by Pastor Brian Phillips
Delivered as an exhortation during worship on Sunday, December 17, 2023.
Traditions are great blessings, but they possess greater blessing when we delight not just in the act itself, but are faithful to remember and teach the meaning behind them. For all truly great traditions have great meaning. Some, having forgotten or never knowing the real reasons behind some Christmas traditions, have attributed just the opposite meanings to them.
One of the clearest examples of this is found in the Christmas tree, which has been condemned by some as having pagan origins. As a result, some Christians refuse to engage in the “pagan practice” of having a Christmas tree. They miss that, in reality, nothing can have a pagan origin at all – after all, all things were made good and very good, so if anything can be said to be “pagan,” that thing is the counterfeit.
The real story of the Christmas tree is quite wonderful. Some will say it is “mere legend,” to which I would respond that there is no such thing. Legends shape people and cultures, often more than brute facts, so dismissing them as insignificant or pointless is foolish.
St. Boniface was an 8th century missionary to modern-day Germany, a region controlled by the Norsemen who brought their religion with them. They worshiped many gods, Thor being the chief of them and they had a gigantic oak tree in Thor’s honor located at Geismar. They would gather around the tree for feasts, idol worship, and animal sacrifices. St. Boniface, in the company of these pagans, chopped down the tree on Christmas Eve just as they planned a sacrifice at the oak. Boniface proclaimed, “Here is the Thunder Oak; and here the cross of Christ shall break the hammer of the false god Thor.” Angry at first, the response of the Norsemen turned to repentance – if Thor could not defend his own holy place, what good was he?
Boniface then used a tree as an object lesson to tell them of a tree that actually does save, not because the tree was magic, but because on that tree, Jesus Christ died for the sins of men. That tree, Boniface said, is an evergreen, an eternal tree. He spoke of it as, “the wood of peace…the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are ever green. See how it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the Christ-child; gather about it, not in the wild wood, but in your own homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and rites of kindness.” The Norsemen began the practice of bringing evergreen trees into their homes to decorate and light in celebration of the birth of the Savior. It is His birth that we celebrate during Advent and it was for our sins that He died on the tree, the cross.