Should we celebrate Christmas?
Should we celebrate Christmas?
By Sinclair Ferguson
December 22, 2025
Christian Post,.
There's something else. It's often said that Christmas is actually a pagan holiday based on the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. But that is a bit like saying that Reformation Sunday is a pagan celebration because it coincides with Halloween. Some churches started holding a Reformation Day service as a direct contrast with the events associated with Halloween.
Historically, there were similar reasons that Christmas came to be celebrated around the time of the Roman festival of Saturnalia. It was a way of pointing the pagan world to a better story, to an infinitely greater God than the Roman god Saturn. It was saying, "You are worshiping the creature, and we want to encourage you to worship the Creator." It was meant to be a powerful witness to the incarnate Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. And in fact, so powerful was that witness that at least on one occasion a church gathering on Christmas Day was deliberately and maliciously firebombed by Christ's enemies. Therefore, it's both muddleheaded and ungracious to say that Christmas is a pagan celebration.
So yes, Christmas Day isn't any more holy than any other day of the year. Christmas dinner isn't more sacred than yesterday's dinner. But like that food, it can be sanctified in special ways by the Word of God and prayer and praise, because the Lord Jesus came into the world to be our Savior.
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