A Christmas Passover
Study Guide, December 1, 2024
Pastor Clay Olsen
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We think of January as the head of the year, as ever since 1582 most of the world has followed the Gregorian Calendar…with its 365.24 days…most years having 365 days and an extra day added every four years. Just a little conversation material there for your Christmas dinners…
Also, some have proposed that Christmas may have been in the Spring, since Luke states that the Shepherds were out in the fields watching their sheep. Many assume that Spring was the lambing season. However, that might be the case in the West, where a single spring lambing season is the norm, but that’s not the case in Israel. The flocks there stay out in the open all year round, if the weather permits, or they are given shelter during the coldest months and driven into the fields in early spring to graze until fall. In Israel lambing season is from late November to late March. So we are still left with the fact that the Bible doesn’t give us the date or exact time that Jesus was born.
What we do know is that when Jesus gave up His life on the Cross, it was in the Spring, because it was during the Feast of Passover. This is the exact setting in which Jesus introduced the Lord’s Supper. Matt 26:17-19- “Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?” And He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is near; I am to keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.”‘” The disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they prepared the Passover.” NASU
Again, the time of Passover is in Springtime. So does this give us any indication of when Christ’s birth may have occurred? If so, how so? Since the Bible doesn’t indicate the timing of Jesus’ birth, the celebration of Christmas has mostly just been according to tradition. And the traditional reasoning was based upon the response of the early Church to the Roman’s observance of their mid-winter festival in late December. They called it ‘Saturnalia’. It was a festival dedicated to the so-called god of agriculture, Saturn. It was a time of gift giving and family and community gatherings. And the festival ended with a day they called ‘Sol Invictus’, or ‘the Unconquered Sun’…as in ‘S-U-N’, held on December 25th. And that was particularly connected with ‘Sun worship.
Therefore, as tradition states it, in response to this false worship many in the early church used this opportunity to proclaim the worship of the one true ‘Unconquered Son’ – ‘S-O-N’, the Son of God, and, thus, the celebration of His birth into the world as the only God and Savior of the world.1 But there’s another side to this historical story, for in other early church writings, even including men like Augustine, the timing of Christ’s birth was still believed to have a connection with the timing of Passover, as in, the timing of the Cross.
History reports that Jesus, our Messiah, was crucified during Passover of AD 33. He gave up His life in the ninth hour. And in this, the Scriptures are very specific about the time of day that Jesus gave up His life. Luke 23:44-46- “Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.'” Having said this, He breathed His last.” NKJV
In the Jewish tradition, the day began at sundown and was divided into 12 seasonal hours. The Jewish hours of prayer were:
- Third hour: Around 9 AM, the first hour of prayer, known as “Shacharit” (morning)
- Sixth hour: Around 12 PM
- Ninth hour: Around 3 PM, the second hour of prayer, known as “Minchah” (gift-offering)
The ninth hour later came to be called “the hour of great mercy for the world”, as it related to Jesus’ sacrifice. So whenever it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon and someone asks you what time it is, you could say, “It’s the hour of great mercy for the world!” That’s a pretty great witness tool!
But now we get even closer to connecting Passover with Christmas, because it was at Passover, at the ninth hour, that the Temple Priests would have been sacrificing the Passover Lambs. How ironic, and sad, that these Priests were right by the actual sacrificial Lamb of Jesus, of whom all the lambs throughout history pointed to as the final sacrifice to remove the penalty for their sins that these symbolic sacrifices could never do. But they did not have eyes to see their Savior, nor ears to hear those prophecies that were shouting out to them throughout the Old Testament Scriptures. How sad, that still, so many of both Jews and Gentiles fail to recognize the Lamb of God, Yeshua the Messiah, as being their only hope of forgiveness and eternal salvation.
