A Big Birthday Bash is a Spiritual Discipline!
“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! ”
Today, September 4th, is my birthday. Even at 63 years old, I love my birthday. My daughter never had a birth-day. Even in her mid-30s, she has a birth-month, and she expects to be treated like English royalty every day of her birth-month. I have no idea where she developed that expectation (from me). My birthday made me wonder how birthdays became so special.
The ancient Egyptians celebrated birthdays at a pharaoh’s coronation. Their coronation symbolized their birth as gods. Later, the ancient Greeks and Romans celebrated the birthdays of the gods with cakes and candles. During the gods’ parties, honored guests received gifts. Because the Greeks and Romans used birthdays to honor their gods, the early Christians considered birthdays pagan practices and disapproved of them.
By the 18th century, celebrating individual birthdays of human beings had become normative, and especially in 19th-century Germany, birthday cakes with candles started becoming a tradition. Yet, it wasn’t until the 20thcentury that celebrating one’s birthday became a global phenomenon. The birthday celebration would probably have evolved earlier, but Jesus’ birthday did not become a huge celebration until the last few centuries.
Today, birthdays, for people of faith, remind us that God created us and made us in the divine One’s image. As Christmas became more popular in the Christian tradition, the transition from celebrating Jesus’ birthday to each person God created could be recognized and affirmed. For Christians, birthdays were an affirmation that, like Jesus, we too are children of God and will one day sit beside God in the kingdom of heaven. So, go ahead and have a big party on your birthday, and please tell my wife to get me a huge, expensive present on my special day!
