It's Christmas Eve. Tonight and into tomorrow (depending on your denomination) we celebrate the birth of the Savior. I have some thoughts about how important that is.
One may wonder what right a non-believer has in explaining the true meaning of Christmas. Surely, such a man would revert to tired old cliches - Christmas is for family, Christmas is for gratitude, Christmas is for charity. Surely those are the places a non-believer will land when traversing the true meaning of the holiest of Christian holidays*.
I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be this simple.
Now, to be fair, as a student of religion generally, and of early Christianity specifically, I take a slightly different view of the whole religion thing than many other so-called secularists. I think most of you know by now that I am not hostile toward religion. At this moment, I would like you to understand that this lack of hostility is not rooted in fear or misunderstanding, but in a deep and abiding respect for faith brought about by years of dedicated study. I studied faith long before I went to college, but my understanding of how powerful it is really blossomed in Bloomington. Yes, even at a public, liberal arts university.
Now, for DrHoops (holla!) and others, let me get this out of the way. Jesus wasn't born in late December. We all know that by now, I hope. Doesn't matter. The true meaning of Christmas has nothing to do with whether the date matches up on the calendar your bank sends you in the mail in November each year. If that matters to you, your soul is probably irreparably lost, anyway.
Do we celebrate Christmas in December because it aligns with the solstice? Yes. Are there many pagan influences in when, why and how we celebrate? Yes. Duh. Obviously. Doesn't matter. Not important. The point I wish to make is unrelated to any of those historical notes**.
Anyway, back to the main theme. Whatever the date, Christmas Eve is the night where we remember the coming birth of the Christ. I know people think of Christmas as Christ's birthday, but as the story goes, he was born at night***. By the reckoning of that place at that time, Christmas would have begun on Christmas Eve at sundown (something like 6 pm!), so Christmas Eve after dark is as good a time as any. Regardless, this is what happened, quoting Luke or Linus, as your experiences may lie:
Well, if that's the key message, then this passage from Luke Chapter 2 is probably 1-B. Christ's birth may not be the moment humanity was redeemed, but it is the moment that God put that redemption into action. Up until that point, God could have easily changed his mind. He could have easily backed away from salvation, and none of us would have been the wiser. But at that moment, when Christ was born, the New Covenant became real. There was no going back. At that point, God's decision that we were worth redemption became set in stone.
From a historiological standpoint, it makes perfect sense we should celebrate this moment just after the solstice, when days finally have waned to their minimum, and begin to grow again. This is the moment when the sun begins its return, when life says to us all, we will get one more year. That is why I don't get bent out of shape that the date is "wrong." The date may be inaccurate, but it's not wrong****. That we celebrate the birth of our salvation as the year itself is reborn isn't wrong. It's unquestionably right.
Anyway, back to the meaning of Christmas, before this post gets so long Rivals tells me I can't post it. We're a terrible, dirty, horrible species. We've done so much damage. I mean, just really. We've done our level-headed best to destroy this planet and everything on it. We're awful. We really are. And yet the story of Jesus***** tells us that even we are worth redemption. After everything our species has put this planet through - and only the limits of the laws of physics have prevented us from inflicting the same pain on the rest of the universe - God looks at us and says, "Yes, I want to bring them to me. I want them to know that I still love them, and, though faulty they are, they still have worth in my eye."
That's a very powerful message. Death, war, destruction, slavery, the degradation of our planet, sexism, racism, homophobia, greed, selfishness, idol (celebrity?) worship, sin upon sin upon sin upon sin upon sin. And yet, awful as we may be, this is the day where we remember that God looked at us from upon high, and said, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
We have worth. We have hope. We have that divine spark inside us. We have something, small as it may be, something, just some little thing, that would make God himself look upon us and say, "Yes, I think they are worth saving."
You don't have to be a church-going Christian to understand the power of that.
Merry Christmas to you all, and God bless.
goat
* Discounting Easter, of course, which may be considered holier by rational men.
** They are interesting in and of themselves, and if anyone wants to discuss them, I'm down for it, but they just aren't important for this post.
*** The Bible itself actually doesn't say, but the stories in Matt and Luke seem to generally suggest a nighttime birth.
**** I don't mean to get bent out of shape about this, but growing up as a Witness, I understand how certain people place so much importance on the date of Christmas, and it really bugs me, now that I know more.
***** Also the story of Noah, but that's a whole different bag of tater-tots.
One may wonder what right a non-believer has in explaining the true meaning of Christmas. Surely, such a man would revert to tired old cliches - Christmas is for family, Christmas is for gratitude, Christmas is for charity. Surely those are the places a non-believer will land when traversing the true meaning of the holiest of Christian holidays*.
