Christmas and the Lord's Day

[Herald]

I hope this doesn't appear self-serving, but I would like to post a short essay I wrote on my blog, The Spurgeon Blog:

The Christmas season is a festive time of year for many people, secular or religious. It’s hard not to get into a good mood with all the decorations and cheerful music. For many Christians it is a time to remember the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ and proclaim peace and goodwill towards men. But even among Christians there is a debate as to whether Christmas should be celebrated at all. The argument goes that the New Testament never commands the observance of any religious holidays. This short essay is not being written to argue for or against the observance of Christmas among Christians. I’ll leave that argument for another time. However, I do want to deal with the subject of Christmas competing with the Lord’s Day.

This year Christmas falls on a Sunday. Sunday has been established in the New Testament as the day of corporate worship for the body of Christ and is referred to as either the Lord’s Day or the Christian Sabbath. A positive case for Sunday-only worship can be found in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. There is no higher priority on the Christian’s weekly calendar than to gather for corporate worship on the day that God commands. The post-Christian society that we live in today has done a good job of watering down those things that God has commanded. There are churches that are substituting Christmas Eve services for Lord’s Day worship. It’s even done by some churches on Super Bowl Sunday! I’m not suggesting that a church that recognizes Christmas should not have a Christmas Eve observance. What I am suggesting is that nothing – not even Christmas falling a Sunday – should cause the canceling of Lord’s Day worship. Man does not have the authority to usurp what God has commanded.

If you are going to observe the Christmas holiday, I pray that you have a wonderful time remembering the birth of our Lord and spending time with friends and family; but I would urge you to think about what God expects – what God has commanded – about corporate worship on the first day of the week.

 

[annsni]

I'm with you on this. No matter what, Christmas is a cultural observance and to cancel the gathering of worship for a cultural holiday just makes no sense to me.

At our little church (30 adults each week), we will most likely have my family (4 adults and 2 kids), another family (2 adults, 2 kids) and possibly a single mom and her son. That's all. But we will meet anyway and celebrate the Savior on Christmas morning. It means that our personal Christmas will not be celebrated that day and we're still figuring out what to do but church is more important than our morning casserole and opening gifts in PJs. We'll live without that this year. LOL

 

[Martin]

I hope this doesn't appear self-serving, but I would like to post a short essay I wrote on my blog, The Spurgeon Blog:

==I think this is an important issue. However I also believe it is one that can easily get blown way out of proportion. We are only talking about one Sunday. If a church re-schedules for Saturday night or at a different time this Sunday there is nothing Biblically wrong with that. In fact, I see no Scriptural command to that church "must" meet on Sundays (Col. 2:16-17, Rom 14:4-8). While the church meeting on Sunday is and should be the norm, there is nothing wrong with a church altering it's schedule one day out of the year. Some churches may need to make schedule changes due to a large part of their congregation being gone Sunday morning. Others may wish to make schedule changes to help volunteers who have children.

We must avoid the temptation to make our tradition law. The Bible does not say worship must be at 11:00am Sunday morning, 7:00pm Sunday and Wednesday evenings. Those are times/schedules we have made for a variety of reasons. We must also keep in mind that some people are unable to attend church on Sundays due to work schedules (nurses, police officers, etc). Are they in sin for attending Sunday nights or Wednesday nights instead of Sunday morning? Of course not.

My point? Stay balanced.

 

[glfredrick]

Really? We're discussing this?

Gal 4:4-6 (ESV) But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"

We celebrate Christmas every Sunday because God sent into this world, at a point in history that was a real day, in a real place, His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. That someone, early in the history of the church decided to affix a date to that one day is really a non issue. We also affix a date to Resurrection Sunday, and that is just as real an issue. Just TRY to keep me from worshipping Christ on either Christmas Day (even if it happens to fall on Sunday) or Easter Sunday (more properly called Resurrection Day). The attempt to keep God's people away from other of God's people on a day when we worship is nothing more than a divisive tool of Satan!

 

[Pastor David]

I hope this doesn't appear self-serving, but I would like to post a short essay I wrote on my blog, The Spurgeon Blog:

Good article.

 

[Jerome]

I do want to deal with the subject of Christmas competing with the Lord’s Day. . . . a positive case for Sunday-only worship can be found in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith

There truly is nothing new under the sun.

De Greef's Writings of John Calvin:

That tensions could run high over such matters can be seen, for example, in what happened in 1551. In Bern and its dependent territory, it was customary to celebrate the Lord's Supper on Christmas Day, whereas in Geneva it was celebrated on the Sunday closest to December 25. On December 27, 1551, Jean de Saint-Andre, minister in Jussy (under Geneva's jurisdiction), preached a sermon in nearby Fontenay (under Bern's jurisdiction) in which he criticized the fact that the congregation had celebrated the Lord's Supper on December 25 according to the custom of Bern.

Reportedly Saint-Andre told the congregation that in taking the the Lord's Supper on [a non-Sunday] Christmas Day they had received the Devil, not Christ. (Calvin to Farel, 27 Jan. 1552)

For this, he was run out of Bern. Geneva welcomed him and he was soon ministering alongside John Calvin there.

Lovely.