December 25th! A wonderful day, at least in the west. Well, it’s kind of taken on quite a different focus with the rise of extreme commercialisation of the date. But, as Christians (at least in the western hemisphere), we celebrate this day as the date when the Word-became-flesh. Or more simply, this is the day we celebrate Jesus’ Birthday.

But most people don’t realise that Jesus might not have been born on that date. Hey, the Eastern Orthodox church celebrates Christmas on 6th January (along with Epiphany).

To be honest, we really cannot know for certainty the exact date Christ was born. But that’s ok. I’m up for celebrating the Word-became-flesh the other 364 days of the year. Not in some overly spiritual and religious sense. But just the simple reality of celebrating Christ as much as possible by offering ourselves as living sacrifices.

Still, I thought you might be interested in checking out an article over at Mark Driscoll’s blog on the dating of Jesus’ birth. So, click here if you are interested in a little more reading. And here is another interesting article by a colleague of mine on the same topic.