What Can We Believe About Christmas? Weighing the Evidence

Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught.

Luke 1:1-4

It all sounds a bit fanciful, if you ask me. A virgin and her husband-to-be, travelling by donkey through the wintry night to Bethlehem, where they find no room in the inn. So they end up in a stable where, on December 25, in the year 1 BC, they have a baby. They wrap the baby in cloths and lay him in a manger. Then an angel appears to shepherds and they run to see the baby. They hurry to put up a Christmas tree, because there’s no tree in the stable. Martin Luther then comes to help them hang candles in the tree to mimic the sight of the light hitting the snow on the trees in the forest they came through. A star shines overhead, and that’s what helps Santa Claus find the stable to bring Jesus his presents. Then magi come from the east, bringing gold, Frankenstein, and myrrh.

Sounds pretty crazy.

What, if any of this, can we believe? Is Christmas really credible? Who ever heard of these things happening? Skeptics continue to attack the events of Christmas and the credibility of the Bible. How can we know what really happened?

In his introduction to the book of Luke, we find that Luke set out to write an orderly account from eyewitnesses about the events that took place. His goal: so that his reader (whether there was one intended reader, whose name was Theophilus, or if it was intended for a general audiences of studyers of God, which is what "Theophilus" means) could be certain of the truth of everything he had been taught.

So are you certain? What do we know is true? And why do we accept it? The first thing we have to do is determine if the accounts we have of Christmas are trustworthy. Many of us never thought to examine the trustworthiness of the Bible. It is, after all, the Bible! We just accept it at its word. Of course, that’s how we may approach it, but many outside the faith (and even some inside it) approach the Bible with a great deal of skepticism.

They raise questions like:

• Were the Gospels really written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?
• How can the Gospels be accurate biographies, written as long as they were after Jesus’ life?
• Weren’t the Gospel authors trying to push their own agendas?

Let’s look at authorship first. Why is this important? Did you know that all four Gospels were originally anonymous? But the unanimous testimony of the early church was that Matthew was written by Matthew, Jesus’ disciple, the tax collector (otherwise known as Levi). Mark was written by John Mark, a companion of Peter. Luke was written by Paul’s missionary partner, the physician Luke. John was written by either John the Apostle or John the Elder.

Nobody would have had cause to lie and say that these were the authors when they really weren’t. Indeed, when later "gospels" were written, they were always attributed to well-known and exemplary figures: Peter, Philip, Mary, James, Mary Magdalene, and even Thomas. Yet Mark and Luke were not even among the twelve, and Matthew, as a tax collector, would have been the least liked of the bunch (except for Judas).

Though there is some question about which "John" wrote the gospel, it is clear that he was an eyewitness to Jesus’ life. It has been accepted from a very early time that these four were the gospel authors – in 125 AD, Papius specifically affirmed Mark’s careful account of Peter’s eyewitness testimony, that he "made no mistake" and recorded "no false statements." By 180 AD, Irenaeus confirmed traditional authorship.

But why would we accept testimony so far after Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection?

The accepted dating for the Gospels, even in liberal circles, has Mark in the 70s; Matthew and Luke in the 80s; and John in the 90s. These are late speculations – but here’s something to think about: the book of Acts ends apparently unfinished. It doesn’t include Paul’s death, which happened in 62 AD. So it is likely that Luke finished Acts before 62 AD, meaning that Luke would have to have a dating earlier than that, and Mark was written even earlier! Thus the gap between the events and the written account was some 30 years. To our standards, that doesn’t seem very fast, but to the standards of that time period, it was like lightning. Think about it this way: do you believe in Alexander the Great? The two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great, by Arrian and Plutarch, were written more than 400 years after Alexander died, yet historians consider them generally trustworthy. The Gospel accounts, on the other hand, were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses!

…eyewitnesses who could challenge or correct any untrue statements!

So why doesn’t Mark, the earliest writer, even include the birth narrative? This simply demonstrates the way ancient biographers wrote. They weren’t obsessed with celebrity culture the way we are, and they didn’t write biographies simply to write them. They only wrote if they felt like people could learn something from the biographies themselves. Each of the Gospel writers came with an agenda: Matthew was writing to try to convince Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. Luke highlighted the poor and marginalized, and Mark to show Jesus as the suffering servant. Thus while Matthew included a genealogy to demonstrate Jesus’ Jewish lineage, Mark focused on the events leading up to Jesus’ death on the cross.

So does this mean the Gospels aren’t trustworthy, as each author had an agenda? No. All it means is that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had agendas. The current thought that news must be objective (which it isn’t – try watching the news with a critical eye, and you’ll find the agendas of the newsmakers) is new. This wasn’t the case in the Ancient Near East. And think about this: just because someone has an agenda doesn’t make them wrong or inaccurate. What is important is that we don’t have Luke trying to refute Mark or John trying to refute Matthew. Instead, they are in agreement about who Jesus was and what He did! This is very important, and it should tell you something about their validity. Especially since they were written while eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were still living to refute or correct any untrue or inaccurate statements.

As we continue looking at Christmas over the next several weeks, I want to make something clear. I started out this sermon with a mishmash of Christmas tradition, both fact and fiction. Some of it is true, and some false. Some we have evidence about, and other is just how the celebration has evolved over 2000 years.

The only reason I bring any of it up is that it doesn’t matter what is true or false if you’re not willing to accept the implications thereof. This isn’t simply an intellectual exercise to figure out fact versus fiction. It’s a serious attempt to prove that the Bible is a trustworthy witness. If it is not, then none of it matters. But if it is, then it all matters, and it should transform our lives.

Note: my main source for this sermon is Lee Strobel's book The Case for Christmas.