winter solstice

"in the bleak mid-winter," we sing about the birth of Jesus, our living hope, occurring in the middle of the coldest, darkest season we experience. Well, I hope I don't shock you when I say that Jesus wasn't actually born on December 25th. And I hope I don't shock you further by saying that Christmas was originally a pagan holiday to celebrate the winter solstice. These facts don't bother me at all and I hope they won't keep you up at night either. But here's what I've been ruminating over in the two to four minutes of the day when I have spare brain power for ruminating. Winter solstice, symbolically, is the ultimately perfect time to celebrate Jesus' birth, or Christmas--in the northern hemisphere, at least. (Especially since we don't know the exact date that Jesus was actually born anyways.) It can be thought of as the shortest day of the year, or, more optimistically, the day from which each day will become almost imperceptibly warmer and brighter. The day from which the dread of dark and night begin to fall away and lose their power. And that's exactly the moment when Jesus appears in our lives. When things seem darkest and most hopeless, there he appears, often unannounced, to change everything. The day that hope dawns. Ancient cultures have celebrated the solstice for years. It just passed and here in Taiwan people were eating tang yuan (a sweet soup made with glutinous rice balls) and medicinal soups for warmth and health as part of the celebration. In ancient pagan culture the event was associated with the birth or rebirth of the sun god. Who is he, the prince of peace who was born for us, but the appearance of the sun piercing through the darkness? In the Bible, Jesus has been compared figuratively to the sun, which gives life and light to Earth. Ancient cultures also celebrated the theme of reversal, which coincides nicely with Christmas as well. Satan's reign of sin and death are being reversed with this tiny new life which comes down from heaven and is for all mankind. So I'm a day late and dollar short in writing this, as I am with all things in my current stage of life, but I stop for a moment and praise the God who met us and meets us in our moment of profound darkness with an answer that was more than we could have asked for or imagined, and dispels our darkness. Not suddenly, but with almost imperceptible incrementally increasing amounts of light. He is Beautiful. "Oh, come let us adore him, Christ the Lord!"