NOTES, 22 DECEMBER 2021
Greetings, blog reader, on Wednesday, December 22, 2021. My best wishes to you as we await the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord.
At this moment in our lives, we are besieged with woes and burdened with fears. There is no need to go through a litany of the troubles of the day. We all know, all too well, what they are. We all wonder anxiously what tomorrow will bring. Will it be even worse that what we have already?
To celebrate light and life in what is now late December has been a natural inclination among human beings from before records began. All prehistoric and early ancient societies worshiped the sun in some way. It was the primary deity. People knew instinctively it was the source of life on earth.
Ra, the sun god, was the greatest of the gods of ancient Egypt. He holds in his right hand the symbol of eternal life.
People in the northern hemisphere could see the sun declining in the sky in autumn. Prehistoric people commonly believed evil forces were trying to devour the sun in order to extinguish life on earth. They could see too, on what is now 21 December, that the sun reached its low point and then began to revive, or rise again, in the sky therefore vanquishing evil. Life defeated death, year after year. This brought hope for a better life.
By the time of the Roman Empire, Eastern Mystery Religions had become popular throughout the western world. The most popular one among the soldiers of the Roman army was the Cult of Mithras which celebrated the birth of its mythical deity on present-day December 25, soon after the new "birth" of the sun. No one knows how December 25 became the Christians' day of birth (the Gospels did not give a date) but late December was the common time for such celebrations of birth in the ancient world.
The winter solstice was yesterday, 21 December, when the sun reached its low point in the sky. Starting today, it will "rise" again. We now know what prehistoric and ancient peoples did not know, that it would rise again naturally. Yet, crowds of people descended on Stonehenge, in England, to celebrate the day, as the builders of that phenomenal homage to the sun did thousands of years ago. I celebrate too, in my own little way.
Dawn at my house this morning, from my back deck. Today is the first full day after the winter solstice. I arose early to begin my own little celebration of new life in my garden.
In just three days we will celebrate another new life, that of our Lord. It will be Christmas Day, 2021. Christians around the world will be comforted by the new life, once again, as they have been for nearly two thousand years. God knows, we need it now.
Churches in every part of the world are dressing up now to celebrate new life. This is a recent Christmas at St. Luke's, of Jacksonville AL (an Upjohn church, 1856).
What would Christmas be without poinsettias? Did you know they are named for Joel Poinsett, the South Carolinian who was minister to Mexico? An avid botanist, he introduced the "Christmas" plant to the U.S. in the 1830's. He died in 1851 and is buried in the Holy Cross church graveyard, Stateburg SC. This gardener hopes someone will go by Poinsett's grave this Christmas and leave a poinsettia.
My point of the day is that whatever is going on in our lives, we should celebrate light and life today. This is the time that was given to us for the living of our lives. It is precious beyond measure. We must not be vanquished by the natural and man-made troubles that beset us, seemingly without end. Troubles come and go, but just as the sun rebounds in the sky, Christmas comes every year bringing with it the joy of a new day and the certainty of God's love for us as it is displayed spectacularly in the wonders of creation all around us. Peace.
