It’s the first day of winter – the shortest day of the year. It’s also pretty dark. The rain is steady; the sky is overcast. We have been uncharacteristically bereft of snow this December. While many long-time residents of Central New York reflexively say they are glad for every day without snow, they seem unaware of how crabby they sound with this meager expression of thanks. Snow in December and early January lightens the landscape and reduces the effect of having so little light. Without it, the world is gray. There is no crispness in the air. And it doesn’t look much like Christmas.
So on this winter solstice, our affect is more seasonally disordered than usual. We can appreciate to a greater degree the need of our ancestors to fashion elaborate ceremonies of light to cope with this dark moment of the year. In ancient Rome, the festival of Saturnalia (“birth of the Sun”) was observed by exchanging gifts and dancing around evergreen trees. In Northern Europe, peasants lit fires to chase away the evil spirits and bid the god of light to return. Later, Christianity embraced elements of these pagan festivals to celebrate the birth of Christ – “the true light that enlightens everyone.”
Earlier this month, Martha and I were driving home after sundown. We drove through a section of our neighborhood saturated with electric Christmas lights. Martha said, “It’s gaudy, but I love it. We need the light.” She had a point. All those decorations spoke less of the holiday than of the need for human beings to create light when nature turns dark.
Some religious purists find the connection between Christmas and the Winter Solstice to be troubling. In fact, the Puritans of both England and New England banned Christmas altogether because of its pagan associations. And today, Christians often protest any non-religious infringement on the holiday with the aphorism, “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Let’s be honest. Jesus is not the reason for the season. Jesus wasn’t even born in winter. The reason for the season is the human need to keep hope alive when our spirits are deprived of adequate light. Jesus is the answer to the season. The Christian adoption of winter solstice observances was an effort to offer the Light of the World as the ultimate hope against all the world’s darkness, whether the natural darkness of the solstice or the darkness created by human sin and injustice.
I admit to being a hopeless sentimentalist. I’d really like to see some Christmas snow. (The forecasters say we have a 50/50 chance for a white Christmas.) But actually, Decembers that are as gray as this one illustrate the power of light more effectively than snow-covered Decembers like we had last year. As a local church pastor, I am personally aware of how gray life looks and feels to people who are toiling through grief, critical illness, mental anguish, and personal heartbreak. And in these dark seasons of life, there is nothing akin to snowfall that magically covers the landscape of the soul. There is only love – an outstretched hand, a caring touch, a kind word, the warmth of companionship, penetrating peace in a moment of solitude, the birth of a child in Bethlehem long ago.
“In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5)
Copyright 2011 by J. Mark Lawson
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