What a wonderful month December is! The whole month is a celebration. It seems as if all neighborhoods suddenly convert to Las Vegas for the entire month. There are bright lights, fanciful decorations, twinkling, glittering displays, bunches of parties, feasts, the fun of surprises, keeping secrets until Christmas day, cookies, nuts, chocolates, mistletoe kisses, letting others know that you love them and are thinking of them. And to top it off, it’s all done to celebrate the birth of the Christ child, the most blessed event in our human history. We look forward to Christmas every time of year. Our children get wild eyed and exuberant. What fun it is to tell them stories of elves in a toy shop at the north pole, reindeer that fly, Rudolph’s red nose, and a fat man in a red suit who comes down chimneys carrying bags of toys. How could anything be better than Christmas?
We agree with all that. We love Christmas and don’t want it to go away. We go to the Christmas eve services and are touched when the lights are out, the candles all lit, and we are all singing “Silent Night”. It is mystical. We love seeing families and neighbors come together. We love the pageantry, the colors, the melodies, the heartfelt carols, the message of peace on earth. We pray fervently for peace on earth.
Reluctantly, we also have to see Christmas for what it is. It is a plagiarism filled with myths. This winter celebration began multiple centuries before it became known as Christmas. The winter solstice, the day which had the longest night and the shortest day, was celebrated as a new beginning, a new start on another year, full of promise. Sometimes it got to be pretty wild. That part hasn’t changed. The Christian church simply adopted this pre-existing pagan festival, set a date for it, and claimed it as its own. Plagiarism at its best. Of course they had to glorify it a bit to serve their own purposes. Enter the myths. Jesus was not born in Bethlehem. There was no recorded census or tax required by the king at that time in history. If there had been a census, it would have been conducted for the population where it existed. No one would be so stupid as to require everyone to travel to the place of their birth for a census. That would create mass confusion. Mama was not a virgin. There was no new star in the sky hanging directly over that stable. There were no wise men who suddenly dropped everything they were doing and traveled long distances to see a peasant baby born in a puny barn. There were no shepherds watching their flocks who suddenly abandoned their livelihood to see a poor carpenter’s offspring. Jesus was not suddenly learned, teaching the priests in the temple. He was itinerate and illiterate. He did not perform miracles that defied the laws of physics. He did not die and then come back to life. He was not divine, the only son of God. He was not the Christ. But, by golly, all those fabrications worked really well. Now we have this day of the year which is more celebrated and more commercial than any other, named for someone who was not what he is said to be.
We can hear the answer now: “Hallelujah! Who cares what you think as long as Christmas does what it was created to do; foster peace and love among humans, and reverence for our moral leader?” We have to wonder if Christmas really does that, or does the opposite. The death rate among the elderly is the highest at Christmas time. The suicide rate is higher than at any other time. It is a celebration of only one religion, as opposed to all other religions in the world. We wonder why there is such great self-indulgence at Christmas time. Why do we not stress giving some of our wealth to combat AIDS and Tuberculosis in Africa? If we are really interested in world peace, why don’t we give some of our presents to those we don’t know, who are really in need, rather than giving everything to ourselves? Does it have anything to do with the fact that we are convinced this is the only one true religion, which worships the only true savior, and disregards the beliefs of all others? Does it have anything to do with the belief that all these myths are facts, rather than fabrications? Probably it does. Probably we should concentrate less on our wants and more on the needs of all others in this world.
The God of Chance has decreed that we should have celebrations and rejoice in them. Life is not worth much if it is all drudgery. The God of Chance has also decreed that we look at the world realistically and not selfishly – if we do not become ecumenical, the God of Chance will punish us severely.
“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“The winter solstice (Dec.22 to 26) has been celebrated for thousands of years. Solstice comes from ancient words, sol, the name of a sun god, and stice, meaning still, or the day the sun stands still, the shortest day of the year…An equinox-equi, meaning equal, and nox, meaning night, or equal nights-occurs midway between the winter and summer solstice, when days and nights are equal in length…The Emporer Aurelian…established dec. 25 as the official solstice.”
-William Edelen
“Orthodox Christianity is close to death’s door. The churches are addressing themselves in a dead language to situations and issues that no longer exist. The patterns of truth are different. The questions have new terms. Nothing could be more tragic than to find ourselves hugging our own false Christian ideals, blind and hostile to the living revelations of God’s mystery in our time. The Christianity that is interested only in its institution and ecclesiastical niceties is worse than vanity. It is incestuous.”
– Samuel Miller