The widely-held historical heresy of Replacement Theology (aka Supersessionism) is often taught less explicitly than subliminally; spread by what is not said rather than by what is.

In my childhood, for example, I attended a smorgasbord of protestant churches, among them Methodist, Baptist, Anglican, Assemblies of God and some, so-called, free or non-denominational congregations.

Not for the life of me can I recall someone in any of those pulpits stating that, because the Jewish nation had rejected Jesus, Christians had replaced them as God’s Chosen People.

But despite never hearing this preached, it in fact became my sense. For, indeed, the Jews were absolutely excluded from everything “Christian” I was exposed to. And Christianity was completely cut off from everything Jewish.

The Feasts of the Lord, which the New Testament translators called “the feasts of the Jews”, were not relevant to us. We did not need Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. We had Easter, Pentecost and Christmas. And in these holidays, the Jews had no part to play.

Especially not in Christmas.*

And, goodness, do we Christians know “the Christmas story”!  Gabriel announcing “the immaculate conception”. A pregnant virgin on a donkey; no vacancies at the inn so the birth in a stable while choirs of angels herald “Peace on earth”; ‘nativity scenes’ in our living rooms replete with halos around the Holy Family’s heads; church pageants with children in white sporting chicken-wire wings, while others carry stuffed sheep and three, glitz-covered, Magi hover in the wings.

How we love the carols. I still know them by heart: Silent Night; Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem; Away in a Manger; While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night; Oh, Come All Ye Faithful….

Red and green décor and twinkling lights; stuffed stockings, reindeer-bedecked cards and gifts under trees. All this, and more – so ‘Christmassy’, or is it Xmassy? So very “Christian”. So utterly un-Jewish!

But what is this event – this birthday for a baby born 2000 years ago? *

What do we read about it in the Bible? The question itself holds the answer.  If we steer our thinking away from the bumf, the parties, pressies, cards and carols – yes, even from the carols – and home in on the actual Scriptures relating to “Christmas”, we see something very, very different from the holiday so many see as the highlight of the Christian year.

It is hardly a Christian happening; it’s barely about us at all! This was an Israel-centered, almost Israel-exclusive, event.

Let’s take a closer look. You might be surprised at the words I’ll highlight in capitals; what they actually say, for parts of them have been winkled out.

We get the “Christmas story” from Matthew and Luke. Mark’s Gospel makes no reference to it. John’s contains just a couple of verses.

But first, Isaiah 9:6 – Addressing his own nation, Israel, the prophet says: “For UNTO US a Child is born, UNTO US a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder.”

To Matthew’s record:

In Chapter 1, Jesus’s  genealogy anchors Him firmly in Abraham, the first Patriarch of the nation of Israel, and intricately weaves Him into the history of that man’s physical seed, specifically that of Judah – the Jews. The family tree is broken down into three lots of 14 generations: From Abraham to David, the rise of Israel; from David to Babylon, the House of Judah; from Babylon to Jesus, the return of Judah to their land, into which tribe Jesus is born.

1:21 – The angel tells Joseph that the baby conceived in Mary’s womb “will save HIS PEOPLE from their sins.” “His people” are the people of the nation into which He was born. They are not the Chinese or the Americans or the Australians.

1:23 – Quotes from Isaiah 7:14 – “His name shall be called Immanuel, God with US”. Isaiah was talking about Israel: God with Israel.

2:2 – The wise men from the east saw “His star” which led them on a quest to find “the King of the JEWS”.

2:6 – Asked by Herod where the MESSIAH (a uniquely Jewish-held concept  and expectation) was to be born, the scribes quoted the Hebrew prophet Micah, who said that out of Bethlehem would come a Ruler “who will shepherd MY PEOPLE ISRAEL.”

2:15 – Jesus is “equated” (paralleled) with Israel, when God says: “Out of Egypt I called My son” (from Hosea 11:1).

2:20-21 – Please note the double emphasis on the name of the country to which Joseph and Mary returned with their son; the land of His birth:  “…the land of Israel”.

