Douglas Vandergraph

Christmas arrives every year now like a wave that hits before we’re ready.

In 2025, it doesn’t sneak up anymore. It crashes. Ads start before gratitude. Decorations show up before rest. The season announces itself loudly, urgently, relentlessly. Buy this. Feel that. Hurry. Don’t miss it. Don’t fall behind. Don’t mess it up.

For some people, Christmas feels magical. For others, it feels exhausting. For many, it feels hollow. And somewhere underneath the lights and the noise, a quiet question keeps surfacing, even among people of faith.

What does any of this really have to do with Jesus?

And then comes the follow-up question, the one people whisper or argue about online or bring up at family dinners.

Was Jesus even born on December 25th?

By now, most people have heard the answer. Probably not. Shepherds wouldn’t have been in the fields at night in winter. A Roman census during cold, dangerous travel months makes little sense. History, climate, agriculture, and basic logistics all suggest another season. Spring. Early fall. Somewhere else on the calendar.

And for some, that realization feels unsettling. As if discovering the date may not be exact somehow weakens the story. As if Christmas stands or falls on whether we got the day right.

But what if we’ve been asking the wrong question all along?

What if the most important truth about the birth of Jesus isn’t that we don’t know the date… but that God made sure we never would?

That idea changes everything.

Because God is not careless with details. God numbers stars. God sets seasons. God orders time itself. Scripture shows precision everywhere else. Generations. Lineages. Prophecies fulfilled down to place and circumstance. If God wanted us to know the exact day Jesus was born, He could have preserved it effortlessly. One sentence would have done it. One line. One verse.

Instead, there is silence.

Not confusion. Not contradiction. Silence.

And silence, in Scripture, is rarely emptiness. It is often intention.

We keep trying to solve the mystery of the date, as if it were a puzzle God forgot to finish. But what if the missing date is the message? What if God deliberately refused to anchor Jesus to a single day because Jesus was never meant to belong to only one moment in history?

Science, interestingly, doesn’t push back against this idea. Science does what it does best: it observes patterns, studies behavior, measures conditions. When science looks honestly at the birth narratives, it quietly agrees with Scripture’s restraint. The clues are there, but they never close the case. Shepherds living in the fields. A census “at that time.” A star whose appearance marks a season rather than a timestamp.

Enough evidence to say, “This happened.”

Not enough to say, “It only matters here.”

That’s not conflict between science and Scripture. That’s alignment. Science confirms the humanity of the moment. Scripture protects the meaning of it.

And here is where the conversation deepens.

Human beings do not live by dates. We live by moments that transform us. No one remembers the calendar date their life changed. They remember the phone call. The diagnosis. The apology. The forgiveness. The moment they realized they weren’t alone anymore.

Jesus’ birth was never meant to be remembered like a historical footnote. It was meant to be remembered like light breaking through darkness. Like warmth returning after a long night.

That’s why December 25th works, even if it isn’t exact. Not because it is correct, but because it is honest about the human condition.

December is dark. Long nights. Cold air. Less light. Science tells us that when light decreases, anxiety increases. Mood drops. Energy declines. Hope feels harder to hold. The body responds to darkness whether we acknowledge it or not.

And Scripture says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

That is not poetry disconnected from reality. That is a truth that resonates with how humans are wired.

So the early Church didn’t choose December because it knew the date. It chose December because it understood people. It understood that announcing light when darkness feels longest is not deception. It is mercy.

This is where Christmas culture gets misunderstood. The problem isn’t that we celebrate in December. The problem is that we forgot why December matters.

Christmas didn’t start as a birthday party. It started as a declaration. Darkness does not get the final word. Light has entered the world, and it enters precisely where it is needed most.

And that leads to a deeper realization.

What if Jesus wasn’t born on a specific day because He wasn’t born for a specific day?

What if He was born into a condition?

A world strained by power. A world exhausted by injustice. A world burdened by fear. A world longing for meaning but unsure where to find it.

That world sounds ancient until you realize it sounds exactly like now.

Jesus did not arrive when the world was calm. He arrived when the world was ripe. When systems were brittle. When people were tired. When hope was thin.

Science would call that timing. Scripture calls it fullness.

“When the fullness of time had come.”

Not the fullness of peace. The fullness of need.

This is where faith and science meet in a way that feels almost uncomfortable, because it asks something of us. It asks us to stop arguing about accuracy and start paying attention to presence.

The incarnation is not God hovering above biology. It is God stepping into it. Flesh. Nerves. Breath. Growth. Learning. Fatigue. Hunger. Attachment. Pain. Joy.

Science tells us humans heal through connection, safety, and compassion. Scripture shows us a Savior who touched the untouchable, ate with the rejected, and restored dignity where shame had settled in.

These are not competing narratives. They are layered truths describing the same reality.

Jesus did not come to win a debate about calendars. He came to rewire humanity.

And that may be the most unsettling part of all. Because if God had given us the date, we would have contained Him. We would have honored Him once a year and ignored Him the rest. We would have argued over accuracy instead of practicing presence.

The missing date refuses to let us do that.

It keeps Jesus unconfined. Uncontained. Accessible.

So when someone says, “Jesus wasn’t really born on December 25th,” there is no need to get defensive. The better response is a calm smile and a quiet agreement.

Exactly.

Because if He had been, we might have stopped looking for Him the rest of the year.

And that is where this story turns from history into invitation.

Because maybe the reason the date does not matter is because Jesus is still arriving. Not in mangers, but in moments. Moments when forgiveness interrupts resentment. Moments when hope shows up where despair has lived too long. Moments when love refuses to quit on someone the world has already written off.

