Winter Solstice: Half-spent was the Night

"Light! More light!" -Goethe

Christmas falls very close to the winter solstice: the shortest day of the year is the 22nd of December.

I have noticed that many Christians seem uncomfortable with the proximity of one of Christianity's holiest days to the ancient, pagan celebration of solstice. "Pagan" elements in the celebration of the Nativity are regarded with deep distrust. Christmas trees, yule-logs, gift-giving, Father Christmas, even the Christmas ham are identified as "heathen" intrusions in an essentially Christian holiday. And this suspicion is not new: in the 17th century Protestants in Britain and the United States banned the celebration of Christmas for its heathen notes (and its idolotrous "trappings of popery.")

Non-Christians also enjoy pointing out the (supposedly) pre-Christian roots of many Christmas traditions, implying that, after all, the "authentic" holiday was pagan, earth-centered, and has survived *despite* Christianity's appropriation of the solstice symbols.


A person who is a good and true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it even in pagan literature, but rejecting superstitious vanities and deploring and avoiding those who 'though they knew God did not glorify him as God...'

I have never understood either of these approaches. What was true and good and beautiful re-Christian pagans is true and good and beautiful always and for all. Or, as Augustine wrote, "truth belongs to the Lord, wherever it is found." The pre-Christian Europeans might have celebrated the return of light in the midst of darkness. But this longing for LIGHT, the joy at light's return--these impulses are fundamentally human and universal. They are the foundation of any religious desire, any quest for truth. They are, in the end, our desire for God. "My soul waits for the Lord," the Psalmist sings, "more than the watchmen wait for the morning. More than the watchmen wait for the morning."

Before the first Christmas both the psalmist and the scop in the dark Germanic woods, both the priest in the Holy of Holies and the ordinary man in the field--all waited with foreboding and longing for the advent of light: literal sunlight in a dark season--but also divine brilliance to pierce the soul's darkness.

In the centuries before Christ the prophets of Israel looked forward to a real incarnation of Light: the "Son" who is dimly suggested by the "sun" in the sky.

The People who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.

Meanwhile, the fertile imagination of the gentiles waited for the solstice and invented myths to illustrate the same hope: tales of gods who died and rose again--Dionysis, Mithras, Osiris. For us--we are gentiles--Christmas was the day of fulfillment, the day that "myth became fact."

Gentile that I am, I balk at the idea of throwing out the "pagan" elements of Christmas celebration. I have no qualms about celebrating the winter solstice. My Christmas tree is full of light. If these things are partial they have been fulfilled in Christ. If they were pagan, they have been baptized.

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night

Nativity

This year, my Advent and Christmas meditations have--not surprisingly--been informed by my own recent experience of BIRTH.

Advent: During Advent we wait for the coming of the Christ-child, God with us, Emmanuel. It is a pregnant pause in the church calendar, if you will. This Advent I thought a lot about my own pregnancy. I spent nine months contemplating the coming child, imagining her face, how my life would change. Nothing, nothing, nothing could prepare me for the revolution this baby brought with her. The joy, the depth of love--things I cannot describe--have become my reality. How much more will the expectation of Advent be fulfilled and exploded by the reality of Christ's birth? Christmas is come, Christ is here--but His birth is, we find, too much for us to bear. We learn slowly--have needed so many Advents to begin to understand. Will need so many more to fully comprehend.

Christmas Eve: On Christmas Eve this year I remembered my own labor and delivery as I thought about Mary--who labored on Christmas Eve to give birth to the Savior. As always, I hope follow our Lady, and I hope that in some real way the pain of my labor was joined with hers--that my suffering will, like hers, produce good fruit. "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only creation but we ourselves...groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons."

Christmas Day: On Christmas day I remembered Harriet's first day: the shock, the exhaustion, the strange sense of well-being and safety as our little family huddled in the hospital room. Animals and angels did not attend, but we were well taken care of by nurses and our wonderful family. (And, might I add, a manger would have been more comfortable than Hattie's plastic hospital cradle!) On Christmas Day Devin, Hattie and I drove around the city. The quiet, the empty streets always surprises me. Is this a quiet echo of the first Christmas? Did creation pause, the sky grow still, the hills fall silent? "Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright!"

Feast of the Holy Family: On this feast I thought about the "silent years" of Jesus' childhood, where he lived quietly with Mary and Joseph, learned to walk, to talk, to feed himself with a spoon (or whatever utensil Joseph carved for him out of wood). How blessed Mary and Joseph were to see Jesus as I see my child: all the joy at seeing Him grow, and the sadness to see Him grow up. I ask God to make us a holy family also, to raise our baby so she can see beauty, so she can love purely.

The Feast of the Holy Innocents: Today is the dark day of Christmas, the day we remember the babies killed by Herod as he tried to destroy the infant Jesus. I have never understood this feast like I begin to understand it now. Lord God, preserve my child. Today I mourn with those mothers, whose suffering foreshadowed the suffering of Our Lady as she also watched her child die: "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be comforted, because they are no more."

But, as we know, Love conquers death. The Holy Innocents, the first martyrs, are glorious now. And though Christ died, Christ is Risen, and Christ will come again! So Merry Christmas to all. A Christmas full of Joy which lights up the darkness.