Blogging Towards Winter Solstice

December 21, 2007

I woke up early this morning, trying to get a jump on the day before everyone woke up. It was about 5:30am. The darkness outside was thick accompanied by the constant pattering of the rain against the window in our dinning room. I was up early to work on studying Biblical scriptures for various worship celebrations this week: Sunday, Christmas Eve, and Winter Solstice.

I first made my way to turn on the coffee pot, and the stumbled through the darkness of our main living space towards the outline of the Christmas Tree. As I plugged it in the room was flooded with warming white light. Once I had my java, I settled into working at the table, lighting a candle for meditation and turning on a Gregorian Chant CD. It was as I sat there and then rewinded the events of the brief morning that I was struck by Solstice and the ancient celebration of it across cultures, times and religious perspectives.

As the Earth travels around the Sun in its orbit, the north-south position of the Sun changes over the course of the year due to the changing orientation of the Earth's tilted rotation axes with respect to the Sun. In the northern hemisphere, the Winter solstice is day of the year (near December 22) when the Sun is farthest south, marking the first day of the season of winter.It is the shortest day of the year, respectively, in the sense that the length anticipation, and rejoicing, for out of the darkness of the longest day of the year the light of the coming summer – and longer days – is reborn. Historians tells us that Christmas – the birth of Jesus of Nazareth – most likely happened in the Fall or Spring when the nights were warmer for the shepherds out in the fields. Near the fourth century the early church began to formalize the celebration of Christmas on December 25th a day that was already a religious holiday in ancient Roman Culture as well as near the date of Saturnalia a wild celebration of the god Saturn in which a mock king was elected (this is the holiday from which the tradition of 12th night emerged). The ancients burned a yule log on Solistice – to provide light in the darkness – a practice which was transformed and adapted to become our “yule log” of today and eventually the practice of burning – or putting lights – on a Christmas Tree.

So from what scholars tells us, Christmas was first celebrated by the emerging and ancient Church near several other 'pagan' or Roman holidays: winter solstice and Saturnalia for several reasons. First and most likely to enable an illegal church to worship publicly without being arrested or martyred for following the faith beliefs. Second I think it has something to do with the difficulty, maybe even the impossiblity, of identifying, articulating and recognizing what it means to follow Jesus of Nazareth, not just as a good teacher, a prophet, or a miracle worker, but as Emmanuel, God with us, the Messiah, God's Chosen One to deliver humanity from the power and bondage of sin, mistrust, division, decay and death.

I had all this pregnant reflection in my mind and read the beginning of the gospel of John, chapter 1:1-14

I recently heard an interview with Philip Pullman (the author of the Golden Compass), who in talking about literature, said "events are wiser than any sort of commentary that you can make on them."

I wonder if that's what John was trying to do in beginning his gospel in language (and using the metaphor throughout his retelling of the story) of light and darkness, the vocabulary of the ancient, or pagan worldview, the syntax of Winter Solstice.

For me it is Jesus who brings God's light into the darkness, a light that is not destructive but illuminating, not damning but inviting, not condemning but transforming. What or who brings light into your darkness in a way that it cannot be overcome?

If you live in the East Bay and are interested, come and join me at our church for a Winter Solstice Celebration this Friday, December 21st from 7-8pm.