A lit Christmas tree with gold ornaments.

Christmas Lessons from Spurgeon

C. H. Spurgeon, the greatest preacher of the 19th century, loved Christmas. Preaching on Christmas Sunday of 1855, he told his congregation, “I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year.” And yet, Spurgeon did not celebrate Christmas merely as a product of his Victorian culture. The publication of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in 1843 made Christmas a cultural event, pushing its spiritual significance aside. From Christmas trees to decorations, to turkeys, to gift giving, all these traditions began to take on a life of their own. But as a Christian, Spurgeon understood that Christmas was first and foremost a religious celebration. What might Spurgeon have to say to us about how best to celebrate Christmas?

Celebrate Christmas in Freedom

The starting place for celebrating Christmas is to understand that we don’t have to celebrate Christmas. The miracle of the Incarnation should be celebrated all year round, and there is nothing in the Bible about restricting our celebration to December 25th. In other words, we should be careful to ward off any legalistic superstitions about the holiday. As Spurgeon once wrote,

We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas. First, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be sung in Latin or in English; and secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority. Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our Savior’s birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred…Probably the fact is that the “holy” days were arranged to fit in with the heathen festivals. We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Savior was born, it is the twenty-fifth of December.

So, congregations should sing Christmas carols in the summer, as well as in December. Pastors should preach and teach on the Incarnation throughout the year, not only in the winter. And during Christmas, churches should treat their gatherings with the same reverence and intentionality as any other Sunday. Even if additional visitors show up, they should encounter the same gospel preaching and fellowship as would be found on any Sunday. As one newspaper reported on the Christmas Sunday service at the Tabernacle in 1870,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Sunday there were no outward signs of Christmas. The Tabernacle wore its usual appearance, only that owing probably to the inclemency of the weather it was not as crowded as it ordinarily is, and indeed was not quite full, and the fog was so thick that the gas was lit, Mr. Spurgeon was hardly discernible, except by those who were near the platform. But his voice rang out clear and distinct as ever.

For so many Christians, the Christmas season is packed with parties, service projects, end-of-year activities, and more. It all makes for a stressful time and the meaning of it all is so easily lost. Perhaps one of the best things Christians can do is simply to remember that Christ has come to set us free. We are not obligated to participate in man-made traditions, not even those on the church calendar. If there is any good in these traditions, we must remember that traditions were made for man, not the other way around. If your Christmas celebration has become a legalistic burden, consider how you might lighten your calendar so that you can focus on the right things.

Celebrate Christmas Theologically

The true way to celebrate Christmas has nothing to do with trees or shopping or parties. It has everything to do with Jesus. In a day when people were watering down or mythologizing the story of Christ’s incarnation, Spurgeon did all that he could to proclaim the wonderful truth that the eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Apart from a recognition of this astounding historical reality, all our celebrations are so much tinsel on a dead tree. It glitters for a moment, but it is all headed for the trash heap. But when we embrace the fact that God has forever joined Himself to us in the person of Jesus, truly God and truly man, then we have a hope that will last forever.

To be sure, the incarnation is a wondrous mystery. It is the union of seeming opposites. No philosopher or earthly religion could have conceived of such a thing.

The Infinite has become an infant; he, upon whose shoulders the universe doth hang, hangs at his mother’s breast; he who created all things, and bears up the pillars of creation, hath now become so weak, that he must be carried by a woman!

And yet, the reason this matters is because, through the Incarnation, humanity finally has One who is holy, innocent, unstained by sin, and yet who perfectly represents us in our humanity. Only such a person can be a fitting Savior for sinners. And this is why Jesus came.

Though it is eighteen hundred years ago and more, the Christmas bells seem to ring on. The joy of his coming is still in our hearts. He lived here his two or three and thirty years, but he was sent, the text tells us, for a reason which caused him to die. He was sent for sin… He was sent that he might be the substitute for sinners. God’s great plan was this, that inasmuch as his justice could not overlook sin, and sin must be punished, Jesus Christ should come and take the sin of his people upon himself, and upon the accursed tree, the cross of ignominious note, should suffer what was due on our behalf, and that then through his sufferings the infinite love of God should stream forth without any contravention of his infinite justice. This is what God did. He sent his Son to Bethlehem; he sent his Son to Calvary.

The best way to celebrate Christmas is by first pondering your sin. Consider this past year and the ways you have failed to live as you should. Consider the offense against God that your sin caused. Consider how the years are passing by and how, before long, you will stand before God and give an account of your life. Consider the infinite justice of God burning forever against you. This is the darkness in which we all find ourselves.

And yet, Christmas is a reminder that the Light has come. With His birth, the angels sing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). Indeed, Christ has come to bring peace. He has not only joined God and humanity in His person, but He is reconciling heaven and earth forever.

Celebrate Christmas with Joy

And so, having been set free from our sin through the incarnate Word, we rejoice. Christmas should be a celebration, a day of rejoicing! Gather family and friends! Invite the lonely! Prepare a feast! Give gifts! Sing! Why? Because such festivities are a fitting testament to what God has done. Reflecting on the feasting of the saints in the Old Testament, Spurgeon said to his congregation on Christmas Sunday of 1860,

You will meet next Tuesday, and you will feast, and you will rejoice, and each of you, as God has given you substance, will endeavor to make your household glad. Now, instead of telling you that this is all wrong, I think the merry bell of my text gives you a license so to do… God has certainly made in this world provision for man’s feasting. He had not given just dry bread enough for a man to eat, and keep body and soul together, for the harvests teem with plenty, and often are the barns filled to bursting. O Lord, thou didst not give simply dry bread and water for mankind, but thou hast filled the earth with plenty, and milk and honey hast thou given to us; and thou hast besides this laden the trees with fruit, and given to men dainties. Thou art not illiberal, thou dost not dole out with miserable hand the lean and scanty charity which some men would give to the poor, but thou givest liberally, and thou upbraidest not! And for what purpose is this given? To rot, to mold, to be trodden on, to be spoiled? No, but that men may have more than enough, that they may have all they want, and may rejoice before their God, and may feed the hungry, for this indeed is one essential and necessary part of all true Christian feasting. My text, I say, rings a merry bell, and gives us license for sacred feasting.

Not all Christmas celebrations will look the same. For those who are traveling, sick, in hardship, facing persecution, or for many other reasons, remembering Christ’s incarnation will look different in different settings. So Spurgeon’s reminder is helpful: Even as you rejoice, don’t forget to care for those who are in need, an “essential and necessary part of all true Christian feasting.” Whatever your Christmas looks like, the incarnation is a reason for rejoicing.

So merry Christmas and may the light of Christ’s advent shine upon you.

To help you celebrate Christmas, I have compiled a 30-day devotional reflecting and rejoicing on the Incarnation, drawn from Spurgeon’s Christmas sermons. You can learn more about A Wondrous Mystery here.

©2023 Geoff Chang. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

About The Author

Geoff Chang
Geoffrey Chang

Geoffrey Chang is assistant professor of historical theology and curator of the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo. He is the editor and author of Spurgeon the Pastor.

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