Shawn Ryan

Why do you celebrate a birthday?

In fact, they would make fun of the Romans.

We've found some letters from some Christian leaders making fun of the Romans.

Why do you celebrate birthdays?

That's silly.

They would only celebrate the days of martyrdom, people who died for their faith.

They'd remember and celebrate those days, but not birthdays.

So nobody knows when Jesus was born.

The Bible doesn't say.

And nobody cared back then.

Well, over 150 years later, people began to wonder, hey, when was Jesus born?

What was the day that he was born?

Well, there was a very strong belief back then among Christians, a connection between creation and redemption.

a very strong connection.

And they believed, sounds a little weird to us, but they believed the connection between creation and redemption was so strong that the Messiah would have been conceived on the same day of the calendar that he died.

So in the year 200, Tertullian, who was a Christian leader, said, well, I can figure out when Jesus died.

So based on the Roman calendar of the day, he determined that Jesus died on March the 25th.

Therefore, they concluded, he must have been conceived by the Holy Spirit on March the 25th.

Fast forward nine months, December the 25th.

He would have been born then on December the 25th.