When did Christmas begin? Most people would say that Christmas began roughly 2,025 years ago on a cool winter’s December night. And yet, that can’t be right. See, shepherds didn’t pasture their sheep at night during the winter months. That only happened when it was warmer; like in the spring, summer or early autumn. And that means that the first Christmas was most likely on a warm, spring April/May night. And to make things even more complicated, Jesus wasn’t even born in the first year of the new calendar. Now, we can blame a Scythian Monk named Dionysius for that. Dionysius wanted to honor the birth of Jesus by splitting time in half. He wanted the time before Jesus was born to be called “BC” and the time after his birth to receive an “AD” suffix with Jesus’ birth right in the middle. But Dionysius miscalculated the date of Jesus’ birth. So, instead, of being born in 1 AD as he thought, Jesus was more than likely born in the last half of 5 BCE or maybe in the early part of 4 BC (missed it by that much!). But even here, I think we are off. The right answer to the question, “When did Christmas begin?” isn’t when the shepherds showed up or when the angel spoke to Mary, nor was it when Micah, Jeremiah or Isaiah had a prophecy of the coming Messiah. Instead, Christmas began before the creation of the world.
Okay, I know that sounds crazy. It’s hard to have Christmas without a people, without a world, or without even having a creation. And even if we define Christmas as incarnation and atonement (or reconciliation and redemption), it seems hard to envision having Christmas without Jesus’ birth, sin and a fallen world. And again, it is hard to envision Christmas without a creation. See, a long, long time before God created the world and its people and a long, long time before those people rebelled and went astray, God decided to redeem his world—even though they hadn’t even decided to revolt against God (which makes sense because they hadn’t even been created yet). And yet, long before there was anything, God chose to claim these yet-uncreated people as his very own. And that also doesn’t make much sense to us, unless we first understand the love of God.
We see the love of God take center stage in this way in Ephesians 1. Paul writes (Eph. 1:3-8): “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” Count all the ways that this is Christmas. There is an outpouring of love. There are gifts. There are blessings. There is family and oneness and togetherness. There is joy. And there is redemption, adoption and grace—lots of grace. And if that isn’t the essence of Christmas, I don’t know what is! But God did all of this before there was a creation in which to celebrate Christmas. But God didn’t need a creation for Christmas. He just needed to exist in trinity.
Time for a little Christmas theology. God is a trinity, meaning God has always existed as one God in three persons. There are not three Gods, but one God. And there is not one person, but three persons. The apologist, Norman Geisler, said it this way: God is one “what,” but three “who’s.” So, there was never a time when God did not exist, and there was never a time when God did not exist as a trinity. And that means that when we say that God is love or good or all-wise, that each member of the trinity is love, good and all-wise (and each member holds these attributes to the same degree and with the same passion).
Now, besides this being good theology, this is incredibly important and for two big reasons. Before the creation of the world, the whole trinity chose to love you and then moved heaven and earth to accomplish your salvation. I know there are a lot of questions about election and what it means, but let us not lose sight of this key truth: Before there was anything, God chose to love and redeem you so that you could be with him forever. God loves you that insane amount. Yes, we still have some questions about election and predestination and all of that, but after reading Ephesians 1, we shouldn’t have any questions about how much God loves us and how much God was willing to do to adopt you as his own.
But there is a second reason this is so important because it proves that God is not only holy, holy, holy, but he is also love, love, love. But some aren’t so sure about that. See, some of the theologians among you might want to question the statement that God is love. After all, if God existed before everything else and love is always other-centered, how can we say that God is love? You can’t. And if true love is giving, then how can we say God is love when there is no one to whom to give. You can’t. But if God is trinity, then we can say that God has always been love because he is both eternally other-centered and giving. How can we say that? Because God the father has always loved the Son and the Spirit and has given himself to them. The Son has always loved the Father and the Spirit and has always given himself to them. And the Spirit has always throughout all eternity loved the Father and the Son and has given himself to them.
But love always seeks to be more loving, more other-centered and more giving. And while God delighted in his trinitarian relationship and found pure joy in relating one to the other, God decided that he wanted to share his love with even more, and so he created angels and the world and people. And God delighted in loving and in giving to these creations.
And someone might have objected before God spoke the creation into being saying, “but what if these people decide to rebel against you and sin—you certainly could not love those people then!” And God said, “Yes, I will.” And God added, “And if that happens, then I will give them grace and forgiveness and redemption and life and blessings and adoption. And I will call these gifts, Christmas.” Okay, God didn’t actually say any of that, but you can see how he could have. After all, Christmas is grace and love and redemption and love and giving. So, even when we were dead in our sin, God gave us Christmas so that we would know we were his dearly loved children. And all this happened, according to Paul in Ephesians 1, before the creation of the world.
So, when does Christmas begin? It begins long before the beginning. It begins in the love of the trinity, a love that prompted the Father to send the Son into our fallen world to redeem us so that the Spirit could come and give us life long before there was a world or sin or death. But if you love someone (us) or something (Christmas), you might not be able to wait a split second later to gather up those people for a Christmas celebration. At least, that’s what God did—he moved time itself to call us his own and to promise us redemption in his Son.
So, this Christmas, you are invited to enter into the love of the Godhead and to receive God’s gifts to you—love, peace, joy, family and forgiveness. And he invites you to take all these blessings and bless others with them. In short, he invites you to be like him. I love what Miroslav Volf writes about giving because it also applies to loving. He wrote: “God gives so that we can exist and flourish, but not only for that. God gives so that we can help others exist and flourish, as well. God’s gifts aim at making us into generous givers, not just fortunate receivers. God gives so that we, in human measure, can be givers, too.” In other words, God loves so that we, in human measure, can be lovers, too, and bless others with the love of Christmas.
I entitled this post, “Christmas Begins Before the Beginning,” but now you see it was not before the beginning of God or of God’s love or of God’s grace or of God’s giving. It was only before the beginning of time. So, I guess we can say that the first Christmas came early that year, and in doing so, we all were blessed.