And on to Luke:

1:16&17 – In heralding the conception of John the Baptist, Gabriel told Zacharias that his soon-to-be-born son would “turn many of the CHILDREN OF ISRAEL to the Lord their God.” And that he would “make ready a people prepared for the Lord”, who, in Jesus’s own words, would not come to minister to the Gentiles, but “rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5-6).

1:31-33 – Gabriel’s message to Mary was that she would conceive and bring forth a son she would call Jesus. The Lord God would give Jesus “the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the HOUSE OF JACOB forever…” Jacob – renamed Israel. Not even Replacement Theologists say that the “Church” has replaced Jacob.

1:54&55 – After the Baby leaps in her womb, Mary, sings about how, by bringing about the conception of the yet-to-be-born Jesus, God “has helped HIS SERVANT ISRAEL…as He spoke to OUR FATHERS, to ABRAHAM AND HIS SEED forever.”

1:68,69,72-75 – Zacharias prophecies after the birth of John the Baptist, who had been born to herald the coming of Jesus: “Blessed is the Lord God OF ISRAEL, for He has visited and redeemed HIS PEOPLE, and has raised up a horn of salvation FOR US IN THE HOUSE OF HIS SERVANT DAVID…to perform the mercy promised to OUR FATHERS and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to OUR FATHER ABRAHAM. To grant us that WE, being delivered from the hand of OUR enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of OUR lives.”

1:76-79 – Zacharias continues, saying that John “will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to HIS PEOPLE by the remission of THEIR sins, through the tender mercy of OUR God with which the Dayspring from on high shall visit US; to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide OUR feet into the way of peace.”

2:11 – The Jewish shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem are told by the angel, “For there is born TO YOU this day IN THE CITY OF DAVID a saviour who is MESSIAH the Lord.”

2:21 – Jesus is circumcised and named on the 8th day of His life. This sign of the covenant God made with Abraham and commanded to be done to all his seed, was made a national sign when God said in Genesis 17:14 that the male child that is not circumcised will be “cut off from his PEOPLE” because he will have broken God’s covenant. Until today, devout Jews will not name a son until the day of his circumcision.

2:22-24 – According to “the law of Moses” – which was given exclusively to national Israel – Jesus, as the first male to open Mary’s womb – (Exodus 13:2 “whatever opens the womb AMONG THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL”) was presented to the Lord at the temple in Jerusalem.

2:25, 26, 32, 34. – In Jerusalem a man called Simeon was “waiting for the Consolation of ISRAEL” – The Holy Spirit was upon him (this was years before Pentecost) and led him into the Temple to bless the “Lord’s Messiah”.  He described the baby, Jesus, as “the glory OF YOUR PEOPLE ISRAEL.” And he told Mary that her Son was “destined for the fall and rising (what an interesting order, given Israel’s subsequent national history) of many IN ISRAEL”.

2:38 – An extraordinarily devout Jewish woman, Anna, upon seeing the Baby in the temple, “spoke of Him to ALL THOSE WHO LOOKED FOR REDEMPTION IN JERUSALEM “.

In John’s Gospel we read:

(1:14) “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among US…” (1:14). Who is the “us”?

18(:37) Pilate asks Jesus, “Are You the King of THE JEWS?” And Jesus replies: “You say rightly that I am a king.  For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world…”

And then, there is this:

 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem THOSE WHO WERE UNDER THE LAW … . (Galatians 4:4-5)

Surely, Christian celebrants, if the Gospels accounts major so much on Jesus’s bloodline and nationality as an Israelite and a Jew, how is it possible that we have almost completely converted Him into something else by pencilling out these “inconvenient” bits?

“Christmas” is, in point of simple fact, a non-Gentile, all-Jewish event.

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* I am not here going to address the issue of the pagan festival that morphed into Christmas. Nor, for the purposes of this article, will I discuss the likelihood, or otherwise, of Jesus’s actual birth date as having been on December 25. Those questions would just detract from the point being made here.