I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be this simple.
Now, to be fair, as a student of religion generally, and of early Christianity specifically, I take a slightly different view of the whole religion thing than many other so-called secularists. I think most of you know by now that I am not hostile toward religion. At this moment, I would like you to understand that this lack of hostility is not rooted in fear or misunderstanding, but in a deep and abiding respect for faith brought about by years of dedicated study. I studied faith long before I went to college, but my understanding of how powerful it is really blossomed in Bloomington. Yes, even at a public, liberal arts university.
Now, for DrHoops (holla!) and others, let me get this out of the way. Jesus wasn't born in late December. We all know that by now, I hope. Doesn't matter. The true meaning of Christmas has nothing to do with whether the date matches up on the calendar your bank sends you in the mail in November each year. If that matters to you, your soul is probably irreparably lost, anyway.
Do we celebrate Christmas in December because it aligns with the solstice? Yes. Are there many pagan influences in when, why and how we celebrate? Yes. Duh. Obviously. Doesn't matter. Not important. The point I wish to make is unrelated to any of those historical notes**.
Anyway, back to the main theme. Whatever the date, Christmas Eve is the night where we remember the coming birth of the Christ. I know people think of Christmas as Christ's birthday, but as the story goes, he was born at night***. By the reckoning of that place at that time, Christmas would have begun on Christmas Eve at sundown (something like 6 pm!), so Christmas Eve after dark is as good a time as any. Regardless, this is what happened, quoting Luke or Linus, as your experiences may lie:
Now, I want to step aside for a moment, and remind you all that I have argued several times on this very forum that Easter according to John is the central theme of the entire Christian Bible. Although some other posters take issue with it, I have pointed out that John changed the date of the crucifixion. He moved it up by a day because he wanted Jesus to be killed, not the day of the Passover, but during the day before the Passover, at the same time the Passover lambs were slaughtered. Because Jesus was the Passover lamb. To me, that's the key message. Jesus is the lamb.
Well, if that's the key message, then this passage from Luke Chapter 2 is probably 1-B. Christ's birth may not be the moment humanity was redeemed, but it is the moment that God put that redemption into action. Up until that point, God could have easily changed his mind. He could have easily backed away from salvation, and none of us would have been the wiser. But at that moment, when Christ was born, the New Covenant became real. There was no going back. At that point, God's decision that we were worth redemption became set in stone.
From a historiological standpoint, it makes perfect sense we should celebrate this moment just after the solstice, when days finally have waned to their minimum, and begin to grow again. This is the moment when the sun begins its return, when life says to us all, we will get one more year. That is why I don't get bent out of shape that the date is "wrong." The date may be inaccurate, but it's not wrong****. That we celebrate the birth of our salvation as the year itself is reborn isn't wrong. It's unquestionably right.
Anyway, back to the meaning of Christmas, before this post gets so long Rivals tells me I can't post it. We're a terrible, dirty, horrible species. We've done so much damage. I mean, just really. We've done our level-headed best to destroy this planet and everything on it. We're awful. We really are. And yet the story of Jesus***** tells us that even we are worth redemption. After everything our species has put this planet through - and only the limits of the laws of physics have prevented us from inflicting the same pain on the rest of the universe - God looks at us and says, "Yes, I want to bring them to me. I want them to know that I still love them, and, though faulty they are, they still have worth in my eye."
That's a very powerful message. Death, war, destruction, slavery, the degradation of our planet, sexism, racism, homophobia, greed, selfishness, idol (celebrity?) worship, sin upon sin upon sin upon sin upon sin. And yet, awful as we may be, this is the day where we remember that God looked at us from upon high, and said, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
We have worth. We have hope. We have that divine spark inside us. We have something, small as it may be, something, just some little thing, that would make God himself look upon us and say, "Yes, I think they are worth saving."
You don't have to be a church-going Christian to understand the power of that.
Merry Christmas to you all, and God bless.
goat
* Discounting Easter, of course, which may be considered holier by rational men.
** They are interesting in and of themselves, and if anyone wants to discuss them, I'm down for it, but they just aren't important for this post.
*** The Bible itself actually doesn't say, but the stories in Matt and Luke seem to generally suggest a nighttime birth.
**** I don't mean to get bent out of shape about this, but growing up as a Witness, I understand how certain people place so much importance on the date of Christmas, and it really bugs me, now that I know more.
***** Also the story of Noah, but that's a whole different bag of tater-tots.
