Christmas Countdown December 9 Must Be Tonight?

No one knows the exact day of the birth of Jesus Christ. Scholars cannot even pinpoint the exact year the birth took place, putting it somewhere between 7 B.C. and 4 B.C. Doing some net surfing I came across a study that claims September 11, 3 B.C. is the exact day. The study is suspect as it seems to have been done by an Englishman, and the English are a group of people who don't think it's a good idea to put fluoride in the water. To be fair, Jesus was born over 2,000 years ago and over such a period of time facts can get a little murky.

So why do we celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th? There is some tradition there. St. Hippolytus, living in the second century A.D. (he wasn't a saint then, that came later), argued that December 25th was the exact date. But is there historical accuracy to the assigning of this date? Probably not, but early on the church wanted a date to celebrate the Holy birth and what the church wanted, the church got.

There is of course, the argument that this date coincides with pagan winter festivals, and in an effort to ease the conversion of these people the church placed made the Holy birthday in winter.

Quite frankly, the exact birth date of Jesus Christ isn't important. What's important is the fact that he was born. While Christianity has had a few bumps along the way (Christians thrown to the lions in Rome being an example) and hasn't always lived up to the love Christ taught (the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, which no one was expecting), and has had its share of charlatans in the guise of televangelists, no one can deny that this Christ kid had some pretty great things to say about how to live one's life and deal with one's fellow humans. JC was all about love and compassion, not judgment and damnation. His were the kind of messages that warm the heart in the middle of winter, or anytime.

So it doesn't matter when the exact birth day was. We can all, Christian and non-Christian, believer and non-believer, join together in celebration of a man who taught a way of life, that if more people followed it now, it might just be a better world.