Science tells us people change through repeated experiences of grace and safety. Scripture shows us a Savior who embodied both without limit.

Jesus’ birth was not meant to be remembered once. It was meant to be received continually.

And perhaps that is why God refused to give us a birthday. Because Jesus did not come to be remembered. He came to be encountered.

And encounters don’t belong to calendars.

They belong to now.

Christmas, when seen this way, stops being a fragile tradition that needs defending and becomes something far sturdier. It becomes a living reminder rather than a historical claim. It becomes an interruption rather than an anniversary. And interruptions are harder to commercialize, harder to control, and much harder to ignore.

Because an interruption does not ask permission. It shows up when life is already full. When schedules are tight. When emotions are mixed. When expectations are high and energy is low. That is exactly how Jesus entered the world the first time, and it is exactly how He still enters lives now.

We tend to imagine the birth of Christ as peaceful because we have painted it that way. But peace is usually something you recognize after the chaos has passed. In the moment, the world into which Jesus was born was loud, tense, uncertain, and unjust. Families were displaced. Politics were heavy. Fear lived close to the surface. Ordinary people were doing their best to survive systems they did not control. Nothing about that moment was calm.

That matters, because it means Jesus did not wait for ideal conditions. He did not arrive when everything was ready. He arrived when everything was real.

Science tells us that human beings are most open to change not when life is comfortable, but when certainty breaks down. Moments of disruption create openness. Scripture shows us a God who enters precisely there. Not to overwhelm, but to reorient. Not to dominate, but to dwell.

This is why the shepherds matter so much. They were not powerful. They were not prepared. They were not expecting anything. They were simply present. And presence, more than precision, is what the incarnation requires.

The angel did not announce a date. The angel announced good news. The message was not “Today is significant on the calendar.” The message was “This is significant for you.”

That distinction is everything.

Because calendars create distance. They push meaning backward or forward. They encourage us to say “then” instead of “now.” God refused to let that happen with Jesus.

The incarnation was not meant to become a memory people visited once a year. It was meant to become a reality people lived inside.

This is where science quietly supports faith again. Neuroscience shows us that meaning is reinforced through repetition, not singular events. Transformation does not happen once. It happens again and again. Scripture presents a Savior who does not save in a single moment and then disappear, but who walks, teaches, heals, returns, restores, and remains.

Jesus was not born to be marked on a timeline. He was born to reframe time itself.

This is why December still matters even if it is not exact. Darkness is not symbolic only. It is biological. Seasonal darkness affects sleep, mood, motivation, and hope. Human beings feel winter in their bones. And into that reality, Christmas announces light.

Not theoretical light. Not abstract hope. But embodied hope. A God who knows what cold feels like. Who knows hunger. Who knows waiting. Who knows what it means to be born into circumstances you did not choose.

This is not sentimentality. It is solidarity.

And this is where Christmas in 2025 struggles, because we have confused abundance with meaning. We have mistaken stimulation for joy. We have turned a declaration of light into a demand for cheer. But cheer can be faked. Light cannot.

Light changes what it touches.

That is why the commercialization of Christmas feels so hollow to so many people. It asks for emotion without offering transformation. It demands celebration without providing substance. And deep down, people know the difference.

Jesus does not demand cheer. He offers presence.

And presence is what people are starving for.

Presence in grief. Presence in anxiety. Presence in uncertainty. Presence in exhaustion. Presence in doubt.

If Christmas feels disconnected from your life, it is not because you have failed to believe hard enough. It may be because you have been offered a version of Christmas that forgot what it was meant to do.

Christmas was never meant to distract you from darkness. It was meant to enter it.

This is why the missing date matters so much. Because it keeps Christmas from becoming a ritual we complete and move on from. It keeps Christ from becoming an idea we revisit once a year. It forces us to wrestle with something deeper than accuracy. It forces us to ask whether God is still welcome to interrupt our lives now.

And that is an uncomfortable question.

Because if Jesus belongs to every season, then He belongs to the inconvenient ones. The uncelebrated ones. The unphotogenic ones. The ones that will never make it onto a greeting card.

Science tells us that growth happens in discomfort. Scripture shows us a Savior who never avoided it.

Jesus did not arrive to be admired. He arrived to be followed.

And following Him has never been about marking a day. It has always been about recognizing a moment.

Moments when love calls you beyond self-protection. Moments when forgiveness costs you something. Moments when hope feels irrational but necessary. Moments when grace interrupts your certainty and asks you to trust anyway.

Those are incarnation moments.

And they do not belong to December alone.

They belong to Tuesdays. To hospital rooms. To late-night conversations. To quiet decisions no one else will ever see. To acts of compassion that never make headlines. To choosing love when it would be easier to withdraw.

This is where Jesus is still being born.

Not again in flesh, but again in effect.

Again in impact.
Again in transformation.
Again in presence.

That is why the question “When was Jesus really born?” ultimately gives way to a better one.

Where is He being born now?

And perhaps the reason God never gave us a birthday is because He did not want us to limit our expectation. He did not want us waiting for one day to remember Him. He wanted us attentive enough to recognize Him whenever light breaks into darkness.

That kind of faith does not argue about dates.

It watches for presence.

It does not defend Christmas.

It embodies it.

And that is something no season, no calendar, no commercialization can take away.

Because light, once it enters, cannot be unseen.

And God, once encountered, cannot be confined.

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Your friend,
Douglas Vandergraph