A number of years ago I wrote an article about Martin Luther and the Christmas tree. In this post I mention how some believers have claimed that the prophet Jeremiah wrote against the use of Christmas trees in Jeremiah 10: 1-10. I wrote “I doubt that the text is speaking of anything like that, for the context of Jeremiah’s passage speaks more against the idol worship that then existed and cannot rightly be connected to a mere celebration of Christmas which did not begin until many centuries later.”
In this post I would like to share a little more information on that claim.
Jeremiah’s ministry took place between 627 B.C. until the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. He is my favourite Old Testament prophet. I see Christ in him. He was accused wrongly, as was Christ, he was tried, persecuted and imprisoned because of the things he said. Like Christ he also foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (Jeremiah 22: 5-7, Matthew 23: 37-39) and was rejected by his own people.
The book of Jeremiah was essentially written about 605 B.C. and chapter 1 describes his call, chapter 2 describes his call for Israel to repent, chapter describes their unfaithfulness, in chapter 4 he calls Israel to return to God, in chapter 5 the sins of Jerusalem and Judah are exposed, while chapter 6 speaks about the siege of Jerusalem and in chapter 7 Jeremiah preaches. You can at times hear his voice and his sorrow. As Jerusalem cries out for help (chapter 9) and in chapter 10: 1 Jeremiah calls on ancient Israel to “Hear the word which the Lord speaketh unto you” meaning them, his original audience.
I am struck by some words in the footnotes of my dad’s Thompsons Chain Reference Study Bible relating to “Palm-trees” and “Idol Making“. My dad used to preach from this Bible. In it Jeremiah speaks against people cutting down a tree in a forest and then they deck it with silver and gold, fastening it with nails so that it won’t move (Jeremiah 10: 3-4) But then in verse 5 we read about these palm trees. The prophet writes the “customs of the people are vain” meaning they are founded upon nonsense, idolatry and folly. Jeremiah ridicules them. The people must have been nailing these trees to a pedestal or a pillar. All the while Jeremiah is speaking from the living God but these people were making dumb idols out of palm trees and fastening them up like pillars.
Calvin comments “We now see what the Prophet meant to teach us, – that the wisdom of the Chaldeans, and also of the Egyptians, was celebrated throughout the world, and also so blinded the Jews, or so enraptured them...” (Calvin’s Commentaries on Jeremiah, Chap. X. 4, 5)
Here we do not see Jeremiah speaking against Christmas trees put up to remember Jesus Christ, the light of the world, we see ancient Israel following the ways of the Egyptians from whom GOD had delivered them from in the Exodus. But never the less, they are returning to the ways of the world and not continuing on in the ways of the Lord.
It is true that people can make gods of anything, be it wood or stone. But for people to remember and honour the birth of Christ by placing up a work of art in the form of a Christmas tree is in no way spoken against by Jeremiah.
If you in your heart are honouring Christ and remembering His birth then your Christmas tree is very right and proper, and in no way spoken against by the prophet Jeremiah. Remember that when Jesus was hailed as king the people honoured Him with palm trees (John 12: 13). This was a symbolic act and the gospels do not speak against that. So again, if you are honouring Christ and are not bowing down to a Christmas tree or worshipping it as a god, then you are doing nothing wrong.
Jeremiah 10: 1-10 is nothing to do with the Christmas tree.
Simon Peter Sutherland 