Related: Could the Christmas Star actually be the Star of Bethlehem? However, Humphreys’ theory has since been debunked. For example, in a 1991 article in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomer Colin Humphreys proposed that the fabled star was actually a slow-moving comet, which Chinese observers recorded in 5 B.C. Other scholars have attempted to correlate the " Star of Bethlehem," which supposedly heralded Jesus' birth, with actual astronomical events to pinpoint his birth year. In his book " Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth" (Random House, 2013), biblical scholar and author Reza Aslan wrote that Herod's massacre was "an event for which there exists not a shred of corroborating evidence in any chronicle or history of the time whether Jewish, Christian, or Roman." The Star of Bethlehem This is particularly true as it relates to the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the sick, the weak, and the disenfranchised.But historians disagree about Herod's actual year of death, and many have argued that the mass infanticide is nothing more than a legend. Why is that? It is because at Christmas we take the time and make the effort to acknowledge our fellow man in the manner that we should all year long. Christmas is a season of sharing, giving, loving, and helping. We give to each other because God gave us the best gift of all. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus said. Jesus’ sole motivation in coming, dying, and rising again, was to reconcile a lost world back to God the Father through himself. God The Son laid aside his glory, humbled himself to become a human baby, to be born of a woman into poverty, to live the life of a peasant, to be rejected by the very people he came to save, to die a brutal an agonizing death on a cross, and to rise again in triumph over sin and death. God gave the world the most precious gift in the person of Jesus Christ. While there is much history behind how we arrived at exchanging gifts on Christmas day, the main reason is this: when we do so we are emulating God. So why give gifts to each other instead of giving them to the birthday boy? This makes Christmas a birthday celebration (and no, it does not matter that historically speaking Jesus was most likely born in the spring – celebrating his birth in December is a choice to remember it – much like celebrating Communion is an act of remembering his death). Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the Christ, the One sent by God the Father to rescue all of humanity from its worst possible fate – life and eternity apart from the one true God, (who has revealed himself in the Bible as Elohim, Jehovah, Yahweh, “I AM WHO I AM,” and) who is the Source of all that is good, right, and beautiful. In our present culture when a birthday is celebrated, the gifts go to the birthday boy or girl. So no one can credit Christians with inventing the act. The most ancient cultures display evidence of gift giving. But it did not start with Christians or Jews for that matter. “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”Īlthough many people exchange or simply give gifts at Christmas time, most of us aren’t really sure why we do so. Matthew 25:40 (New International Version)