I love Christmas time. The season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s is filled with a certain excitement in the air.

The sights, sounds, smells, presents — there’s nothing like Christmas time. Last year our family visited Disneyland the week before Christmas. It was a day filled with holiday magic, and I loved it.

But how Christian is Christmas? In the midst of the shopping, singing and parties we pay homage to the occasional nativity scene because it’s all about baby Jesus, right? Well, maybe not so much.

Serious Bible scholars have long disclaimed the December date as the time of Jesus’ birth. As it turns out, Jesus was most likely born in October.

Even the word, Christmas, is curious. It is a combination of the word “Christ” and “Mass.” The mass was a religious ritual developed centuries after the New Testament was written.

Celebrating Christmas as a holy day began sometime in the fourth century following Roman emperor Constantine’s conversion.

The date of Dec. 25 had long been celebrated as a festival day by the pagan Romans. The newly established Roman state religion of Christianity merged eastern and Roman pagan customs with facts concerning Jesus’ birth, shook it all together and out came — Christmas!

Through the centuries many other customs, superstitions and flavors have been added to make Christmas what it is today.

Interestingly, there is no place in the New Testament outside the gospel accounts of Luke and Matthew where the events of Jesus’ birth are even referenced. Luke included it as a matter of record for his history of the Christian faith. Matthew took great pains to show how the details of Jesus’ birth fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah.

There is no mention in the rest of the New Testament of Christmas. Not one of the other New Testament authors mentions celebrating the birth of Jesus.

It is the cross, not the cradle, which receives the focus of the authors’ devotion and worship. Christians are commanded to remember His death, both by the Lord Himself in Luke 22 and by Paul in I Corinthians 11.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful that we know the facts surrounding Jesus’ birth and thankful for Mary and Joseph and their important part in His earthly life, but is what we observe as Christmas a time of worship, or is it mostly fantasy?

The real story of Christmas is the good news that salvation has come to man. The death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God are the climactic events that altered the course of the world.

Through Jesus’ agony on the cross the power of God was demonstrated over death. Because of the cross the Kingdom has begun in the hearts and lives of all who receive Him. The resurrected King is the object of our worship! “O, Come Let Us Adore Him!”

Del Loy is pastor of Crosspoint Church in Natchez.