"Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” Matthew 28:16-20
In order to fulfill the Lord’s command to teach all nations until the end of the age, the apostles went forth into all the world, teaching in the synagogues and from house to house in every city. Thus they laid the foundation "line upon line, order upon order”. But in order to perpetuate their doctrine, they both committed it to writing in the form of the New Testament and also used another didactic method which God the Father in the Old Testament, Our Lord Jesus before His Passion in the New Testament, and the Holy Spirit since his coming on the Day of Pentecost have all employed: the Hebrew principal of "zikkaron” or "liturgical remembrance.”
Zikkaron may be defined as that principal whereby, remembering the mighty acts of God in the liturgy, man is able to mystically re-live them as a present reality. Thus the Hebrews were commanded by God to commemorate the Passover from generation to generation, not merely in the historical sense that we commemorate the Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving, but as a reality made present to every generation. That is why the prayers and readings of the Seder meal are all in the present tense. As the Rabbis of the Mishnah said, "In every generation a man must so regard himself as if he himself came out of Egypt, for it is written, 'And thou shalt tell thy son in that day saying, it is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt (Exodus 13:8)'" [Mishnah, 151].
In the New Testament, likewise, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he instituted the Eucharistic liturgy, commanded his disciples, "This do in remembrance of me.” And as the Apostle Paul explains, this act of "remembrance” or "zikkaron,” makes the Lord’s death a present reality whenever it is celebrated:
"For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew [make present] the Lord's death till he comes.” I Corinthians 11:26
History has demonstrated that the Holy Spirit, likewise, in fulfilling his office to guide the Church into all truth, has employed the principle of "zikkaron.” For in addition to the Eucharistic Liturgy of the Lord’s Day, we have solid evidence that he established, even in the time of the apostles, the Feast of Holy Pascha (Easter) to make present to every generation the events of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection. The Book of Revelation, many scholars have noted, is likely patterned on the Paschal Liturgy of the 1sr Century Church.
But we have the word of one no less than the great Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, a disciple of the Apostle John, who when a controversy had arisen regarding the date of the celebration of Pascha, testified that he had celebrated the feast with the Apostle John.
But what about Christmas? While there is no written evidence that it was instituted in the time of the apostles, it is clear that their successors the bishops of the Churches established throughout the world celebrated the feast in order to commemorate the incarnation of Christ according to the same principal of "zikkaron” whereby the Eucharist and Pascha were established. While there are those who believe that Christmas was instituted by the Church as an alternative to the pagan Roman feast of Sol Invictus on December 25th, the evidence is to the contrary. The Feast of Sol Invictus was established by Emperor Aurelian in 274 A.D., but there is evidence that December 25th was held to be the date of Christ’s birth by Christians at least 50 years prior to that. Hippolytus, who died about 220 A.D., in his Commentary of Daniel, writes:
"For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, was December 25th, a Wednesday, while Augustus was in his forty-second year, but from Adam, five thousand and five hundred years. He suffered in the thirty-third year, March 25th, Friday, the eighteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, while Rufus and Roubellion were Consuls.” Commentary on Daniel 4.23.3
So the fact that this date was known to the early Christians and was likely a date of celebration for them is no doubt what prompted Aurelian to later institute the Feast of Sol Invictus in order to try to pre-empt the Christian celebration.
But there is also the fact that Jesus and his disciples observed the Feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah, as recorded in John 10:22. As the Jewish convert Alfred Edersheim pointed out, Hanukkah was the directly linked to the Christian celebration of Epiphany/Theophany. Both are known as the Festival of Lights; hence, it was natural for the early Jewish converts to Christianity to see in Hanukkah the foreshadowing of the coming of Christ, the Light of the World.
And there is Scriptural evidence from the Apocrypha that December 25 was the date of Christ's birth, and would have been revealed to those with eye3s to see and ears to hear. It is the tradition of the Church that Christ was born at midnight, which is confirmed by Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-15
"For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction."
It is only at the Winter Solstice that midnight truly comes in the "midst" of the night, so we can then infer that not only the time, but even the date of Christ's birth has Scriptural basis.
This pretty well demolishes the theory in my mind that Christmas is of pagan origin. Indeed, the solemn manner in which the Orthodox Church celebrates the Feast, prefaced by forty days of fasting and self-examination and concluding with liturgical services remembering (zikkaron) the event of Christ’s Incarnation, replete with Scripture readings from both the Old and New Testaments (in stark contrast to the worldly celebrations), is ample evidence for me that Christmas is a Divine Institution which fulfills the Great Commission to teach all nations regarding the Incarnation of the Son of God until the end of the age.
How effective is this "zikkaron" in the remembrance of Christ's birth? Despite the distortion of Christmas by the secular world, almost everyone knows that the true meaning of Christmas is the Nativity in the flesh of Our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is no wonder, then, that the spirit of antichrist, which denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (1 John 4:3), is waging an all-out "war" on Christmas in these last days. If he cannot eradicate it completely, he seeks to distort it into a secular "holiday" for the gratification of the flesh. But despite his efforts, the "spirit of Christmas" is alive and well in the Church, and like a sweet fragrance permeates the world every December 25th. If you have ever been moved in your heart at this joyous season of the year, then you know firsthand the power of "zikkaron" in preserving the memory of the glad tidings of the coming of Christ into the world So stop kicking against the pricks and embrace the truth of this holy season! Christ is born! Glorify Him!