Meaning of Christmas

What does Christmas mean to you? If you are in the majority of people who celebrate it, common answers are family time, sharing stories, gift-giving, gift-getting, parties, candlelit church service, decorations, music, food, and travel. You may also find yourself reminded (or sometimes admonished) to focus on the “true meaning” of Christmas. To Christians, that means a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ and reflection of what his birth means in our lives.

There are those who reject the hullabaloo. We wish Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings so that Christmas isn’t the only end-of-the-year holiday tradition that is honored. The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah receives the occasional mention in popular media, as do a few others.

Tensions accompany the spectrum of feelings about the holiday season. You’ve probably seen a few of the annual news stories about a municipality somewhere being pressured to remove a Nativity scene, public schools and other institutions dis-allowed Christmas trees or carols, a spike in the suicide rate, or some other less-than-festive story.

This is regrettable, given the opportunity that this time of year represents for us all, regardless of belief or tradition. Here’s some historical context.

Christmas and the other northern hemisphere winter Holidays center on a natural event - the Winter Solstice. This is the exact point at which the axial tilt of our planet’s polar hemisphere is at its farthest point from the sun. In the northern hemisphere, this occurs each year between December 21st and 23rd. The Winter Solstice represents the shortest day and the longest night of the year and its arrival signals the shift from contraction towards daylight expansion.

It isn’t happenstance that the northern cultures of Europe and Western Asia have historically attached significance to this time of year, as the effect is more pronounced the further north you go. This significance took many forms - decorating trees, special meals, singing seasonal songs, and many other traditions and rituals.

Throughout time and place, there has been a connective thread to the celebrations. The restoration of daylight has been seen as symbolizing renewal and rebirth. This theme is reflected in religious and traditional customs.

December 25th was marked as the official Winter Solstice by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. For centuries on that date, Romans celebrated Saturnalia, the renewal of the growing season. The Celtic celebration was simply called Winter Solstice. Saxon Germans called it Modranect or Mother’s Night. Germanic and Egyptian cultures celebrated Yule – the rebirth of the sun. Persians (Iran) have Yalda, the celebration of good or light over evil or darkness (also Sadeh and Chahar Sanbeh Suri, which complete that theme.) Slavic traditions include Koleda, which featured strolling and singing. This is believed to have birthed the tradition of Christmas Carols.

The features of the modern Christmas holiday grew over the centuries. Santa Claus began as a religious figure and grew more secular so as to better propagate the practice of giving presents. This trend was resisted by Puritans, who saw it as a distraction from focus on the Messianic birth. That resistance is all but extinct now.

Decorating trees dates back to at least the 15th century in middle Europe, and possibly well before that time. The sharing of well wishes via Christmas cards is a more modern tradition, but fully established throughout most of the previous century. Traditions and customs incorporate the values and practices of a society, and it is not surprising that in our modern consumer culture, a focus on seasonal purchasing is emphasized.

Some say that Christmas is just another example of the many Winter Solstice holidays, possessing meaning no more special or valuable than any other. Jesus may or may not have been born on December 25th; I don’t believe anybody really knows. In terms of the meaning of Christmas, I don’t think it much matters. Arguments about this or that specific belief can obscure the greater value of any wisdom tradition.

There is no denying the massive scale of the Christmas holiday. Part of the reason for its popularity is that Christmas has always evolved in the ways it is celebrated.  It also indeed echoes the theme of rebirth and renewal. But there is in fact something unique to Christmas. It stands out when compared to all of the other traditions in two important ways.

First, the message and meaning of the Christmas Holiday is unique. There is the overt message; the Christian belief that we are renewed and given new life through the sacrifice of God’s Son. He took on the collective sin of humanity and represents a path to God – all one must do is accept it. That path is considered “new life” and thus is in keeping with the universal seasonal theme.

But there is more. Jesus also taught us the features and characteristics of that new life. Christmas is not just a memorial. It is a renewal of the commitment to live a righteous life. Unlike some of the gifts we struggle to assemble, in the form of the texts of the New Testament it comes with a complete set of instructions of how to actually do it.

Prominent among those instructions is that we should constantly rise above the shackles of fear and show love and compassion towards others. This message is often under-appreciated among the holiday goings on. What’s more, we’re actually conditioned to miss this message. Our myopia comes honestly. We get caught up in stuff. What present to give? What present do we want? (If you want a good laugh go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4a9CKgLprQ and see a glimpse of how we learn to react when the holiday doesn’t quite meet our expectation.)

We get busy. And in that business, we’re task-oriented – heads down, charging forth, checking off items on our shopping and to-do lists. We miss the opportunity to show love and compassion. But those opportunities are constantly around us. We could choose to listen open-minded to a loved one who shares a story that holds no natural interest. We could get around at last to writing that check to the charitable cause to which we’ve been meaning to donate.

I heard about a nice example of this which seems to be popular this year. People are going into stores and anonymously paying off the balance of a layaway for a stranger. How do you suppose the person who goes in to pick up their prized item will feel when they find out? Will they think the world is a bad, uncaring place? Not at that moment, at least.

The other way that Christmas is distinct from other holidays is that it is transcendent. It has become a truly worldwide holiday. Now, some don’t call it Christmas, true. The Chinese in Taiwan chose to honor the signing of their Constitution on December 25th, and it is now celebrated in ways similar to Christmas. It is safe to say that the whole world is touched by this holiday in some way or another. The message and original meaning is carried along with it, to one degree or another.

When I encounter resistance to the message of Christmas, I can’t help but think of a comment on a YouTube video of Carrie Underwood and Vince Gill performing “How Great Thou Art.” Here’s a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLLMzr3PFgk&;feature=related. The comment is now buried under many; a minority of which reflects a similar reaction to an epic performance of an incredibly beautiful song.

It was a dismissal of the Bible as “the ramblings of a group of desert nomads.” If the commentator is right, and his point is in fact true, isn’t it amazing to see how far and wide these ramblings have spread? When compared to any other written work of men, nothing comes even close to The Bible in terms of numbers of copies, translations, versions, how many times read, or any other objective measure you’d care to apply. I’ve seen estimates that place the number of copies approaching 8 billion. Not bad for a collection of ramblings.

The gap between the propagation of the Bible and any other published work in history is stunning. The impact of Christmas is emblematic of its achievement. Set aside the question of veracity for a moment. I think it is safe to say that this is not just another set of beliefs, on equal ground with any other belief system. There is nothing of the kind throughout the history of mankind.

While I’m not arguing that sheer numbers of believers constitute proof of an idea, I don’t think it’s a big stretch to believe that there is something more than chance at work in the message and meaning of Christmas. The meaning of Christmas should not be discounted. Living our lives with the habit of renewing our faith, embracing love and light, and setting each year off with a positive framework is good for anyone, at any time, in any place.

Merry Christmas to you and yours  - may you find renewal this year in your life and your endeavors.

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Used with permission from Tom Dardick of Dardick Inter-personal Communications, LLC.

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