But also how amazing…how intricate are God’s ways, that even Jesus’ sacrificial death was timed to coincide with the timing of the sacrificial lambs, as Jesus was the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. And Paul called Jesus ‘our Passover’…Passover Lamb…1 Cor 5:7-8- “For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” NASU
Now, back to Augustine…In his writing of On the Trinity (c. 399–419) he writes: “For He [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also He suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.” How about that? And even Tertullian, who was a Christian theologian and historian from Northern Africa, earlier, around 200 AD, pointed out that since our God does all of His works according to orderliness and planning, and that all of His ways in which He works are intricate and interwoven, that as they thought about the connection of Passover with the Cross, they also thought of Jesus’ Conception in connection with the Cross. And thus, if there was timing of connection between the Passover and the Cross, surely there would be a connection concerning the timing of Conception with the Cross. And thus, that would make Christmas be a December celebration, as that would be a ninth month separation, counting from the Cross, that is.2
Plus, there is also this: Luke 1:26-28- “In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” NLT So we do know that Elizabeth was in her sixth month carrying John the Baptist. For centuries, there has been a celebration of the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist on June 24th. If John’s birth occurred on June 24th, then his conception would have been nine months earlier in late September/early October, near the time of the observance of the Feast of Tabernacles and just after Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement).
So now, and this is really fascinating, for six months from John’s conception is awful close to March 25th. Or, as the author of this research put it… “should we say ‘awe-filled’ close to March 25th.” And nine-months from that time…well, that is the time in December when Christians have celebrated the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ for over 1500 years.3
Again, we do not have Scriptural revelation about the exact timing on these events of Christmas. But do remember, that whenever historical relevance and sound logic and honorable evidence are both supportive and consistent with the revelations that we do have from God’s Words, we can use them to encourage our faith and to celebrate the fact that this is God’s world, and there are so many things that are declaring the glory of God throughout His world and throughout history…or, ‘His Story!’ So remember: Build your faith on the solid rock truths as revealed in the Scriptures, but go ahead and enjoy great historical traditions that honor God, like Christmas!
And when it comes to the Cross, we even have the writings of Daniel’s revelation of the countdown from Daniel’s prophecy of the coming Messiah and His death. So we really can calculate the timing of the Cross pretty closely. And, concerning the events themselves, these events are precisely revealed to us in the Scriptures. Not only are the events of the Conception and the Cross revealed to us, we also know that although the Cross followed in the events, they were planned together. Say what? Acts 2:22-24- “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know — this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” NASU
From eternity past, God planned that the Son of God would become a Son of Man in order to become the Savior of the world. Conception…Christmas…and the Cross were all planned together as God’s plan of salvation for you and for me, and for all who repent and believe in the Christ of Christmas. They are all connected. Why, even as the Star of Bethlehem was shining its light over the babe in the manger, there was also the shadow of the Cross on the horizon. For the Cross was the reason for the Conception. The Cross was the reason for Christmas. The Cross was the fulfillment of Passover. The Cross was why Christ came at Christmas. Jesus, who is the light of the world, lived His whole life in the shadow of the Cross. Jesus is the only person who has ever lived who was born for the purpose of dying.
Let’s put that another way – Jesus was born to die in order to take your place and my place of death. Now, of course, our physical bodies will still have to experience ‘death’, that is, unless Jesus comes back in the Rapture of the Church before we physically die. But the effects of the presence of sin in the physical body is that it changed it from being immortal into being mortal. And mortal means ‘the state of being subject to death’. Death is the separation of the immaterial life of a person from the material life of a person. But the immaterial life of a person, their mind, emotions, and will, or ‘Soul’ can also be separated from the Giver of Life…who is Christ the Lord. But that’s why Jesus took both, our place of physical death on the Cross so that we could be given a new physical life in an immortal body, and He also took our place in spiritual death. Jesus was separated from God in His time on the Cross so that we would not have to be separated from God for all time, or for eternity. That’s why the Apostle Paul told us: 2 Cor 5:21- “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” NASU
Martin Luther called this verse that describes the Gospel as ‘The Great Exchange.’ Our Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God, takes our judgment of sin upon Himself and gives to us His righteousness…credits us with His righteous life.” Thus, the greatest gift in the world, from Conception to Christmas to the Cross. Jesus Himself is our greatest gift! Make sure that you have made the great exchange…that you have given your life to Christ in repentance and received Christ into your life by faith as your Savior.
- Biblicalarchaeology.org, How December 25 Became Christmas
- Ibid
- Drydenlutheran.ca, The Dating of Christmas: John the Baptist Luke 1: 5-27, 34-37