Religious investigation on Christmas

Authors Avatar
RME Investigation: Christmas

This investigation is going to look at Christmas which is a Christian festival of light. It will examine when the festival takes place, what happens during the festival, why we celebrate it and finally, how important it is

When does the festival take place?

Christmas day is on the 25th December in the UK, although it is celebrated on the 24th in Germany and the 6th or 7th January in some other countries such as Russia, The festival of Christmas begins four Sundays before Christmas day. It begins with the season of Advent. Advent means 'coming' and it is the preparation before Christmas. During Advent, Christians think about Jesus coming to the world and what this meant for human beings. Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah sent by God to bring peace to the world. Advent calendars are used for the countdown to Christmas, they have 24 windows to be opened day by day for the countdown to Christmas. Sometimes people also have advent wreaths, an advent has four candles which are lit one at a time for each of the four Sundays before Christmas. These are supposed to remind Christians of Jesus as the 'light of the world'. No one knows the exact date of Jesus' birth but in the 4th century, the church decided to celebrate it on the 25th of December as this is the Roman festival of the unconquered sun. This day was special because it was the shortest day and on that day people worshipped the sun and prayed it would come back and give them another summer. For Christians who believed that god made everything, including the sun, it was easy to remember the son of god on this day. Today, the calendar is different and the shortest day is on the 21st December but the birth of Jesus is still celebrated on the 25th.
Join now!


Why does the festival take place?

Since about 400AD, Christians have celebrated the birth of Jesus on Christmas. We celebrate this because of the Christmas story which was recorded in the bible by Matthew and Luke. The story differs slightly as Matthew recorded that Jesus was born in a house but this is the most common Christmas story. More than 2000 years ago, a young woman called Mary was approached to by the angel Gabriel. The angel told the virgin Mary she was pregnant with the son of God and she must call the boy Jesus. Soon ...

This is a preview of the whole essay