Happy Birthday, Jesus?

My wife's family on her mom's side, the Plott side of my mother-in-law's family, my wife's Nan's family used to hold an annual Christmas party at the Bainbridge fire hall.  It was a family reunion/Christmas party.  It included a ham dinner, lots of desserts, a penny toss, and a visit from "Santa". A penny toss or scramble is just what you think.  An adult throws pennies and kids scramble to collect them.  There were other antics that I will not mention.  I married into this.  We went every year the Saturday before Christmas. It was an obligatory event. Not that we didn't enjoy it. These people were funny and knew how to have a good time.  Every year my wife and I would rehearse who belonged to who and who was related to whom.  Changes in relationship status and the additions of children made this a continuous endeavor.  Since Nan's death in 2002, it hasn't been the same. Last year was the first year that there was no party.  We buried Aunt Ann instead.
Aunt Sis, the eldest of the Plott siblings always said the blessing and hosted a birthday party for Jesus.  We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and ate cupcakes.  There were even candles. I remembered that in my church growing up, we had a birthday party for Jesus too.   I suspect a lot of churches did this near Christmas as part of the celebratory cheer.  Why not add a birthday cake to the table?
Here's the thing: December 25th is not Jesus' birthday.  The church does not celebrate his birthday. We don't know his birthday.  We are not told. It was not known or it did not matter to the writers of his story. December 25th was a Pagan festival celebrating the winter solstice.  Christians adopted it for their celebration of the Nativity and Incarnation of Jesus the Messiah. It was an idea festival to adopt because it explored the themes of darkness and light, rebirth and renewal, and the anticipatory hope for the sun's return.  These themes were also Jewish themes and fit well with their notion of Messianic hope.  "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,"wrote the ancient prophet Isaiah.    
We don't celebrate his birthday, but we do celebrate his birth.  There is a difference. Because His birth points to the bible's claim of the incarnation; that is, the bible claims that the God who made the earth and the heavens descends into human flesh; the eternal and immortal puts on a mortal human body. And that personal expression is found in Jesus of Nazareth.   God comes near by showing up in the person of Jesus, a man whose birth becomes important precisely because his death and resurrection identified him as the Son of God, the physical embodiment of the invisible God.  Mark's gospel is concerned in telling the story of his ministry, death, and resurrection.  Matthew and Luke are concerned with telling about his special birth as a fulfillment of ancient scriptures and prophecies.  The story of Christmas comes from Matthew and Luke.  Mostly from Luke chapters 1 and 2.  
The Gospel of John proposes that Jesus' earthly presence, his humanity, points to the greater truth of his divinity.  God is the Word made flesh in Jesus.  Jesus is God in human form.  That is who and what we celebrate at Christmas.  And Jesus' tells us that his flesh and blood are available for consumption, so that he might get inside our own flesh and blood.  He is in bread and wine, when we remember that he promised to be in bread and wine for us.
So you can eat birthday cake for Jesus.  But, if you want to celebrate his birth and life and death and resurrection; if you want to celebrate who he is, the man of God, the God in the flesh,the embodiment of the Good and gracious creator and giver of life come to the table and dine with his church, who gather to eat the bread and drink the wine to remember the one who carried the power of God in his body--a power that overcomes darkness and death.  Christmas is not a birthday party.  It is a celebration of the presence of God in the body of Jesus Christ, as a baby boy and a crucified man. God is born and dies and is raised from the dead.  That's what we celebrate.  God is with us.  God is not invisible, unknowable, far away.  God has come.  God is Jesus.  Jesus is God.  This is the bible's story and why we celebrate the Nativity of Our Lord, the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. The best place to celebrate this is in a fire hall with some crazy relatives or in a church.  Make sure you eat a cupcake or too.