post by Valerie »

There are of course Holy, & secular ways to celebrate Christ's birth- As Christians, are there any grounds for celebrating Christ's Birth?

One thing that I consider is how important Christ's Father made focus on 'events'- in the OT- we see this as His way- I am not sure that He did away with keeping events in focus, and as celebrations as feasts, etc- this was God's idea- and He instituted them- some suggest that because of the Holy Spirit, we really don't need to do that- from what I have studied about the New Testament Church though, it seems they continued to practice this and found it important as well.

Who were the first to celebrate Christ's birth?

From Luke 2:

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

16 And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

17 And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.

18 And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

Now of course- we don't read in the Scriptures that there were 'birthday parties' for Christ- but what we do know, is that this fulfillment of OT Prophecies is extremely important- the Messiah was Born! If that is not worthy of proclaiming and celebrating, what is?
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Valerie
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Re: Who First Celebrated Christ's Birth?

Post by Valerie »

I found quite a few articles about 'calculating the date of Christmas' to celebrate Christ's birth- it's difficult to know who is exactly correct & who is not- I wondered where this idea came from that it was pagan- this article speaks into where that came from- I will share other articles as well- I think most Christians wrestle with this because of the implication of paganism- but in keeping with God's intentions of always having significant attention drawn to significant events- to us, celebrating Christ's birth is nothing to make light of- HOW we do it, makes a difference- but here is one of many articles about it-we read where it was a late assumption by a couple of 'scholars' that all this controversy came to be:

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/a ... 6-10-012-v

One thing that I have read in several articles, when calculating His birth- there is some references as to going by John the Baptists birth because they were 3 months apart (John & Jesus) and they apparently were able to calculate that-

I found this quote which is, if I remember right, also the way the Orthodox explained Dec 25 as the day they chose to celebrate- I don't think an 'exact' date was known? Not sure-

"We know that Jesus born about 14 to 15 months after the conception of John the Baptist. We know that John the Baptist was conceived after Zacharias served in the temple in accordance with the division of Abijah. This only occured twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. Further, Luke indicates that Zacharias did his service with the "people outside the temple". The only time the the people were to be outside the temple, according to the Levitical code, was the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement falls in the fall of the year, from the end of September to the end of October, Julian Calender. One year and two months after that would be the end of December."
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Josh
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Re: Who First Celebrated Christ's Birth?

Post by Josh »

The first celebration? His earthly mother who knew the babe was Christ the Lord. The shepherds awake at night. The angels who had been waiting since creation for this to happen. The wise men in the east who saw the sign in the stars.
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