I went through my WhatsApp statuses today and read, “Happy birthday, Jesus,” “Jesus is born,” etc., posted at exactly 12 am by some of my Christian contacts; you know, the way people would wait till 12 am to wish themselves a happy birthday.
Everything being equal, we should have posts like, “On this day, 2023 years ago, Jesus was born.” However, because some people are now enlightened as to the fact that Jesus was not born on December 25, they have settled for calling it the celebration of Jesus while some still think December 25 is the actual birthday of Jesus Christ. An example is Adeoye Adewale, who posted, “Happy birthday to Jesus Christ.”
Whether or not one believes it is just the celebration of Jesus or that it is Jesus’ birthday, we cannot take away the fact that Christmas, in the religious sense, marks the birth of Jesus – that he came to earth to teach love, salvation, peace and, um, beating sinners in the synagogue and whatnots. This is a big problem for those who believe Jesus is God.
For people like Adeoye, it should be okay to say “Happy birthday God,” “On this day, God was born,” etc. How believing Jesus is God, celebrating the birth of God, and at the same time believing God has no beginning and end is baffling? One may argue that the birthday marking is from when Jesus came down to earth, but this is a weak argument. Not only was he not born on the 25th, but it is preposterous to start counting the birthday of a heavenly being who spent a few years on earth from the day he came to earth.
For those who take it as a celebration of Jesus (not his actual birthday) and believe Jesus is God, what is the celebration all about? Celebrating that Jesus (God) came to earth to save humans from the curse he placed on them and ended up being killed by the same people he came to save cannot be more preposterous.
Contemporarily, Christmas is a mere holiday for millions of people, which is okay. Any religious perspective on Christmas is contrary to reason.
Bashir Lucas Samson Lukman
