The king and his officials and the whole assembly in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month. – 2 Chronicles 30:2

Today's Scripture Reading (June 4, 2026): 2 Chronicles 30

Christmas always falls on December 25. You can argue that Jesus was not born on December 25, but we know that. You can argue that Christmas is just an extension of pagan rituals in the Northern Hemisphere that celebrate the Winter Solstice, or the longest night of the year, and again, you would be partly right. Christmas, as originally constructed, was about competing with pagan celebrations held in late December. And, by the way, Christmas won the competition throughout most of the world, even though pagan beliefs have infiltrated it, rather than Christian beliefs infiltrating a pagan festival. I am not sure which is better. The truth is that we don’t know when Jesus was born. Arguments could be made that Jesus’s actual birthday was sometime in late April, June, or even September. However, the actual date is unknown. Birth dates weren’t something to remember in ancient times. No one knew the date of their birth, so they couldn't celebrate it. And in a few places in our world, it is still that way. 

Pope Julius I, a fourth-century pope (337-352), decided that we should celebrate Christmas on December 25, even though he knew that Jesus was not born on that day. The Pope felt that the day and the celebration of the birth stories of Jesus found in Matthew and Luke deserved celebration. He also decided that in the grand scheme of things, the date didn’t matter; the celebration did.

King Hezekiah, his advisors and officers, and the leaders in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover during the second month of the Jewish year. Passover celebrates a specific date, and unlike Christmas, where we don’t know the true date, the actual date of the first Passover, the moment when the angel of death “passed over” the houses of the believing Jews during the deaths of the firstborn in Egypt, took place during the first month of the Jewish year. The Mosaic Law specified that the Passover should be celebrated during the first month, not the second.

However, in Judah, fewer and fewer people were actually celebrating the Passover. The nation needed a revival, and the leadership in Jerusalem agreed that this could not wait. They decided that celebrating the Passover was more important than the date. There wasn’t time to make the celebration what it should be in the first month of the year, so, for this year only, they decided to hold it in the second month. After all, didn’t the celebration mean more than the date?

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 31