From the Pastor's Desk

Beloved in Christ,

Greetings to each of you! We're in the last week of July — about to close out seven months of 2026.

Here in Australia, in Brisbane where we live, June and July are our winter months, while December is summer. When I arrived in this country twenty years ago, celebrating Christmas in the middle of summer felt strange. Tamil Nadu doesn't really have a winter, but by December the sun is at least bearable there. Here, we sing carols under a scorching sun. To capture something of the Christmas atmosphere, people here celebrate "Christmas in July" on July 25 — largely, it has to be said, something retailers set up for their own business. So then — is celebrating on December 25 correct? Some argue that's wrong too, and that Christmas shouldn't be celebrated at all.

First: Scripture nowhere says Christmas should or shouldn't be celebrated. So why do we celebrate it? Scripture tells us to observe festival days (e.g., Exodus 23:14) — so I don't see anything wrong in setting apart a specific day as Christ's birth day, to help us remember Jesus all the more.

Let me share two scenes from Scripture that support this.

Scene one — the Persian palace.A young Jewish woman, unafraid of the death sentence hanging over her, stands before the king though not summoned — because an order to destroy her entire people has already been signed and sealed. "Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" her cousin Mordecai tells her (Esther 4:14). Through God's remarkable intervention, that day became a day of deliverance. A man named Haman had cast lots to fix a day of destruction; God turned that same day into a day of triumph. Mordecai and Esther then established it as a festival for every generation to keep (Esther 9:20-28) — a new festival, never previously commanded in Scripture.

Scene two — centuries later, the same Jerusalem temple.Consider the history of the Maccabee family, who lived in Judea in the 2nd century BC and freed the Jewish people by revolting against the foreign Greek-Syrian regime. According to the history recorded in the books of the Maccabees, the foreign king Antiochus defiled the temple; through the Maccabees' sacrifice it was purified and rededicated. To commemorate this, Israel instituted an eight-day festival — later Jewish tradition came to call it the "Festival of Lights," marking light overcoming darkness. This too is a festival absent from the Law of Moses. Its canonical support is found in John 10:22-23: "At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem... Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon." Jesus didn't avoid this man-instituted feast — He showed up in the middle of it.

In the book of Esther, deliverance came in the midst of darkness. At the Feast of Dedication, light came in the midst of darkness. Both are days God's people instituted themselves — yet both reflect God's grace.

Isn't Christmas the same, then? In the depths of winter darkness, the church chose a day to mark the rising of the "Sun of Righteousness" (Malachi 4:2). Some object to December 25, saying it coincides with a Roman festival honoring the sun god. History offers two explanations: some say early Christians calculated Christ's conception at March 25 and simply added nine months, arriving at this date; others say the church deliberately chose it to proclaim light in the darkest season. Either way, the day chosen to celebrate this is a human decision — not God's explicit command. Which is exactly why it can't rightly be called "wrong," nor insisted on as "the only correct way."

Beloved, Christmas isn't found in a date — it's found in the heart. Whether we sing carols under a scorching December sun or in the July cold, our purpose is one: to proclaim that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). In these final days of July — whether we celebrate "Christmas in July" or not — let every day become a day we remember Jesus.

This picture of light breaking into darkness is beautifully captured in an old hymn the church has sung for centuries (Original: Latin "O Antiphons," 8th–9th century; versified c. 12th century; English translation by John Mason Neale, 1851):

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

I've included the video of this hymn below — listen and be blessed.

God bless you!

Pastor Weslyn

Ps. Jeyakaran Weslyn

Senior Pastor, Vaarthai Evangelical Church Inc