In our culture, Christmas and Easter were both made public holidays because of a desire to remember and celebrate the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. Whether this faith is believed or not, that was the intent.

The reason this faith is celebrated is because it is foundational to our values. It sits, for example, behind our wider cultural values on things like equality of races, end of slavery, equality of genders, concepts of charity, education for all, healthcare for all, our ideas on human rights and personal freedoms, democratic forms of Government (limitation of powers) – and much more. While public knowledge of our own cultural history is rather limited these days, our various cultural festivals were each established for a reason.

Regarding the dates for the Christmas and Easter traditions, most are aware that our festivals are not the actual dates of Jesus’ birth or of the crucifixion / resurrection weekend.

To summarise where our dates came from:

It’s known Jesus was crucified at the time of the Passover Festival on the Hebrew calendar. As this confused the early Greek Church, who used the Greek calendar, they set their celebration date for 25 March. Somewhere along the way for our culture, the name ‘Easter’ (amongst other things) became associated with this. However, the intent of the celebration was clear.

For the dating of Christmas, it’s a different story. No one knows the date Jesus was born – and yet there was a desire to celebrate his birth / incarnation. There was a Hebrew tradition that said a great prophet would die on the date they were conceived. So, if Jesus died on 25 March, then he was also conceived on that date – which means he was born on 25 December. Again, this is not a claim that these dates are true. This is simply where the idea came from. (For more – see the more detailed article referenced below).

Regarding whether or not Christians should avoid association with our culture’s Christmas and Easter traditions because various things associated with them came from various pagan religions  - this could be viewed similar to the way ‘meat offered to idols’ is discussed in 1 Corinthians 8 in the Bible. In summary: ‘An idol is nothing really, so there is nothing to fear in eating meat offered to an idol. However, if your conscience says different – follow your conscience.’

For more on paganism and Christmas, see a write-up HERE.